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http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924100581911
GIORDANO BRUNO
BY THE SAME AUTHOR HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS IN THE MIDDLE AGES. By J.
C. L. SiSMONDi.
mented and Author, by
Demy
8vo,
Translated, supple-
Memoir of the William Boulting.
edited, with a
Dr.
buckram,
5j. net.
—
GIORDANO BRUNO HIS LIFE, THOUGHT,
AND
MARTYRDOM BY
WILLIAM BOULTING AUTHOR OF 'TASSO AND HIS TIMES" "^NEAS SYLVIUS," ETC.
" To love Truth for Truth's sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues." Locke.
London
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER &
CO. Ltd.
CARTER LANE,
BROADWAY HOUSE. 68-74 New York E. P. BUTTON & :
1
:
!
.
CO.
E.C.
PREFACE The
life
of
Bruno has been written
once, and he has had
many
in English
more than
excellent commentators.
No
one can now write about him without availing himself very largely of the solid and scholarly
work done by Tocco,
rentino, Berti, Brunnhofer, Mclntyre and others. for the facts,
Fio-
The apology
appearance of the present work must be that some
unrecorded
in
England, have come to light of late
years, and also that a few usual, almost unavoidable in-
accuracies require correction.
Moreover,
I
have
tried to
follow the development of Bruno's thoughts in the order in
which he declared them ; and, on one or two points, myself compelled to
differ
I
find
from the conclusions of this or
the other commentator.
Most of Bruno's works have been published of
Wagner, Lagarde, and
Gfrorer, well edited for their day.
Different libraries contain different editions, to it
be found in them.
in the editions
Even the
British
when any
are
Museum, although
possesses a fine collection of rare, original impressions,
does not contain Edition,
all
the volumes of the
complete State
and lacks that one which contains the works which
were discovered
in
manuscript.
To
give the paging of
any
particular edition might therefore prove less convenient than
the plan
I
have adopted of giving those indications
for re-
ference which are supplied by the subdivisions of the works
themselves, except in the case of the published manuscripts.
GIORDANO BRUNO
VI
Those who wish so and
to verify a reference will
may discover
thereby readily do
that reading the context
unprofitable task.
I
works from which
I
have given minuter
is
not a wholly
detail as to other
have drawn or which throw
light
on
the subject-matter.
W.
B.
CONTENTS PAGE
Preface Birth and Parentage Boyhood Monastic Life at Naples Discipline of Books
II.
:
(i)
(ii)
Classics,
&c
Neo-Platonists
(iii)
Raymond
(iv)
Cusanus
(v)
....
26 28
Copernicus and Later Thinkers
Wanderings Through Geneva "V. At Geneva, Lyons and Toulouse Italy
VI. First Stay in Paris
The Early Works
:
....
(i) (ii) (iii)
(iv)
(v) (vi) (vii)
in
41 54
66
The Shadows of Ideas The Incantation of Circe (iii) The Lullian Architecture (iv) The Chandler VIII. At Oxford IX. In London X. Impressions of Elizabeth's England
Works Printed
to 34
(i)
XI.
31
.
Naples
:
(ii)
"
17
22
Lully
IV.
VII.
I
n
.
III.
'
V
—
I.
.
72
.
73
74 81
89 100
London:
The Thirty Seals and Seal of Seals The Ash Wednesday Supper On Cause, Principle, and The One
"5
The Infinite Universe and its Worlds The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast The Cabala and Ass of Cyllene The Transports of Intrepid Souls
136
.
117 126
148 167 172
vm
GIORDANO BRUNO
CHAP.
XII. In Paris Again. XIII.
At Wittenberg.
THERE XIV. At Prague
Some New Works Works Printed or Written
and
Helmstedt.
Works
1588-90
XV. At Frankfurt and Zurich XVI. The Great Latin Poem and Last (i)
(ii) (iii)
(iv) (v)-
(vi)
The Threefold The Unit
On On
A
Least
Immensity Images, Signs, and Ideas
Philosophical Lexicon
The
Fastenings of Kind
.
.
XVII. At Venice and Padua
....
The Trial XIX. Bruno and the
XVIII.
Inquisitors.
The Republic
and the Pope XX. The Roman Prison. Index
Final Scenes 309
GIORDANO BRUNO CHAPTER BIRTH AND PARENTAGE
I
— BOYHOOD
A
TRAVELLER, curious to try the local line which runs eastward from Naples, after journeying a few meandering miles through a generous and beautiful country-side, will find his train halting at the little city of Nola.
descend, he would not
picturesque or architecturally memorable. vestiges of the remote past
a restoration.
is
On
Should he
come across anything
;
even the mediaeval cathedral
an eminence, a ruined
dominates Campagna Felice inhabitants call their plain
— " the
;
strikingly
There are few
happy
fortress
—as
fields "
still
the
and, as of old time, the vine-
yards are lavish in the production of " mangiaguerra," a thick black wine.
and plain
soft;
to
The sky
is
very lucid; the air sweet
may range over the rich and varied Monte Somma (which hides Vesuvius) and to the eye
other guardian
hills.
Outside the walls of Nola there stood in the mid i6th century. Cicala, a hamlet of "four or five houses, none
of them too imposing
;
" ^
and here,
in
1
548,^ there
was
born to a soldier in the service of the Spanish masters of Naples, one Gioan Bruno and his wife, a *
Brano,
'
Berti,
Doc. vij.
—
de France,
G
man
child.
The
Spaccio delta bestia trionfante, Dial. I. iij. da Nola, sua vita e sua dottrina, 1889, App., Auvray, L ; Mem. d. I. Soc. d. Phisioire de Paris et de Pile
D t.
;
;
G. B.
xxvij,p. 288 sgq., sub 7th December.
A
GIORDANO BRUNO
2
was destined
infant
science
become a precursor of modern
to
and philosophy,
cast a search-light into dark
to
places and bring forth hidden things
wander, an excommunicated and
many
lands, impelled, heedless of
;
was
it
his fate to
through
fugitive priest, self,
by a
partly
restless
nature but chiefly because of a certain missionary zeal for truth
and desire
from the fetters
to set the intellect free
of authority; he
was
to
endure strange vicissitudes in
penury, years of solitary suffering at the hands of the Inquisition because
he claimed "philosophic freedom in
thought and speech," and,
dungeons " a flame
finally, to
to the flames."
pass from
He was
cruel
its
born
in the
very year which saw an outbreak at Naples against a contemplated introduction of the Spanish Inquisition.
Bruno tells us that his mother's name was She was of a family called Savolini or Saulini.
Fraulissa.^
Probably
was right in connecting her singular baptismal name with German mercenaries, whose Italian wives may very well have been so called and certainly some of the multitude of mercenary troops drawn from beyond the Fiorentino
*
;
Alps had settled
in the
status of the Bruni and
neighbourhood.*
many
As
to the social
similar problems,
been conjectured and no certainty achieved.
It
much has
would seem
probable that the family was very far from being wealthy, but had some claim to gentility.*
The Bruni may have
been a branch of the noble family of that name at Asti. '
Beirti,
D
;
loc. cit.
F Dialoghi Morali di G. B. Giom. Napol., N.S. \%Z%,fasc. 19, /. 44. Great circumspection is required in regard to In consulting the Registers, Fiorentino somehow conthis paper. ^
Fiorentino,
;
trived to confound the year 1545 with the year 1563 It should be read side by side with the monograph Bruno e Nola by Signor !
V. Spampanato, Castrovillari, 1899. ' See the reference to II danese, etc. in Bruno's Spaccio, Dial. /., iij.
/.
Bruni Oratio
Valedictoria.
;
BIRTH AND PARENTAGE
The father
as
it
child was named him
—BOYHOOD
christened Fehpe (Philip).
3
Perhaps his
after the heir to the throne of Charles V,
would become a
loyal soldier to do.
We
how
shall see
he came by the name of Giordano.
Gioan Bruno would seem to have been a caustic critic of life for his son tells us that when, after supper, a friend declared that he had never before felt so happy, Gioan ;
retorted
:
" that
frivolous."
is
because you have never before been so
Probably Gioan was a
1
man
of parts
;
for
it is
accepted by most of the best authorities that he counted Tansillo, the Neapolitan poet, courtier
and
among
cavalier,
Tansillo, although not born at Nola,
his friends.^
came of Nolan stock he never stayed long at Nola, but made a few hurried visits thither.* Felipe may have seen more of him, later on, at Naples. Anyhow, many works show how deeply Tansillo impressed his mind during the plastic years ;
he introduces the poet into his dialogues sillo's style in
his
own poems, and he often
he adopts Tan-
;
equals his master,
falls short of him in grace, smoothness and elegance; he even incorporates a little of Tansillo's
though, usually, he
work with
his
own.
Any
passing visit paid by Tansillo to
Nola would produce a strong impression on the for the
good
folk
around were of a
In the cottages hard by dwelt certain
mother's family.*
He
tells
little
lad;
different order.
members of
his
us of a certain Scipione Saulino
Bruno, G ; Eroici Furori, P.I., Dial. II. Mclntyre, for example, accepts it. Cpr. Mclntyre, London, 1903,/. 5. ^
^
J.
L
;
G. B.,
' Fiorentino ; loc. at. Luigi Tansillo, 1510-1568^ was a favourite of Pedro de Toledo, Viceroy of Spain, and of his son, and was their companion on land and sea. At first he wrote with unbridled licence, whereby he incurred the displeasure of the Church but he made his ;
peace with the authorities and produced some excellent poetry, which was disfigured, however, by many faults of the style then in fashion. Before the Viceroy's death he was given a post in the Neapolitan Custom-House. Cfr. Rosalba, G Studi di lett., Nap. 1903, pp. ;
166 sqq.
'
Fiorentino
;
loc. cit.
GIORDANO BRUNO
4
who went once a the year
on Good Friday,
year,
reply,
"And
The
rustics of
the
whereupon the good
;
so does
to-day's
life
in
neighbourhood were a home-spun
rough and ready of tongue and of caustic
took the facts of
priest
Go
absolution.
^
peace and sin no more."
people,
when
again, " Father," he would say, " to-
came round
day's sins finish up the year "
would
to his crony, the
Absolution was freely given, and,
curate, to confess.
They
wit.
with unsophisticated directness and
retained very ancient usages, celebrating the vintage with
and shocking the Viceroy thereby.^
classic obscenity
Al-
though degraded by centuries of misgovernment and oppres-
had not
sion, the southern Italian
lost his intellectual vigour
or his readiness to abandon himself to the enjoyment of
simple pleasures, as
creatures were dwelling in the
if all
The Nolans were markedly superstia credulous age. They beheld spirits in
sunrise of eternity.
even for
tious,
deserted places
—by an ancient temple and where the bodies
of the plague-stricken had been buried tricks
;
poltergeists played
on them, and Bruno records how, when a
self beheld spirits
The quick eye
on
hills
where beeches and
he him-
of the child noted the peculiarities of his
neighbours and the small events of his
Years afterwards, when
forgot them.
child,
laurels grew.^
life
;
in exile,
and he never he introduces
the honest, kindly folk of Nola, not without irony, as inter-
locutors in his dialogues details
*
;
he delights
—the
which he had observed
in recalling
many
produce of his father's
garden, the melon-plot of Franzino, the smell of burnt hair
when Vesta, the wife of Albentio, used curling-tongs, and how she would shake her head he remembers hearing the ;
' " '
*
Bruno,
G
;
// Candelajo,
Alio
V, sc. xix.
S Vita di Don P. di Toledo, Archiv. De Magia, Op. Lat. Ill, pp. 430, 431. Miccio,
;
Spaccio; II caballo.
Star,
it,
ix,p. 23.
