The First Person Ever to Die for Science
The tragic story of Giordano Bruno, the first martyr of Science.
There have been a great many thinkers in the past whose ideas challenged power structures of the time which led them to a less than desirable fate. Perhaps the most famous among these poor souls is the great Galileo, who was placed under house arrest by the Roman Inquisition, where he remained till his death in 1642.
A lesser-known personality, though one whose ideas were even grander than those of Galileo’s, was given a far more brutal punishment. Only thirty-three years before Galileo’s sentence, Giordano Bruno was found guilty of heresy and burned alive at the stake. His ideas laid the foundations for cosmology as well as his untimely demise.
A Scholar’s Life
Bruno was born in 1548, likely in January or February. His father, Giovanni Bruno, was a soldier, which meant that his childhood was not spent in wealth and luxury. He was born in Nola, a city near Naples in Italy. As a child, he was already a recluse. With his nose buried in books, his studious nature was apparent to all those that knew him.
Consequently, he was sent to be educated in Naples when he was fourteen. Naples was one of the largest and most populated cities in the world at that time, and…