BIRTH AND PARENTAGE
—BOYHOOD
5
cuckoo when at Antonio Saulino's, the pupping of
gown by Messer Danese,
the spoiling of a
his bitch,
the tailor, and
how he saw
Paulino,, given to blasphemy, stoop to heave up a great shovelful of earth and break the red string which
held his breeches up.
crowd
after incident,
Character after character, incident
in
on his memory
he
:
may have had
personal experience of the bugs which infested the wooden
The
bedstead of Costatino.^ too
;
lad's
eye was alive to beauty
pure sky, tremulous with excess of
to the
mystery of the shadowy
hills,
and glamour of the
In exile he recalls the glory
plain.
light, the
the bounty of the corn-laden
world which were given to his childhood, and is never weary of thinking of " the golden fields of Nola " ; ^ his birthplace ever remained for him a place " blessed of heaven " ' he ;
ranks the rich Campagna with Araby and the garden of Hesperides,* speaks of himself and was known as " the Nolan," and calls his philosophy the Nolanese.^ Other the
Nolans
felt like
returning
home
himself on his
Ambrogio Leone tells of one who, two or three days' absence, cast native soil and kissed it with unspeakable Bruno.
after only
rapture.
The observant from
forbidding thither,
trees
child
vine-bearing it
had often gazed across
Cicala
looked.
and he found
and
But one day its
first time,
was sown certitude ? '
*
he would soon ask
and
took him
I
"
its
became aware,
The seed
*
What
turn,
" Astonished at for the
of doubt
are the grounds of
"
Spaccio; Dial. Ill, Causa, Dial. I.
Cena
:
father
Cicala, in
distant.
that sight could deceive." ;
Vesuvius
bare
covered with luxuriant
slopes
the strange change," he writes, "
'
his
and bountiful vegetation, while
had become dark and dim and
at
how
noticed
delle Ceneri.
iij.
^ * °
Eroici Furori, P.I., Dial. II. Orat. Valedict.
Bruno,
G
;
De Immenso,
IV,
iij.
GIORDANO BRUNO
6
Influences of the genius loci could not
the past calls with living voice
times
lulls to sleep,
it
;
sometimes
antiquity is
an
to affect
fail
To every
impressionable, imaginative child.
Italian child
real
is
some-
;
a rousing force
;
it
is
dream concerning men who were never really alive, whose voices come as the hollow croakings of Shades. Now, Nola was a poor little never, as with the Northern child, a dull
place but
had been a great and noble
it
the most ancient in Italy
The
;
it
was
city;
from a Calchi-
Thrice had Hannibal been repulsed from the
dian Colony.
Nola had been the chosen home of
and fashion
was one of
the Uria of the Etruscans.
citizens boasted loudly of their descent
gates.
it
the great
;
massive walls,
twelve gates and
its
nothing remained
Augustus died
;
Roman
there.
its
wealth
True, of
its
two amphitheatres
ancient marbles were built into cottage
and pigstye and vineyard-wall
;
but the labourer's spade
up some sepulchre crowded with the famous
often opened
funeral urns of Nola, and his plough would reveal the long
buried treasures of ancient coin and medallion.
Bruno saw many a feast
and popular
classic
festival
would hear of famous proud, such as
da Nola, the people
who
more
ancient
and even
citizens, of
The at
in religious rite.
whom
little
wedding
He
Nolans were very
Ambrogio Leone, the scholar, and Giovanni sculptor.'^ Felipe Bruno moved among a
derived their life-blood from Etruscan and yet sources,
Moors and Spaniards tile,
custom observed
;
from Greeks, Romans, Teutons, they were quick, astute and versa-
very human, as volcanic as their
soil,
so degenerate as they became after three
debased, but not
more centuries of
misrule.
Such were the influences we know of which moulded little Felipe in his earliest and most formative
the mind of years.
'
Berti,
D
;
Vita di G. B., 1889, cap.
I.
BIRTH AND PARENTAGE
We
do not know
in
—BOYHOOD
7
what manner he was educated
Nola, but he must have been a promising pupil,
for,
at at
about the age of eleven, he was sent to Naples " to study
humane
letters, logic
language and
literature,
and the modes of
may have
and
dialectic " ^
:
probably some Greek, philosophy,
effective
One Agostino Bruno
He attended
of velvet in Naples at the time.
the public lectures of Colle of Sarno,
who
II
He
reasoning and expression.^
lodged at an uncle's house.
was a weaver
in other words, Latin
Sarnese, probably one Vicenzo
published, later on, a
work
called "
The
destruction of the destructions of Baldwin, which, moreover,
the destroyer has
fulfilled " *
was customary,
—an
extraordinary
title,
de-
eye of the reading Besides these public lectures, " I received," he
signed, as public.
to hit the
says, " private lessons in logic from Fra Teofilo da Var-
ano, an Augustinian monk,
Metaphysic
in
in 1585, that
Rome."*
who
Bruno
afterwards lectured on
also told
did not catch or did not remember,
teacher in philosophy.^
works
he
®
an acquaintance,
an Augustinian monk, whose name the hearer
calls
opinions, Teofilo.
It is
had been
noteworthy that
the interlocutor
Bruno claimed
who to
in
main
his
two of
his
own God "
expresses his
be a " lover of
' but it would be quite in his manner to discharge same time some sense of obligation to Teofilo da Varano and Bruno was not one to be unmindful of the few
himself
;
at the
;
*
" '
Cfr. Bertij op. cit. Doc. vij. Cfr. Mclntyre ; op. cit.,p. I2i, note
i.
Destructio destructionum Baldovini, quas quidem destructor adim-
Matth. Cancer, 1554. Doc. vij. ' Auvray, L ; Mdm. d. I. SocUti d. Vhist. d. Paris et d. File de France, t. xxiv,pp. 288-299, sub Dec. 7. ° Cena; Causa. ' Triginta Sigillorum explicatio ; Ad excell. Oxon. Acad. Pro-
plevit. Neap., •
cancellarium.
GIORDANO BRUNO
8 benefits he received.
It is
clear that the very
young scholar
received an impetus towards speculative thinking from Fra Teofilo.
But independent thinking had well nigh ceased
learning also.
most of the Protestant centres of
and
in
The
contests between the Papacy and the
be in Italy;
to
Reformers had led to the vigorous enforcement of opposed dogmas throughout Europe, and throughout Italy the edicts of Trent ran under the protecting shadow of the neighbouring Vatican.
us that, when a boy, he studied the works Ravenna on memory.* The scholars of the Renaissance had discovered how much the ancient orators
Bruno
tells
of Peter of
employed dodges
remembering, and they studied the
for
Cornificius, which they and Bruno They directed their attention to the for a good memory was a precious possession even art of printing by type was discovered, since books
mnemonics of Quintus attributed to Cicero.*
subject
;
after the
were very dear and, owing zation in
had
to
want of developed organithe book-trade, were hard to come at and often
be fetched from
afar.
went through several older
fill
Peter of Ravenna's " Phoenix "
editions.
Cornificius
and
all
^
the
made use of visual memory, since that is than auditory memory in most people, and taught
writers
stronger
how
to a
to
it
imagine some vacant space, such as a temple, and
with suggestive images, thus using the principle of
the association of ideas,* which Aristotle had written Later,
of.^
Bruno interwove the mnemonics of Peter Ravenna
Triginta sig. explic, sub Tabula. Cantus Circaus. But P. Manutius, who published the Rhetoricunt ad C. Herennium lib. iv. at Venice in 1564, declared the authorship to be uncertain. " Foenix Dom. P. Ravennatis tnemoriae magistri Ven. 1491. ' Cfr. Middleton, A. E Metnory systems, old and new. N, V. '
"
;
1888. "
Aristotle,
De mem
etremin.,
c.
2,
451^, i8
;
452a, 14.
;
BIRTH AND PARENTAGE
—BOYHOOD
and other authors, who followed Cornificius
own
his
closely, with
psychological and metaphysical conclusions, and
knowledge of the subject proved
his
9
to
be useful as an
introduction
city,
especially
and means of livelihood in city after in France and Germany, where much
attention
was given
to the subject
were produced 16th
for
and
and where fresh books on memory
each generation, at
during the
least,
century.-*-
What
career should he follow ?
and very expensive.
to obtain
Education was
The
difficult
times were troubled.
Neapolitans were beggared by the heavy taxes imposed to
down
put
Countries police
Low
the Protestant revolt against Philip in the ;
the
administration
civil
was abominable
and even the judges were corrupt
;
;
the
brigands infested
the country-side and increased the desolation which earth-
quake, famine and pest had brought about.
now witnessed
" If [Hydra] long for carrion," said he,
"
let
him go stay
Rome and
What Bruno
or heard of branded itself in his memory.
in the
when
in
England,
Campagna or the highway between many robbers are quartered
Naples, where so
for there at every step
he
will
have more sumptuous ban-
quets of fresh flesh than in any other part of the world." ^
Even high
society
was
infested
by cheats and thieves
kingdom was riddled with heresy, and
;
the
heretics
were pur-
sued and exterminated with barbarous cruelty.
Turkish
buccaneers capturing
The
raided
the coast,
women and was
burning and
slaying and
children for the slave-market.^
thought he had caught a glimpse of the " high white star of Truth " there lad
in
love with learning
;
;
1
Vide Allgemeine Encyclopddie d. Wissenschaften u. Kiinste. Hrsq. Ersch u. J. B. Gruber etc. sub Geddchtniss.
V. J. S. "
Spaccio, III,
ij.
Giannone, Pietro ; 1st. Civile del regno diNapoli, 1723. Giannone only just mentions Bruno as " a visionary." '
lO
GIORDANO BRUNO
was but one refuge
for a
cloister,
with
youth with no great means
opportunities and
all its
Church was very wealthy
:
landed property in Naples.
it
— the The
lettered ease.
possessed two-thirds of the
And
the order of Dominic the
Spaniard was the most powerful and rich of the monastic bodies and enjoyed the full support of Philip and his counsellors.
In his fifteenth year, a time of
life
when
it
impossible for Felipe to comprehend anything like the
nature and implication of monastic
vows and
was full
obligations
or the real spirit of the cloister, he entered that Dominican
Order of which the mission.
He
first
requirement was intellectual sub-
would be trained by men who were called
" hounds of the Lord " and
whose
special function
was
to
uphold doctrine and to scent out heresy as dogs are employed to scent out truffles.^
This was the
of sardonic ironies which
first
of the long series
Fate had provided for Felipe
Bruno. Dominicans, so called from their founder, S. Domingo, on account punned on in the famous line " Domini canes Evangelium latrantes per totum orbem." Inquisitorial functions were attached to this order of " Preaching Friars" rather more than ten years after S. Domingo's death, which took place A.D. 1234. "
of their special work, were
CHAPTER
II
MONASTIC LIFE AT NAPLES
Bruno was
admitted, as a probationer, to the monastery
of St. Domenico by the Prior, Ambrogio vast building cloisters
and pleasant courts seem
quiet study
and
Pasqua.^
perched on an eminence, and
is
reflection.
there.
The silent
to invite to a life of
It is full
of memories of the
great Dominican, Aquinas, the " Angelic Doctor,"
and taught
its
who dwelt
According to monastic usage, Felipe
was re-named Giordano. Possibly this name was given to him because of the promise he displayed; for it had been borne by the second general of the order. Hardly any one
was
called after the baptismal river in the sixteenth cen-
tury;
though
in the sixth,
river-god in more than one
when the Jordan figured as a new baptistery,^ it was used in
christening as a very appropriate appellation.*
After a year's discipline in religious exercises, Giordano
proved sufficiently docile to be allowed to make his vows in company with a " convert." He passed from the society of probationers to
that of the
professed
;
but remained
under the same superior and was called a novice
became a
priest.*
those years
He
when he
barring worthier
would seem
writes
and
:
"
The
until
he
to reveal the secret of
authority of directors,
higher matters, whereto
he was
'
Doc.
'
'
E.g. S. Maria in Cosmedin and S. Giovanni in Fonte at Ravenna. Hodgkin, T; Italy and her Invaders, 1892, v. I, pp. 24, 25.
•
Berti,
vij.
D
;
op. cit.,p. 39, n. 3.
GIORDANO BRUNO
12
naturally impelled, putteth his
mind
into fetters, so
that,
from being free in manhood, he becometh a slave under a
most
and subtle hypocrisy."
vile
independent thought
The
^
reverberations of
lingered in Southern Italy; nor,
still
perhaps, did convent-walls
wholly [shut them out.
He
frankly told his judges at Venice that he " began to doubt the doctrine of Three distinct Persons in the Trinity from the age of eighteen
and, indeed, Augustine declared the
;
term Person to be new in his time
—
but
;
have never
I
His acute and vigorous
dogma only doubted." was already at work, framing a philosophy, translating the Son as Intellect and the Holy Spirit as Love.' He was naturally of frank character, and his incautious denied the
*
intellect
honesty soon landed him in
difficulties.
told the Inquisitors, "
I
away
possibly, St. it
for
to
me
that
I
master," he
order to
having
for
'
crucifix only
;
whereby
despised the images of saints
account, of the 'Seven Joys of the
tore this
My
;
who was reading the Madonna' in verse, that
having told a novice,
he should cast such as the
"
novice, in
the images of St. Catherine of Sienna and,
Anthony, and retained a
was imputed
and also
was a
drew up a process against me,
frighten me,
given
when
it
aside and read
some other book
Lives of the Holy Fathers
document up the same day,"
by
*
'
;
but
The
instead,
my
master
stricter dis-
had not yet taken and so little cause of offence did the fathers find in Bruno (who was a close student, and whose converse was probably chiefly with books) that he became subdeacon and deacon in due course and was cipline ordered effect in the
the Council of Trent
monastery
;
admitted to the priesthood in 1572, he being then 24 years of age.^ Before he became a priest he had the confidence and ^ '^
"
Eroici Furori, P.I, Dial. Doc. xi. Berti,
D
;
I., "
after 1st poem.
Ibid.
Vita di G. B., ed. o/i868,p. 72, n.
•
1.
Doc.
xiii.
3;
;
MONASTIC LIFE AT NAPLES
1
boldness, not merely to write a satiric allegory, for which
he chose the
of " Noah's
title
the
same name),^ but
then wore the tiara
;
fail
to talk
to dedicate
Bruno had devoted some
Pope Pius
V
to him,^ probably
For, the
monks could
they had secured
attention to mnemonics,
diary
" Jordanus told
:
and
his
Later, an acquaintance
me
that
and Cardinal Rebiba summoned him from
was brought to Rome in a coach to Memory. He recited the Psalm Hebrew, and taught something of this
Naples, and he set
it
man
brilliant
reputation reached the Papal Court. his
work of
Pope Pius V, who
to
it
Rome.
to
about the
in Paris entered in
(there being a
de Sancte Victore bearing
and he presented
when he was summoned not
Ark "
by Hugo
devotional mysticism
forth his Artificial
Fundamental
in
to Rebiba."*
"Noah's Ark," the appeared.
We
manner of
creatures,
human
each
—the
of Reason
;
poop
the
probably
The animals
—a
The
it,
because his was a case
;
*
audacities of one of
to the severe scrutiny of Michele Ghislieri.^
and others think that Bruno's comedy " '
work may be
but not even the temerity
Bruno could have submitted the
these
struggled for the seat
gist of this early
preserved in two later books
'
Mclntyre; op.cif.,p.
ii.
* 5
Cena, Dial.
°
Cantus Circeeus; Cabala del Cavallo Pegaseo. Cabala con raggiunta de Pasino cillenico. Pius V died 1572, the year in which Bruno became a
'
'
'
Berti
The Chandler " was
Cena, Dial. II; Cabala, Epist. Dedic. Psalm Ixxxvj. Auvray, L ; Opus cit., sub Dec. 21.
'
all
some
the distinction to the ass
but he ran some danger of losing
of
symbolizing
current metaphor for the faculty
Gods granted
of hoofs, not horns.^
of his genius, has dis-
crowded the ark with
that he
virtue or folly.
of honour
fruit
first
know
ij.
priest.
GIORDANO BRUNO
14 although
written,
not
and
revised
finished, during this
monastic period.
Bruno says
:
"
Being at the time at a monastery of
my
Campagna, distance from Naples, but in the Kingdom, I chanted some my first mass there and I continued to wear the Dominican habit, celebrating mass and the divine offices under obedience to my superiors and the Priors of monasteries, wherever I Bartholomew,
order, called St.
in
the city of
;
was, up to the year
1
576."
Doubtless he diligently searched
through the library of every religious house of which he
was a temporary inmate. in
common
with his
He
could have found but
little
monkish associates, except that some
of them would possess a tincture of that learning on which the "Angelic Doctor,"
had
who
cast distinction on their order,
set his seal.
Even candid, courageous Sarpi penetrable disguise.
The
us that he found
tells
himself compelled to wear a mask.-'
Bruno's was a very
habit concealed a fierce intel-
it had burst forth once it could not but show itself again; "the cowl does not make the monk." Here was a man of vast spiritual energy, of singularly
lectual flame
;
:
open character, one not to be scared by legend or suppressed by authority, resolute to know at first hand, strong-headed if
not headstrong, and brave to rashness.
Soon the monks had a taste of the " essence " of their young that he was in full orders, and therefore less
of St. Dominic priest.
Now
under direction, he indulged speedily
in a frankness of speech which brought him into serious peril. At this time
Arianism had found foothold in the South, and many had departed from "the fixed highway to the Infinite and Eternal."
Bruno
told the Inquisitors
:
"
One
day, during a
discussion with Montalcino, one of our order, in the company of other fathers, he said that heretics were ignorant '
Sarpi,
Fra Paolo
;
Lett. /, p. 237.
5;
MONASTIC LTFE AT NAPLES and used no scholastic terms
folk
;
whereto
1
I
replied that
they did not set forth their conclusions in the
indeed
manner but they came to the point, as did the Church " and then Bruno proceeded to example, that Arius was not without some show, as an
scholastic
;
fathers of the
;
"
kind of support from St. Augustine.^ of Arius to be less dangerous than to be
;
it
shewed the view
I
was commonly taken
was generally understood that Arius meant Word was the first creation of the Father explained that Arius said the Word was neither for
it
to teach that the
and
I
Creator nor Created, but intermediary between the Creator
and the creature, just as the spoken word
is
an intermediary
between the speaker and the meaning he that, for this reason,
creatures
are
;
;
that the
sets forth
through which, and not out of which
which
is
;
and
called the First-born before all
not to which, but through which
their final end,
silent
is
it
all
things
things return to
all
the Father."^
is
It
unfortunate
Founder of Christianity and His Apostles were as
about such high matters as
if
they had been agnostics,
while the Fathers gave vague and contradictory answers to those important questions which the
by
theologic scheme, the Eastern
disturbers
unsuccessful
heretics, with more,
ones.
Roman Church had
time definitely and precisely answered with one
this
Bruno,
Schoolmen
Church with another, those
Christian
of
peace,
the
earlier
and the Protestants with several new
who had read
carefully,
was
the Christian fathers
in
and the
and Montalcino
the right;
appears to have reported the conversation at head-quarters. "
This was not the sole count against Bruno. vincial
drew up a process against me on
of which
I
remain wholly ignorant ; but
was proceeding against me reviving the aifair of '
Doc.
xiij.
my
for
fresh
novitiate;
"
told that
heresy,
and
Pro-
certain charges
was
I
The
I
Doc.
misdoubted xi.
he
and was I
6
GIORDANO BRUNO
1
should find myself in prison."
'^
Bruno was no longer
the hands of the Director of Novitiates, but, as
answerable to the Provincial Father. therefore,
A
in
priest,
charge of heresy,
might be fraught with very serious consequences.
The Papal
which adjoined the Kingdom, were the only possible refuge. " So," he continues, " I left Naples
and went
States,
to
Rome "
;
thus commencing a
life
of turmoil
and ceaseless wandering through Europe, which was endure
for sixteen years, to
years of imprisonment, and to end at the stake. *
Doc.
to
be followed by nearly eight
xiij.
;
CHAPTER
III
DISCIPLINE OF BOOKS Classics, Aristotle,
I.
The Schoolmen
Bruno must
have been a marvel of
Interested in
all
etc.
intellectual industry.
know, he must have
things, burning to
put every spare moment at the monastery to good purpose for his education
helped him excellent
;
was vast and
varied.
though sometimes one finds
memory
of Macaulay, a
trifle
A it,
good memory like the equally
inaccurate
;
certainly
he owed more to nature than to the systematized mnemonic
which he believed.
art in
cultivated people of the "
a living language, spoken
spoke Spanish,^
like all the
was by every educated monk and Latin, of course,
Bruno's works give evidence of a wide range of
scholar.
reading in the quotations from
Roman classics, and they contain many the Roman poets, especially from Lucretius,
and Ovid.
Virgil
He
Kingdom."
But
his
eager, romantic
mind did not
allow of being moulded by such studies into classic reserve
and equipoise.
He
acquired an intimate acquaintance with
the literature of that graceful, unlaboured daughter of Latin
—
his
own
tongue; that he
commanded
the great poets, Dante,
Ariosto and Tasso, references and quotations in his works
show
;
but he especially valued the sugared conceits and
strained
manner of Tansillo and the decadent Neapolitan
school.
The one play he wrote
indicates
the
study of
Bibbiena and Aretino no less than of Plautus and Terence.
He knew
Greek, and shows a mastery of Aristotle ^
Cena, Dial. II. 17
B
in
8
GIORDANO BRUNO
1
by any scholar of his time. Ariswas part of a Dominican's education, for Albertus Magnus and Aquinas had effected the Church's acceptance
the original unequalled totle
of the Stagirite as " topmost
and obedience."^
faith
that, after
who
lived
and others
but
;
to
say
and, recently,
;
and died
of Mother Church, had attacked Aristotle
rity
dared
indeed,
was only a man
Aristotle
all,
Cornelius Agrippa,
" worthiest of
authority,"
Petrarch,
in
so
;
bosom
the
had Ramus
recent onslaughts on Aristotle's autho-
all
were regarded as inroads on orthodox
Not
belief.
merely did Bruno possess a masterly knowledge of Aristotle, but,
by reason of
made
his
bent towards natural science, he
acquaintance
close
with
the
chief
classical
Arabian commentators, translations of the
thinkers
most
this
and certainly
;
on him the need
and
having
At first he accepted the and comprehensive of
been published not long before.
cosmology of
latter
logical
Aristotle's teaching
would impress
an attentive observation, which that master did not always carry out. The more observant scholars
of
sixteenth century were aware that
of the
men
have not more teeth than women,^ or two more sutures in the brain-pan
more than sixteen
that they have
^
;
and that the back of the cranium
When Bruno
is
studied Copernicus he
Stagirite as a clog to
human
ribs,*
not an empty space.^
came
progress.
to regard the
Unlike Aristotle,
he cannot be charged with "moderation to excess": he accused that " master of those who know " * of relying on his
own
invention
more than on
fact
and of being a by un-
desiccated sophisticator of truth, perhaps instigated
worthy motives '
Dante
!
Imbedded
'
Conviio, iv,
;
Hist. Animal.,
'^
Aristotle
»
Ibid,j,
^
Ibid,j, 8, 491, a, 34.
'
Causa, Dial. Hi
8,
;
491,
b, 2.
;
in Aristotle's writings,
Bruno
6.
Dial. v.
ij, 3,
501,
b, 19. <
IbidJ,
«
Dante
IS, 493, b, 14. ;
Inferno, iv, 131.
9 ;
DISCIPLINE OF BOOKS
1
who
found fragments of the earlier thinkers of Hellas, interpreted
based
not
sense.
Cosmos
the their
science
had
they
for
on uncriticized impressions of
how should
Moreover,
Universe,
quite differently;
the
view
static
the
of
by the lonians, be reconciled with its mobiUty, taught by the Eleatics, or the monism of Parmenides and Heraclitus with the pluralism of Anaxagoras held
and Leucippus atomic
Sooner or
?
hypothesis
of
later,
he perceived that the
Leucippus and Lucretius, modifi-
cations of which, accepted by
men
of science rather more
than two and a half centuries after Bruno's time, have
proved so
fruitful in speculation,
went some way towards
the required adjustment of such opposite views
was
it
of inestimable importance.^
the right path
;
Aristotle
;
and that
had abandoned
he had lost sight of the stupendous spec-
opened up by the ancient astronomy and reintroduced,
tacle
by Copernicus he had missed that implication Cusanus discovered how contraries condition one another, both negating and affirming at the same time, and how they pass over into one another. Close study of Aristotle made Bruno a rebel, while fragments of a yet earlier philosophy became fruitful in his own. in
part,
;
—
of Heraclitus which
He
the Arabian thinkers of the tenth, eleventh
read
and twelfth centuries with enthusiasm for they exhibited something of his own growing passion for physical science a passion which, possibly, may have been fanned by the ;
"
Academy
of the Secrets of Nature " (the
society ever formed in
first
Naples A.D. 1560, and the influence of which
in
scientific
modern times), which was started is
pretty
sure to have penetrated into the courts and cloisters of
San Domenico.
He
Averrhoes (whom he pace, »
De
Algazel, tripHci
and,
minimo
gave attention
the doctrines of
to
greatly reverenced),^ Avicenna,
et
above mensura.
all,
Avicebron. '
Avem-
Averrhoes'
Causa, Dial.
iij.
;
GIORDANO BRUNO
20
reasonings as to an endless
creation,
proceeding from
and not imposed by an external
deity,^ and as mind forming part of a universal spirit remained with him ^ but the servile assimilation of Aris-
within,
the individual
to
;
totle
by the Arabians soon ceased " Fountain
Avicebron's
knowledge
of
but he gathered
;
to
commend
its drift
itself.*
had only
he
Life "
Of
indirect
from comments and
and perceived thereby that the Aristotelian
quotations,
Form and Matter cannot be regarded as From Algazel how much habit has to do with the formation
categories of
ultimate, but require an underlying unity.*
he learned
of belief; that sacred writings concern practice, not theory, and,
consequently,
employ the
unscientific
conceptions,
current at the time, to enforce moral truth only.^
He had
to read the
Fathers of the Church,
garded as important elements nican monk,
whose
who were
intellectual
discipline
lay in
subtle
and metaphysical refinements of thought.
distinctions
this respect the
schoolmen excel
re-
the education of a Domi-
in
In
no men have exhibited
;
was they who built up the The schoolmen, therefore, by Bruno, whose acute mind appreciated the
such subtle discrimination
:
it
triple wall of Catholic defence.
were studied
power and profundity of men who were so seriously handicapped by authority and by the jealous watchfulness of
Some
Religion.
diary
:
"
He
years later a Parisian scholar noted in his
(Bruno) ranks St Thomas above
Suinma Contra
all
in his
and Questionibus Disputatis ; " * Bruno said " I have nothing but
Gentiles
and, six years later,
:
^ Eroici, P. I., Dial. V, Dial. iv. viii. Causa, Dial. Hi. Causa, Dial. iij. For Bruno's indebtednesssee Wittman, Michael G.B^s Beziehungen zu Avencebrol, Archiv. fiir Gesch. d. Phil. Bana '
/it'd..
'
xiii,p. 14. ^
Eroici, P. II., Dial, iv, following poem 71.
°
Auvray,
L
;
loc, cit.,
sub Dec.
7.
DISCIPLINE OF BOOKS
21
respect for the doctors of the Catholic Church, and especially for St
Thomas Aquinas, whom,
as
said before,
I
have ever valued and loved as mine own soul witness to the truth of what
De Monade
book
these words,
glory and illumination of peripatetic philosophy.' "
^
mainly because he was one truth,
dogmas
in
my
Thomas Aquinas
is
the
kinds of theologians and of
Aquinas commanded his respect
who sought for a coherent body of
into one
works of Aristotle and Chris-
logical
whole
;
nay, more,
made an even bolder attempt than dense
and, as
completing the work of his master, Albrecht of Koln.
Aquinas hammered the tian
all
'
;
you may read
say,
I
I
all
it
was he who
that of Albrecht to con-
the knowledge of his time into an encyclopaedic
The great spirit of Aquinas still seems to haunt home in Naples and still impresses itself on the monks of his order. Bruno also admired Albrecht of
statement.
his ancient
best
Koln (Albertus Magnus) and declared that " he had no equal his time
in
and
far
surpassed Aristotle."
rated this great schoolman so high
^
^
Perhaps he
because of his
little
book on Alchemy ; a subject which embraced much of the very inconsiderable knowledge of nature which men possessed in the thirteenth century. But, except as an intellectual whetstone, such study the least fruitful
;
and the inadequacy of formal
scientific investigation (useful
as
it
proves for the detection
of deductive fallacy) was soon apparent to Bruno.
and over again the
in his
is
logic to
works he expresses
barren logic of the Peripatetics
;
Over
his scorn for
for they not only
blindly follow Aristotle, but they misconstrue him and avert their eyes
*
Doc.
from gazing at natural things.
xij.
*
Could Aristotle
Oratio Valedictoria.
worth noting that Dante places Albert, the universal Doctor, with Thomas the Angelic Doctor among the spirits of the Wise '
It is
{Parad., x, 97-99).
;
GIORDANO BRUNO
22
have been summoned from the grave he had been with Bruno.
Perhaps it was as a part of his theologic education that Bruno applied himself to Hebrew. We know that he recited the 86th Psalm in the original before the Pope • he uses Hebrew letters as symbols, and would appear to have ;
attributed
some mystic
significance to the language.
The Neo-Platonists
n.
When the literature of Hellas reached century, the soil
had exhausted
was
Italy in the previous
Scholasticism
ripe for its reception.
Men were weary
itself.
of dead distortions,
desiccated dissections of reality, and they turned their eyes
from the mediaeval the
thin
and
air,"
museum
dove cleaving
to Plotinus, " the eagle
They
Plato's tomb."
to Plato, " the
listened
no longer
voices from the cloister, and they hailed Plato
as heavenly messengers.
Plotinus and
by Aristotelian formalism,
the flow of
passion and the source of
insight rather than
wearisome
by discursive thought
and Plotinus
the Alexandrian
scholars, repelled life, its
over
soaring
to tired,
;
achieved, they strove to express in allegory
tried to its
grasp
passion,
by
and, what they
and metaphor
for they felt the impossibility of putting ultimate reality into logical form.^
Ficino and his fellows translated Plato and
the Neo-Platonists,
and Bruno read these translations as
well as the Platonic writings of the translators.
We
know how
from his character and from his Neo-Platonic works '
he must have lived spiritual
nourishment
in
1
Cfr.il. II.
'
Zimmermann,
'
Notably from the Eroici.
Sigillorum.
R
;
his
own enthusiasm and found
in thoughts too vital, not
merely to
Gesch. d. JEsthetik, Vienna, 1858,/. 123.
Also from
De Umbris and
Sigillus
DISCIPLINE OF BOOKS
23
be put by the syllogistic method of the schoolmen, but even to be quite definitely expressed.
A modern writer has justly observed
between Aristotle
greatest individual thinker cartes."
Much
^
in
that Plotinus
and
One who
" the
Des-
Neo-Platonism fascinated Bruno, espe-
cially the conception of the universe as a process of
tion from
is
suffers
no
explanation of the lower by the higher
produc-
and Plotinus'
loss thereby,^
much Alexandrian own philosophy,
^ ;
thinking became an integral part of his often transmuted and improved, however.
St Clement had declared that "
God
is
much as what He
so
is
not
we cannot "
;
discern
what
Cusanus had taught
and Bruno accepted the final limitation of human reason and experience and Plotinus' doctrine of a being above discursive thought, above good and evil and beauty, and above the distinctions, within the Will, of power
same
the
thing,
and freedom and cursive,
templating itself;
For our thought, being
necessity.
The Absolute produces Mind
imperfect.*
is
is
i.e., it
self-conscious;
proceeds the Soul of the World.
and The One participates
in all
This ;
is
dis-
con-
and from Mind
the trinity of being,
souls, separate in space
and time, being present to one another in the Soul of the Whole.^ light
The Soul
of the
World
is
not in time, but, just as
(which in Plotinus' and also in Bruno's time was sup-
posed to suffer no loss
in transmission) passes
into darkness, so does
through gradations of being 1
Whittaker,
*
Plotinus
»
Ibid.,
T
;
by gradations
the Ineffable pass, without loss, ;
and, even as privation of light
TAe Neo-Platonists, Camb., igoi,p.
34.
Enn., V, 1,6. Enn., V, 9, 4. ;
Enn. F, i, 9 ; V, 4, i.— Bruno, Sigillus, />./,§ 16 § 30 P. II, §11.— Compare the profound and original thought of our English philosopher Bradley ; Appearance and Reality, a.nA. its reflection in Taylor, A. E Problem of Conduct. = Enn., iij, Sigillus, P. /., §31. 9, 3; v, i, i.— Bruno, * Ibid.,
;
;
;
GIORDANO BRUNO
24 is
darkness, so
God
the privation of
is
evil
;
^
though even
evil there is a rational order which issues in good.^ Although individual souls are comprised and co-present to one another in the Soul of the World, they are separate in
in
Having descended from the Absolute, they
lower spheres.
ever tend to return to
most
Him '
who
"
and thine unattainable
self
he makes
form
own body
its
animates
for,
;
it
;
the cause of
its
in its context.*
it
life
no mere
is
collection
unextended, individual soul
the
dwells wholly in every part which
can a part act
the whole to which
at once thine inner-
desire."
Plotinus further perceived that of particles;
is
it
when separated from The individual soul is
vitally
belongs?*
own thought and action, but is determined The universe and its souls are in activity end;
without beginning or
all
things
being
traces
or
shadows, in vastly differing measures, of the Supernal.
Bruno maintained out his
life.®
animism
Bruno accepted universal
so did every thinker of his
;
through-
this doctrine of shades, vestiges,
Like Plotinus
own
time
;
in fact,
the view dated from Thales.'
"
The common mark
that
it
of
Alexandrian philosophy
all
is
regards divine revelation as the highest source of
knowledge."*
Porphyry
us that Plotinus
tells
was rapt
into ecstatic vision of the Absolute four times, being united
with
Him
and that he (Porphyry) had the experience
;
—
1 Enn.^ V, I, I ; z/, I, 6 ; vj, Bruno, De Umb., Int. I, IV; 7, 9. Sig.P.I,%'ii. Enn., in, 2, 18. BrunOj Sig. P. /, §32. • Enn., iv, Bruno, De Umbr., Int. VIIj Eroici, passim. 4, 36. * Enn., Hi, 6, 4; iv, 3, 21 ; vj, 4, 5.— Bruno, De Umb., Cone, v;
— —
'^
Causa, Dial. IIj ' °
' '
De
triplicis min., I, iij.
— Bruno, De Imjnenso, Cap. De Imag. Comp., Cap.jj Cap. Aristotle De Anima, 25. — Cicero De Natura Deorum, Enn.,
x.
iij, i.
iv.
;
Windelband,
W
I,
;
Hist. Phil.,
;
tr.
I, 10.
Tufts, London, 1896,/. 219.
DISCIPLINE OF BOOKS once.i
25
Plotinus writes of this emotional and mystical union
wherein there thought
is
is
absorption in sublime tranquillity, and
There
still.2
alone to the alone." intellect
;
he says,
is,
The
soul
"a
flight
from the
suddenly becomes pure
but after intellectual discipline.
Bruno accepted
such experiences as miracles of faith; but held that one may, by strenuous effort and by the study and contemplation of Nature, penetrate lower
rapturous
opposed
light.^
ito
Through
But such
"shades" and reach the
illumination
is
rational
as
the alogical illumination of the pure mystic* translations, or
more
directly,
Bruno became
acquainted with Philo Judaeus, Porphyry, JambHchus, the
pseudo-Orpheus, the pseudo-Hermes and other masters of the Alexandrian school.
These authors were deeply
^
Porphyrias
"
Enn.
''
Cabala, Dial. I; Eroici, Parte
*
All mystics, whatever their country, period or religion,
;
z/,
3,
;
£>e Vita Plotini17
;
v, 8, II
;
vj, 7. I,
Dial. II; Parte II, Dial. II.
seem
to
agree as to the main characteristics of their experience. Self-consciousness ceases; the subject of the experience feels himself lifted out of self and out of thought. To some, this beatific vision vi^ould seem to come suddenly ; to others, only after preparation. The condition is less rare than is supposed and it is most frequent in people of very high mental endowment and practical common sense. ;
These excellent witnesses
all
declare that intellectual activity dis-
appears and is replaced by a single emotion, a feeling of one-ness with the Absolute. Tennyson frequently experienced something of the kind ; he speaks of it as a " waking trance,'' which would come upon him from boyhood up, when he was alone, and which he could frequently bring on by repeating his own name " All at once as it were, out of the intensity of the consciousness of individuality, the individuality itself seemed to dissolve and fade away into boundless being, and this not a confused state, but the clearest of the clearest, the surest of the surest, utterly beyond words, when death was an almost laughable impossibility ; the loss of personality (if so it were) seeming no extinction, but the only true life." There would seem to be a far-off approach to this condition experienced by a few exceptional people during the administration of aniesthetics ; but no psychologists, mental pathologists 6;" specialists in hypnotism would seem to have given the subject mubh attention. :
GIORDANO BRUNO
26
permeated by the Pythagorean doctrine of the mystical nature of numbers
and
;
who was
fascinated Bruno,
this
mathematics of his
instructed in the
Jamblichus
time.'^
and other Neo-Platonic writers had a strong
drift
towards
the occult, and with this tendency the Neo-Platonists
profound sympathy. craze for the Cabala,
exhibited a
Mirandola
Pico della
—that curious
had
collection of rabbinistic
mysticism to which the ninth and thirteenth centuries gave birth.
these
From such writers
sources as Pico, Bruno absorbed what
knew
conceived that they
of the
or no idea of the historical development of thought,
and every man dragged
in
be supposed to support his
them
all
each and every writer
own
convictions,
as of equally authoritative value.
the time of Dante, natural facts to contain symbolic significance
and
of
There was
Chaldea, Assyria, Persia, India and Egypt. little
lore
who
could
and would quote Moreover, as in
and even words were held and
to be
adumbrations
Bruno did not escape from these He drew much
indices of truth.
which were universal.
intellectual habits,
mystical lore from Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa
^
of Nettes-
heim (1486-1535).
Agrippa's work on the "Vanity of
Human Knowledge "
led
" asinity."
him
to take
an
ironical interest in
^
III.
Raymond Lully
In early youth Bruno began the study of one calls
"an
untutored hermit,
filled
whom
he
with divine genius";*
one who, so he thought, builded wiser than he knew.
Raymond
Lully of Minorca (1235-1315),
known as "the Duns Scotus,
Enlightened Doctor," was a contemporary of
'
" ' '
Bruno; De Monade, passim. Agrippa, H. C De occulta philosophia.,fol.. Colonics, 1533. Bruno, // Cabala con raggiunta de I'asino Cillenico. ;
De Lampade
Combinatoria.
DISCIPLINE OF BOOKS
He
the "Subtle Doctor."
gave up the
27 life
of a
man
of
pleasure for Franciscan severity, and set himself to study
order to qualify himself for persuading the Moslem of
in
sweet reasonableness of Christianity.
the
was unconquerable, and
many
encountered in
LuUy's
spirit
the strange happenings which he
lands surpass the most extravagant
imagination of the novelists of adventure. the Faith burned as strong as that of
His zeal
Bruno
for
for philosophic
and the example of Lully may have been a spur Bruno in his youth and may have sustained him later
truth,
his chequered
and nomadic
life.
Lully found time to leave behind him 321 works on
branches of knowledge.^
was
his
Of
these
"Great Art" {Ars Magna).
Lully indifferent to
it
;
to in
the
all
most important
Scholasticism found
but he believed he could prove the
by reason.^ His attempt to do so condemned by that great dictatorship in Theology the University of Paris. Since Lully was a Franciscan, his works proved distasteful to the rival Dominican order, who set to work, and in 1376 a Bull of Gregory XI condemned his works as heretical. But this was said to be a forgery, and was formally annulled by Martin V (1376). The Spaniard's system was highly truth of Christianity
was
judiciously
—
valued by
many
distinguished thinkers in the i6th century;
but, two years after Bruno
Naples, LuUism was once
left
again attacked as heretical.
The
spirit
of
Neo-Platonism
Great Art," and the work
is
still
breathes
regulated
teaching as to the mystic nature of numbers.
based on the theory
that,
from certain given
possible to disengage all ideas '
Antonio, Nicolas
;
Bibl.
which are
"
Lullius,
R De Ariiculis Fidei. ;
"The
The
art is
ideas,
it
is
implicitly contained
Hispan. vefusj Hispan.
cur. Bayetio.
in
by Pythagorean
scrip,
ad a. 1500
;
GIORDANO BRUNO
28 in them,
sets
and so
down
for
LuUy
and discover knowledge.
to track
us what he considers to be those objects of
knowledge which are indisputable and universally accepted
and acknowledged, and also the methods of procedure by
He
which our intelligence operates.
a
called the key to discovery, nine fundamental ques-
circle,
tions
then places in
may
which
Within
be asked.
can be made others,
ments.
revolve, each
to
and each of these
By
circles,
may
which
one independently of the 9 compart-
circles is divided into
following given rules of a simple character, the
middle term of any syllogism
For speed
which
this circle,
be regarded as fixed, are five other concentric
in
was held
to
be discoverable.
working, the circles and their compartments
were indicated by symbols.
Bruno saw in this art the germs of that complete and symbolic logic at which LuUy aimed; a vision which also aroused the hope of Leibnitz
and which occupied much attention during the of the last century. of artificial
He
found
it
memory, and the
works, as well as are devoted
to
many
first
and
last of his printed
of the volumes which
improvements
of the " Enlightened Doctor
"
last quarter
invaluable for the purposes
in
lie
between,
His mastery
Lullism.
proved useful to him as an
introduction to scholars and to seats of learning.
IV.
CUSANUS
Cusanus (Nicolaus Chrypffs of Cues, 1401-1464), the son of a fisherman on the Mosel, became a cardinal and the close friend of iEneas Silvius (Pius II).
One
of the most
remarkable men of his age, he was the earliest of those speculative dogmatists who He midway between Scholasticism
and
Critical Philosophy.
able mind his
own
Bruno owed
to this
remark-
strongest philosophic impulse and
many
DISCIPLINE OF BOOKS of his
own views
;
^
29
he speaks of Cusanus as " divine " and
" a great discoverer."
Cusanus, as became a bold and
^
independent thinker, tried to rationalize theology, and made
more than one attempt abstracted aspects of
He
to
expound the Trinity as three
God and His
universe, which are one.'
held that sense-impressions are united in the activity
of thought
;
yet knowledge at
its
best and highest
is
merely
and therefore can only approximate towards, and can never be identical with Reality. At best,
an image of being
knowledge
;
as the polygon, which, while
is
composite figure, can never become a declared the relativity of
men can
rise
all
finite
when we do measure, what God does.
By
he
content to utter "
O
prehensible, he declares
could not be other than of pantheism. is
is
unity
reflect,
by
intuition,
altitudo
are doing, in our
this doctrine of intui-
scepticism. !
and
" ^
finds
Yet, though
God incom-
Him to be all things, and that He He is this gave rise to accusations ;
The negation
nearer truth than
The ;
but,
of greater imperfection, says is
the negation of the higher
In other words there are degrees in truth and
attributes. reality."
we
this
Cusanus saves himself from
Cusanus,
;
above antimonies and hold contraries together
tion, is
Cusanus
circle.*
knowledge
a unity; and
in
remains a
it
universe
is
the unfolding of what, in Deity,
just as a line is the unfolding of a point.
we
shall find that to a true
maximum
If
we
nothing can
The indebtedness of B. to Cusanus is exaggerated by F. but, in spite in his G. B und Nic. v. Cusa, Bonn, 1847
1
Clemens
;
J
of
prejudice, this remains a valuable work.
its ^
=
S^accio, I,j, at beginning; Infinite, De docia ignorantia, i, 7
Cusanus,
;
HI; ij,
7
Oratio. Valedic. ;
Alchoran,
6, 7,
8
;
De
possest.
O c.
De docta ignorantia. love to lose myself in a mystery, to pursue my Reason to an altitudo," Sir T. Browne, Religio Medici. Appearance and Reality, « Cfr. the modern view of Bradley,
*
Cusanus,
«
"
I
xxiv.
GIORDANO BRUNO
30 be added
from a true minimum nothing can be taken
;
man can perceive therefore maximum and minimum coincide.^ away
;
and
less in space
precisely
time,
that, in
Ultimate Reality,
The
is
which Bruno was much indebted.
in
Nature
is
own
its
place,
experience there
an
is
indivisible
indivisible
Cusanus reappear
continuity
minimum.*
itself in
In conscious
but in things
;
these views
All
of
Bruno, often enlarged and enriched.
in
Cusanus' teaching that reason unfolds
itself in
numbers *
The German
strengthened Bruno's Pythagorean tendency.
saw
animate and
and preserving
relation to and community with other things."
is
is
a doctrine to
it,
everything being a more or less imperfect mirror
;
of the universe in
there
bound-
and the centre of the universe
where the observer stands
articulated
universe
that the universe can, at least in part, be explained
by the application of mathematics
scientifically
results of observation
was probably
;
and Bruno
is
the
to
his eager pupil.
It
the study of Cusanus which set him on the
track of the infinity of the universe of innumerable worlds
and of the interpenetration of everything
There was as method
:
yet
the whole.^ scientific
only an eager questioning of experience
Cusanus made the explain
science to
He
in
no really philosophical or
first
the
universe on
foreshadowed the law of
that the earth
is
in
but
;
attempt since the days of Greek
motion
inertia, ;
^
scientific
principles.
and declared,
but since
in 1436,
we have no
fixed
Cusanus De docta ignorantiaj De sapientia libri tres. Cfr. Bruno De triplici mininio. ^ Cusanus De ludo globi. " Cusanus; De idiota, iij. Cfr. Bruno; De triplici min; De '
;
;
;
vionade. *
Cusanus
;
De
conjecturis ;
De
visione Dei.
monade. ^ Clemens, F. J.; op. cit.,pp. 142, 143. ° Cusanus De reparatione Calendarii. ;
Cfr.
Bruno,
De
1
!
DISCIPLINE OF BOOKS point from which to observe this,
its
3
movement cannot be
measured.
The mysticism
of his countryman Eckhardt reappeared in
Cusanus,^ and reinforced Bruno's
V.
own
mystical tendency.
Copernicus and Later Thinkers
Not a century
after
Cusanus,
in 1543, Nicolaus
Coper-
expounded the theory that the
nicus (1473-1543)
earth
revolves round the sun, though he did not extend his conclusions, to the
which he drew from mathematical considerations, Probably
work.^
Bruno got hold of Copernicus'
heavens.
sidereal
was
it
monastic library
in the
;
for
it
had been dedicated to Paul III at the entreaty of friends who feared what might otherwise follow, and one Osiander, a priest of Nuremberg, wrote a preface, in which he protests
work
that the
not presented as truth, but because
is
it
furnishes improved practical utility for astronomical computation.8
Bruno knew
speaking the truth was
had asserted
mendacious apology
not written by Copernicus,
his right to deal with the problem in his
The
way.*
that this
for
who own
thoughtful pondered over Copernicus' book,
perceiving that he had applied Ockham's razor and dealt a
blow
to the
bad method of multiplying hypotheses
same
observed facts of the
kind.
It
was
to explain
irrational to
suppose that Nature does not proceed straight to her goal.
The new theory administered a shock Aristotelian
to the fashionable
physics and cosmogony, built on
ceptions, and, in time,
extended by Bruno,
it
came
who had
to
sense-per-
be heartily accepted and
so early begun to doubt the
De venatio sapienticz.
•
Cusanus
^
Copernicus De orbium ccelestium revolutionibus. It is obvious that Osiander was no pragmatist Bruno Cena, Dial. Ill, Seconda prop, di Nundinio.
' *
;
;
;
GIORDANO BRUNO
32 deliverances to the
new
them
in
felt
There was general resistance Those with the spirit of the Renaissance a blow was struck at their exaltation of
of sensation.
view. that
humanity; the pious opined that the
fall
of the
official
For science of the Church might bring down much more. Bruno, the vivid and realistic pictures of Dante were replaced by another kind of realism, colder perhaps, but only colder to the unimaginative, appealing less, perhaps, to ordi-
nary human sympathy, but far more powerfully lectual
vision.
He was
follow her whithersoever she might lead if
man
the importance of
intellect,
to intel-
prepared to trust Reason and
as a being
and he saw
;
was
that,
diminished, his
which could hold the whole solar system
in its
grasp, gained infinitely in dignity.
Bruno read " The Nature of Things,"
by Bernardino
Local patriotism would prepare him
Telesio (1509-1588).
to appreciate the writings of a
man who, born
had founded the Cosentina Academy
at
Cozena,
at Naples.
Telesio
on the importance of observation and took
insisted
motto, " not by reason, but by sense."
for his
But he admitted
mind co-operates with sensation.^ Bruno calls him " the most judicious Telesio." 2 Girolamo Cardano
that the
(1501-1576) was another writer
whom Bruno valued for He used much super-
his appreciation of physical enquiry. stitious information
which can be traced
Cardano, or
to
to the writings of that half-mad genius in motley,
Aureol Theophrast Paracelsus (1490-1541). Paracelsus attracted Bruno because of his attempt to determine the chemical
constitution of things
; because he held all creatures to be emanations from a world-soul,* and because he taught a doctrine deduced from this, that throughout the whole choir
'
Telesius
filosofico 2
;
De rerum
di G. B., 1907,/.
Causa, Dial. III.
natura.
Cfr.
Sensini,
T
;
Sul
fiensiero
13. »
Bruno
;
Causa, Dial. III.
DISCIPLINE OF BOOKS of heaven
sympathy.
and furniture of earth there
a subtle
exists
Although Pietro Angelo Manzoli (Palingenius)
held the universe to be effect
33
on Bruno.
infinite,
Indeed,
it
he did not produce much
seems doubtful whether Bruno
ever read this Ferrarese poet, for he speaks of him as being a German.^
Bruno was vastly
interested in the mathematics of his
day, and, later, gave the subject
considerable originality in
it,
much thought and
Indeed, like Bacon he had " taken province."
Most of
all
his acquisitions
during the quiet years at Naples.
wanderer, earning his bread
him was given up
to creative
evinced
sometimes of a mistaken kind.*
;
knowledge
to be his
must have been made Henceforth he was a
and what small leisure
befell
work.
Oratio Valedic. For the effects of these later writers on Bruno's see Tocco, F Fonti phi recenti dellaf. del B., Acad, dei Lincei, Rendiconii ser.,j,pp. 503 sgg; 585 sgq. ^ Cfr. J. B. Nolani Articuli centum et sexaginta adversus mathe'
mind and work,
maticos ;
De monadej De
;
tripUci minivio.
CHAPTER WANDERINGS THROUGH ITALY.
IV NAPLES TO GENEVA
(1576-79) It was a
from
By and
common
this
means the
cities
monks
thing in those days for
and even from country
district to district
monk was enabled
individual
and enlarge
his mind, while, at the
got exercise and improved his health
;
to
wander
to country.
men
to see
same
he
time,
the monastic com-
munity, too, benefited by interchange of ideas and was
The doors
enlivened by news from the outer world.
monastery were always kept wide open brother of the order find it
no
to a
of
so Bruno, escaped from Naples, would
;
difficulty in obtaining hospitality.
He boldly claimed The church
at the actual headquarters of his order.
Santa Maria sopra Minerva stands on the
site of
tiles
and
front the yet
He was
it
:
and
its
its
famous monastery con-
more famous temple of Agrippa.
not
" that,
gods
its
of
a ruined
temple, opposite another which has only been robbed of gilded
a
wandering
left
there long in peace.
"I learned," he
works of St Chrysostom and St Jerome containing the forbidden annotations of Erasmus, which I had secretly used and thrown into says,
the privy
after
when
I
I
left
Naples, certain
came away
to prevent their being found,
were discovered." ^
Erasmus had " laid the egg of the Reformation " in Edward Lee, afterwards Archbishop of York, ;
1527,
extracted twenty-one heretical opinions from his writings. ^
Doc. 34
xitj.
WANDERINGS THROUGH ITALY
35
The
veneration due to the saintly fathers of the Church had not prevented the Congregation of the Index from prohibiting the works of
Chrysostom and Jerome, so here
lay a two-fold fault.
Mocenigo, who,
made a
curious
later,
denounced Bruno
Bruno "
statement.
Inquisition sought a quarrel with
and that he made
points,
to the Inquisition,
me that Rome on
told
him
in
off while they
the
130
were being pre-
sented because he was credited with throwing the informer, or the
The
man whom he
Inquisitors
believed to be such, into the Tiber."
absolutely ignored
Bruno was innocent of the crime.
clearly
statement
this
*
so,
;
Mocenigo was a
spiteful person, not over scrupulous or exact in his state-
ments, while Bruno was no difficult,
or vain braggart.
liar
It is
however, judging from other statements made by
Mocenigo, to believe that invention.
The
this
one was wholly a gratuitous
recently discovered manuscript-diary in
the Biblothfeque Nationale contains the following passage.
"7th Dec.
[1585].
Jordanus came again.
.
,
.
He
has
been an exile from Italy eight years, as much by reason of a murder committed by his brother, whereby he incurred hatred and peril of Inquisitors,
who
life,
as to escape the calumnies of
are ignorant men, and, not understanding
his philosophy, declare
him
to be a heretic."
^
man who made this entry was Guillaume Abbey of St Victor. If so, he was and ill at the time. Whoever he was, the diarist did always catch Bruno's remarks, or his memory failed
Probably the
Cotin, Librarian to the old
not him.
But he was a scrupulously precise person.
cannot catch a name, he leaves
it
incorrectly caught, he erases
is
»
Doc.
'
M.S. Fr. 20309,
Dec. jth.
out
;
if
If
he
he suspects that
it
Possibly a brother of
it.*
I.
fol.
354,
V. sqq.
Auvray, L. ; oj). Auvray, L. ; op.
°
cit.,
cit.
sub
GIORDANO BRUNO
36
Bruno was concerned Italy,
some
in
and especially common But,
days.
if so,
how
did
" taking off" so
Southern
in
affect
it
nected with the citation for heresy
Was
vendetta ?
Was
Giordano ? ?
Was
common
Italy, in
in
those it
con-
there danger of
there influence at work, or something con-
nected with the case which would fatally weight the minds of Bruno's superiors ?
It
is
an inviting puzzle
and ingenious and
are imperfect;
data
;
but the
plausible
hypo-
theses are nearly always exploded on the discovery of fresh facts.
He contrived to get away from the gathering storm. He cast his monkish garb aside, resumed his baptismal, name
Philip
of
and was no longer known as Jordanus
He made
while he remained in Italy.^
his
way
over the
more which lay between Rome and the Republic of Genoa, where bloody faction-fights and three hundred miles or
the
long struggle of the various classes of the city for
mastery still prevailed. The Genoese, whom Dante denounced as barbarians,* were ever more famous for their quarrels
and commercial enterprise than learning,
and there was
remain in that unquiet scornful twice.^
amusement "At Genoa
:
Costello exhibit a kiss
it,
saying,
'
little
for their
He
city.
so struck
him
I
saw
monks
the
with a veil over
don't touch
:
kiss
to
observed one thing with
it
tail
encouragement of
inducement to a scholar
it
;
that he refers to
it,
it
of [S. Maria di]
and making
this is the
holy
folk
relic
of
was made worthy to bear our God Jerusalem. Worship it, kiss it and
that blessed ass which
from Mount Olivet to give alms. eternal
Ye
life.' " ^
—
shall receive
an hundred fold* and inherit
Bruno must have been accustomed
to
miracles in Naples such as the liquefaction of the blood of "
^oc. xiij. I
Candelajo,
lark, X. 30.
A (to I,
Inferno, xxxiij,
Sc. i.; Spaccio, III, '
ij.
Matth., xix, 29.
— WANDERINGS THROUGH ITALY St Januarius, which yearly,
and we
still
shall find
37
continues to take place four times
him ready
to accept
strange things
as due to natural causes, not yet explained.
mercenary fraud was too much
base,
symbolized the " asinity
On
"
lies Noli.
this :
it
he despised.
the Riviera Ponente, between thirty
from Genoa,
But
for his credulity
and
a quaint, ancient
It is
forty miles little
coast-
town, at the head of a rocky gulf, embosomed in vineyards
and backed by picturesque mountains which almost encircle it and are close beyond its high walls. It was then a prosperous
little
place,
governing itself under the protection " Here," says Bruno, " I sup-
of the Genoese Republic.
ported myself during four
grammar
to children
The
or
five
months
and the sphere
^
by teaching
to certain
men
of
Astronomy was then called " The Sphere," because the earth was supposed to be the condition."^
subject of
central kernel of a series of transparent spheres, enclosing
the sun, moon, planets
and
These spheres were supposed
Such
questions
is
the perfect figure.
to revolve
with uniform motion, because that of velocity.
spheres for the
stars
fixed
metaphysical reason that the circle
as
is
round the earth
the most perfect rate
the exact
situation
of
heaven and the precise nature of the divine ideas embodied in the skies
were included
in teaching "
The Sphere."
It
was a popular subject for writing about and lecturing on, and ladies as well as men read papers on it at the literary Probably Bruno taught clubs the Italian "Academies." these " gentlemen of condition " more concerning " The
—
Sphere" than was expected from him. For reasons which he does not give, he turned back a few miles
to
Savona, the former
then, a busy port.
It
rival of
Genoa, and, even
probably provided Bruno with
more than pleasant prospects amid gardens '
Doc,
vij.
''
of orange Doc.
ix.
little
and
GIORDANO BRUNO
38 lemon
trees
for, at the
;
end of
he made for
fifteen days,
There
Turin, the capital of Piedmont.^
is
that a fourth process against the fugitive
a curious story
monk was
issued
The statement is at Vercelli by the Genoese Republic.^ far from inconceivable, but it comes from a suspected source
it is
;
said to have been derived from the sentence
of the Inquisition, a document which
was non-producible
at
was made.^
the time the assertion
Turin was then under Filiberto Emmanuele, one of the
most enlightened monarchs of a
line
which, during ten
centuries, has proved itself the astutest of the ruling houses
The
of Europe.
making
University,
Europe found
is
reigning duke fostered both science and
a few years before, had reconstituted the
literature, and,
it
one of the
first in
Italy.
No town
on so regular a plan as Turin
built
is
:
in
Bruno
a city of delight,* " but, getting no satisfactory
it
sustenance there,
I
came down
the
Po
to Venice,
put up a month and a half in Frezzaria "
^
where
—the
I
lane of
shops at the end of the great piazza, opposite St Mark's.
To the eye,
all
was
bright; the carvings
gave evidence of the
taste,
on splendid palaces
the wealth
and the pride of
Venice; every uncarved wall was resplendent with the noble designs of some great master, wet and new, or, at least, still
unflaked and unfaded, and the canals below re-
flected their
gorgeous hues.
But Venice was
in
a terrible
For two long years plague had devastated
state within.
the city, carrying off 42,000 people, the aged Titian
Venice offered a
them. tion, '
however
Doc.
»
De
'
Cfr.
;
yet
how
fairly safe
among
asylum from the Inquisi-
should Bruno live ?
In that frank
ix.
Martinis, Raffaele
G. B., Napoli, 1886, p. 12. R. Ace. delle sc. mor. e pol, Napoli, XXIV, pp. 468-69; Archiv.f. Gesch. d. Phil., iv,pp. 348-50. See also chapter of this work. ;
AM della
XX •
Spaccio,
in,
ij.
'
Doc.
ix.
WANDERINGS THROUGH ITALY
39
succinct account of his days which he gave to the inquisitors,
we read
" Whilst there, in order to furnish
:
pieces to live on,
I
But
of the Times.'
I
shewed
Master Remigio of Florence,"
who had gained
order,
and
me
got a book printed, entitled it
first to
^
a
with a few
'
The Signs
the Revd. Father
monk
own
of Bruno's
distinction because of his learning
his version of the Psalms.^
Probably Bruno now made up his mind to try
for better
fortune in France, where Italians were well received and Italian influence
Venice,
I
was paramount.
went on
my
to
Padua, where
He I
continues
" Leaving
:
found some Dominican
They persuaded me to wear my habit again, showing me that it was more convenient to travel with than without it. With this idea in my mind, I went to Bergamo and had a robe made of cheap white cloth, fathers of
and over
when
acquaintance.
this I
wore the scapular which
I left
bound
I
to retain the scapular
:
attire
;
me
kept with
was common enough
Rome." It doff the habit and don the gayest '
for
monks
to
but they were
to cast this aside
was
re-
garded as a very serious offence.
On
the road to Bergamo, while resting at Brescia, he
seems to have found a monk shut up because he had given
way
to a prophetic impulse
self
a great theologian and spake with tongues.
:
the poor brother thought him-
Bruno
gave him vinegar and polypod and restored him to the brethren, " the same ass that he was before." * So did .^neas Silvius cure a demoniac with a •
little
necessary
medicine.
We know that he visited in that place that
1
Doc.
he
first
Milan, for he
tells
us that
it
was
heard of a future friend and helper,
ix.
Scriptores Ordinis Pradicatorum, II, p. 259, referred to by Berti, pp. TI.-T2. of the edition of 1868. a ' Sigillus Sigillorum, § 48. jjgc, ix. »
GIORDANO BRUNO
40 Sir Philip
whose acute
cavalier,
manners,
spirit,
so rare that
is
it
not to
were
difficult to find his like out-
Sidney had been travelling in
side Italy; or within it."^
Italy
and excellent speak of his renowned
"that very illustrious
Sidney,
two or three years before, unattended by the usual he studied at Padua and, at Venice, got Paul
bear-leader
Veronese
;
to paint his portrait.
Italy
was
the indispensable
but highly dangerous finishing school for the courtier in
manners,
letters, art
and
Roger Ascham
life.
tells
us that
the Englishman usually returned " worse transformed than
ever was any in Circe's Court," and that during the nine
days which he himself spent heard
liberty to sin than ever I
in Venice,
he found " more
tell of in
our noble city of
London in nine years." Sidney wrote to Languet that if the Turks should conquer Italy " its vile allurements would so 'ensnare them that they would tumble down without Sidney appears to have been one of the
being pushed."
very few
" listened to the enchantment of the Siren's
who
song untouched."
Bruno made
his
way
over the snows of Mont Cenis with
the intention of trying his fortune at Lyons.
At the end
of the long, deep, inhospitable valley along which the muletrack to
an
wound above
and between two
hills,
where, built beside two rivers
lay
Dominican monastery was
built at
complained to an Italian
there at the time and
you
the capital
of
Chamb^ry
Savoy.
A
thirty years
but he found no very kindly reception thereat.
before;
He
came
the rushing waters of the Arc, he
inviting, fertile region,
will get
go, the
less
no
who
civility in
you
will
monk who chanced
replied, " I
to
be
forewarn you that
these parts, and, the farther you
find of it."
"
Whereupon, Bruno
decided to leave the route for Lyons and take the one to
Geneva. '
Cena, Dial. II.
'^
Doc.
ix.
CHAPTER V AT GENEVA, LYONS AND TOULOUSE
For
three years
Bruno had sojourned
in various Italian
States, receiving hospitahty in spacious, dignified monasteries or
under the homelier shelter of some kindly
Nowhere were
roof.
the
refinements
of
Italian
wanting.
life
folk, who knew not the use of the fork or the amenities of the table. The guest at the inn was called upon to share his bed
Across the mountains, he found a stern, rough
with more than one bedfellow, and might consider himself fortunate
if
he arrived at the
inflexible
meal, and had neither to forfeit
it
hour
At Naples, Bruno read St Augustine
may suppose that he felt some The austere and naked theology
it.
in secret, so
interest
in his
we
writings.
of that Father had been
strengthened and hardened by John Calvin.
Geneva had
able fugitive from France to
common
for the
nor to tarry for
That remark-
carried with
him
even more of the vigour of the legislator than of the dexterity of rejection visited
the controversialist.
Conscientious
of a mediating priesthood, he
by no scruples when he established
worst of theocratic governments of theologians.
—
in
nonetheless at
Geneva
his
was that
the tyranny of a board
His sectaries established and maintained
the outward form of a " city of God," less accomplished, less
broad-minded, and
even
more coercive than ever
Rome was; and, when Calvin died, his mantle fell on a man of like mind his fellow-exile, Theodore de Beze
—
of
V^zelay.
Hardly more 41
than
twenty years
before
—
GIORDANO BRUNO
42
Bruno's arrival, Calvin's perfervid zeal for petty theological doctrines persuaded
him
Miguel Serveto y Rives
to betray
and when Servetus escaped and sought Geneva, it was Calvin who sent him to the
to the Inquisition,
an asylum
in
Under Beze,
stake.
drastic
was
discipline
dealt out to
anyone who offended against the most meticulous
article
prescribed by the autocratic congregation of theologians
who formed a supreme over
state within
Nevertheless gates to
the political state
and were
it.'^
those
Bruno knew
that
who sought
refuge
Geneva opened her conscience-sake
for
and that independent thinkers from his own beloved Italy had found asylum and established an Italian evangelical church there.
It
dated from 1542.
name
hostelry and inscribed his
may still
at
Bruno put up at a Academy. One
the
read in the Rector's Register the
Brunus Nolanus, sacra
name "
theologies professor,
20
Philippus
May
J 579,"
written in Bruno's bold firm hand.^
The presence such travellers, found the
was
who might wish
in this
their
;
excite
little
quite usual to encounter to visit libraries, or
who
monastery uncongenial.
abode of the saintly
to attract attention
fail
It
atmosphere of
But a monk
monk would
of a wandering
surprise in most places.
elect could not
although Catholic princes some-
times passed through the city and even visited the most distinguished
the
of
the
exiles,
Caracciolo, marquis of Vico and
Neapolitan
nephew
of
Galeazzo
Pope Paul IV.
Di Vico had forsaken wife and children for faith's sake and had been regarded by Calvin as a pillar of the church. 1
Cfr. Bolsec,
Bonnet, J
dupeuple 1865. ^
—
H.
;
Hist, de la vie
etc.
de J. Calvin, Lyons, 1577. Roget, A Histoire
Lettres franqaises dej. C, Paris 1854. de Genlveetc. 1870-83. Brunnem, ;
;
—
Protestant
;
Servetus, Berlin,
A Relation duproch centre S., Geneva, 1844. be observed that Bruno retains his baptismal name
Rilliet,
It will
—
K M.
city.
;
in the
AT GENEVA, LYONS AND TOULOUSE
43
Indeed, Calvin dedicated one of his works to him.
Vico was a kindly and honourable man, zealous
Di
for doctrine,
but ready to welcome and aid any distressed fellow-country-
man.^
was not long before he paid Bruno a visit. me who I was and if I had come there to stay and avow the religion of the city. I then gave an "
It
He
asked
account of myself and of
added that
my
I
was
object
I
had
left
my
order,
had no intention of professing the
I
the city, for
why
did not
know what
to dwell in
it
and
faith
of
might be; and that
freedom and safety rather than
The Marquis advised me to cast away my monkish garb at any rate. So I made trunk-hose and anything
else.
other gear from some stuff
had by me, and he and other gave me a sword, hat, cloak and other needful
Italians
clothes
I
and other things that
correcting proofs.
I
might support myself by
remained two months thus employed,
I
going sometimes to hear Italians and Frenchmen expound
and preach.
I
listened oftenest to Nicolo Balbani of Lucca,
who expounded gospels."
^
the
epistles
of Paul
and preached the
Balbani was pastor of the Italian church and
a great friend of Di Vico. It
would not need the insistence of
his
induce Bruno to read the works of Calvin.
mind
led
mation.
him
new
friends to
His inquiring
to dip into all the chief writers of the Refor-
In the record of his
frank declaration
:
"
I
trial at
Venice we read the
have read books by Melancthon,
Luther, Calvin and other heretics beyond the Alps, not to acquire their doctrine or for improvement, for
more ignorant than
I
think them
myself, but out of sheer curiosity.
have never kept them
in
my
possession
—
I
mean
those
I
who
professedly treat of matters opposed and repugnant to the *
Cfr. Specimen Italiae Reformatae, una c. Syllabo Reformatorum Lugd., Bat., 1765,/. 205.— Berti, op. cii., ed. ofl?>%6,p. 91 sgq.
Jtal., *
Doc.
ix.
"
GIORDANO BRUNO.
44
Catholic faith while I have indeed kept by me other condemned works, such as those of Raymond Lully and other ;
who
writers
them and
treat of philosophical matters.
their doctrines."
But, on his arrival at Geneva, before he
may have
Calvinistic administration, he
with the idea
flirted
John Vincent told Cotin rather more than six years later,
the diarist were he),
" Jordanus said
that
knew much about
Reformed Church.
of joining the (if
scorn both
I
^
[to the
Genevese] he would
have
attached himself to their religion had they not so dishonoured
Probably Vincent got
him."^ likely to
We
be true.
on hearsay; but
this
deal with
shall
it
Bruno did not vex himself overmuch with
directly.
He
vain disputes of theology.
is
the " dishonour the
to
be his busi-
truth of Nature
by reason,
conceived
it
ness to try to get at
the
and he confessed
judges that he was no theological
expert.^
But theology can be undermined by philosophy
and physical
him
to his
Bruno's intrepid zeal for truth landed
science.
when
in difficulties
more than two months had
little
elapsed from his arrival in Geneva.
One
shepherds of the city was Antoine de
la
a
man who had
before and
taken his medical degree at Padua
was a
refugee.*
How
subject of dispute.
much thought
and Physics.^
Most
we do
not
know
;
years
was
the
but he came
to perceive the errors of his
Ever a
five
likely Aristotle
long Bruno continued to accept
the authority of Aristotle, after
of the evangelical
Faye of Chateaudun,
Cosmology
fighter, a valiant knight-errant of
Truth, he was as impulsive and imprudent as courageous. Rebellion against accepted views in
its
' '
*
Doc. Doc.
extent,
always strangely limited
is
and the governing body of the Genevese '
xij.
Auvray,
L
;
op.
cii.,
sub 15 Mar. 1856.
xij.
Haag, Eugene
pp. iSs, 186.
et
Emile
;
La France '
Protestanie, 1846-59, t vj,
Bruno
;
Infinito, Dial. I.
AT GENEVA, LYONS AND TOULOUSE
45
reformers retained not a few of the prejudices of their forefathers ; they regarded Aristotle as hardly less authoritative
Holy Writ.
than
Ram^e
that they
Theodore de Bdze .told Pierre de la had resolved not to depart one jot or tittle
from the judgements of Aristotle and among those who supported this decision was de la Faye, who, just now, was ;
Academy on
lecturing at the If,
cate,
Philosophy.
as a passage in Genevese records would seem to indiit
was on
Bruno attacked de Geneva which occupied
Aristotle that
he began a warfare yeaf^ of a rebellious
at life
la
Faye,
the best
—a determined and persistent
effort
upheave the dead load of obsolete authority and give freedom to the human spirit once again. He felt, to use the to
language of Bacon, that the ancient cosmology was " no
match
The
for the subtlety of Nature."
^
consistory of theologians sat watchful for the slightest
offence against the stringent moral
On
they chose to institute.^ find
and theological code
Thursday, August
Bruno and one Jean Bergeon
laid
by the
6,
1579,
heels.
we
It is
recorded in the Registers of the Consistory that Bruno had caused Bergeon to print " certain objections and invectives againt M. de la Faye, reckoning, twenty blunders in one of his lectures."
(The twenty blunders became multiplied by
five in Parisian
"
gossip.^)
was resolved that he should Then Jean Bergeon pleaded
It
be examined after dinner." that the Italian
had persuaded him of the wholly philoso-
phical bearing of the matter
ment and
The next day Bergeon to
he was given a day's imprison-
;
fined 50 florins.
sent
up a
He had
pardon his transgression.
the monk,
who
affirmed there
'
Bacon
'
Fairbairn,
'
Auvray,
;
petition asking the Council
" been led astray by
was nothing
Nov. Org., xiij. A Camb. Mod. Hist,
L
;
;
op.
cit.,
in
it
II, 368.
sub 20 May, 1556.
against
God
GIORDANO BRUNO
46
was reduced by half, " on account Bruno seems to have been visited in of his small means." his cell by the pastors and one Michael Varro, a lawyer who dabbled in mathematics and natural science and had written or the Council."
on motion.
The
His
fine
lawyer's hobby strengthens the surmise
that the quarrel arose about Aristotle.
that he
had offended.
The
Bruno acknowledged Monday,
council sat again on
lOth Aug., and decided that he should be set free, but he must beg pardon of God, the law and the insulted professor; he must acknowledge his offence before the Consistory and tear
up the
libel.
So, on the 13th
August he appeared, as
required, before the Consistory " to acknowledge his trans-
gression in that he had erred in doctrine and called the
pastors of the Church of Geneva pedagogues." prise awaited the
good pastors
:
But a surhe would " neither excuse
himself nor plead guilty, for the matter had not been truly
He
came from Pastor Antoine made de Faye. many excuses and assertions that he was persecuted, setreported.
believed the story
Asked whom he
la
called pedagogues, he
ting forth conjectures and fresh accusations, but nevertheless
admitted he was here to
own
his misconduct in traducing the
Was admonished to follow the
pastors.
he was ready to receive censure.
true doctrine.
Said
Seeing that he calumniated
the said de la Faye, and accused him of saying a thing which
he did not say, and had no wish to repent his doings, but right, it is recommended that he make a complete apology and acknowledge his trans-
urged that he had done shall
gression
;
otherwise, that he be forbidden the sacrament and
who are who disturbs
be brought up again before the governing board, entreated not to endure this kind of person, one the school, and
who shall straightway be compelled to acknow-
ledge his offence.
Replied, that he repented of his offence,
would amend his speech, and, calumniated Pastor de
la
Faye.
further,
The
admitted having
said remonstrances
;
AT GENEVA, LYONS AND TOULOUSE
47
and prohibition of the sacrament made, and he sent away remonstrating." On Thursday, Aug. 27, " Philippe Brun, student, residing in this city, begs for the sacrament, which
had been forbidden him acknowledging that he had greatly offended. It was decided that he should be thoroughly reprimanded and allowed to partake of the sacrament. The said reprimand to .free him from his transgression for .
.
.
;
which he humbly rendered thanks." *
These at
Genevese Register would seem,
the
entries in
prove that Bruno conformed to a regulation
first sight, to
of the City
whereby students were compelled
Calvinistic
Confession
however, that
of
faith.
this regulation,
has
It
to sign the
shown,
been
framed in 1559, ceased to
After the latter date, only membercommunity was required and Bruno fulfilled condition by putting in an appearance at the Italian
be enforced in 1576. ship of the this
;
Evangelical Church.
The sentence
of exclusion from the
sacraments would appear to have been merely a formal
one
—one
we
that
repeated
find
years later on a similar occasion.
at It
Helmstadt a few
does not necessarily
imply that Bruno was ever a communicant. carry with
it
highly inconvenient,
on
But
it
would
the stigma of heresy and be productive of
trial for his life
if
When
not serious, consequences.
he gave an open and manly account It is true that here and there
of his career and opinions.
he
slides over a fact capable of being turned against
now and
then he puts a
little
theological
the times required, on his opinions.
reader must
him
whitewash, as
But any unprejudiced
regard his statement, taken as a whole, as
being a model of plain, straightforward statement. In it we " I often went to hear heretics preach or find him saying :
dispute [in Protestant countries] rather through curiosity 1 Registres du Consistoire Genive, Schuchardt, 1884.
:
vol. de 1577-79. 2»
Dufour,
T G.B. ;
&
GIORDANO BRUNO
48 as to their
had
I
when
ways than because
satisfaction
;
came
the time
I
found them inviting; nor
so that after the reading or sermon, for the
of bread in their style, I
sacrament and the distribution
went about
my
business.
have
I
never taken the sacrament or observed their practices."
The
inquisitors pointed out that the statement
Bruno replied the
are always ^
Wherein I
have transgressed
I
did not sin, and
it
I
shall
have
told
never be
Moreover, in these heretical lands Catholics
found of me.
usages."
"
:
Herein
truth.
was hardly
by non-compliance he would make enemies.
credible, since
to
And
who do
be met with
not observe their
the Parisian diarist writes
" John Vincent
:
says that Jordanus paid penalty on his knees at Geneva for calumniating
M. de
la
Faye, a doctor of medicine of
Padua, and printing a sheet containing lOO committed by said he
La Faye
in
a single lesson.
would have attached himself
The
they not so dishonoured him. preaching at the present time."
(sic)
blunders
Then Jordanus
to their religion
said de
had
Faye
la
is
^
Bruno had been kindly received by the Italian reformers Geneva; he had been ill-treated by his own Church; he had achieved by this time his own esoteric interpretation of Christianity, and he would gladly have united himself
at
with a truly liberal Church. daily bread on
Indeed one could hardly get
any other terms than that of joining the
dominant Church of a place, the sacrament, that
Roman
or Protestant.
would present no insuperable
As
to
difficulty
were he once sure of the sincerity and Hberal wisdom of the religious community administering it. He did not dabble in theological niceties. '
Doc. xij. Auvray,
Peter and Paul, he
said,
had no
' L; op. ctt., sub Mar. 2oth 1586. De la Faye became Rector of the Academy in 1 580 and, later, held the chair of Philosophy. Prof. Mclntyre says of Bruno's antagonist that "his one title to fame is that he was the biographer of Beza."
——
:
AT GENEVA, LYONS AND TOULOUSE knowledge of
subtleties
;
they only
knew
that " this is
body"; and, while he accepted the Catholic transubstantiation, he gave
it
49
my
doctrine of
an interpretation of
his
own
the whole universe, in his philosophy, is an eternal trans-
mutation of the World-Soul, the Divine Word, the everpresent Absolute.
He
laughed at the fuss that men made
Bruno was
about "mysteries of Ceres and Bacchus."^ not
the
man
to
submit to the narrow
But the
Calvinism.
yoke
of
acrid
despotism of Geneva
ecclesia*stical
had prohibited the sacrament, and he was sent away remonstrating, not against the formal sentence, but against
what
it
He had
implied.
request that
to
it
should be
withdrawn, probably because there would otherwise be
no sustenance
for
him forthcoming
or from the incensed Italian
either from the printers
Community.
Henceforward
he had no leanings towards Calvinism. Once, on the occasion of some meticulous theologic
tiff,
Calvin himself was exiled with the polite intimation that
" the gates of the city were open." closed to dissentients. " that
I
could not stay
" if I
They were still unHaving been told," says Bruno, did not bring my mind to accept
the religion of that city, and, besides, having received aid from them,
Lyons, where withal for
my
Toulouse."
2
I
There was an
I
determined to leave, and
stayed a month daily bread
;
and
Italian colony at
I
no
journeyed to
but not finding the wherenecessities,
I
went on
to
Lyons, chiefly of emigrants
from Lucca. There were also several famous printing-presses,
which turned out more books every year than Paris could Such men as Boletus, Henricus Stephanus boast of.
—
Tocco, F ; Nuova Aniologia, 4° ser., CI, Sept. Archives of the Inquisition, vol. 1482-1600 A.D.,fol. 1379, 80, 81. Sigillus Sigillorum, " de Cereie et Baccho crudelitates" ; De ' Doc. ix. Immenso, I, i; Spaccio, III, i. *
Cfr. Doc. xij.
1902.
D
GIORDANO BRUNO
50
and Servetus had earned
So Bruno had
proofs.^
by reading
there
their living
good reason
hope
to
the
for
success he failed to obtain there.
Toulouse was a bulwark of orthodoxy and one of the The university boasted cities in France.
most intolerant its
10,000 students, most of them following the law-courses,
for
which Toulouse had acquired particular fame.
Petrarch
had studied law there, and there Lully had taught.
The Dominicans had a monastery in the city, wherein Aquinas but we may be sure that Bruno
lay the bones of
;
did not seek hospitality at a place which, for the it
aroused, presented so
much
memories
That
of interest to him.
easy charm of the children of the south, so attractive and ingratiating,
must have been
place throughout his Hfe, he speedily
He began
as in every
his, for here,
made acquaintances.
days than had
to enjoy brighter
during the past three years.
He was
fallen to his lot
asked to " read the
Sphere with certain students,"^ and continued
and teach philosophy
to
do
this
about six months.
for
His sympathies were with the concrete organic Catholicism, and not at
all
life
of
with the atomic individualism
and that tendency towards
of the Protestants
new
social
and
moral disruption which was already apparent
among them.
Geneva had cured him
of
score.
he was seized by the
officers of the Inquisition,
all illusion
on that
Roman Church
never understand that the belief of the
was expressed
in other
Until
he could
than " language of accommodation,"
and that truly instructed and wise Catholics would prefer rigid
and incomprehensible dogma
Bruno
rationalized explanation.
Greek
exile,
own
to his felt
esoteric
own city, which and deprived of the civic
a homeless wanderer from his
meant more than home '
Bartholmfess,
'
Doc.
ix.
C
;
to him,
/. B.,
t.
J,
and
as might an ancient
p. 68
;
Berti
;
op.
cit.,
p. io6.
1
AT GENEVA, LYONS AND TOULOUSE
Religion and religious functions
rights he held so dear.
were, in the sixteenth century, an
moral and
organization of
social
was an outlaw, an Moreover, there
is
it
break with ancient habit, and
to
and with God, which, even
Mass
nothing which
;
taken symbolically,
if
kept him from participation
knowing that
I
"
:
I
its
habit aside."
^
abandoning
for
And,
speak of the comforts of
of bread, not to
em-
always abstained from
was excommunicated
order and casting
is
Honourable scruple
phasized in receiving the sacrament.
my
and reprobation.
as exclusion from unity with his fellows
feels so acutely
that,
He
state.
civil
nothing which appeals, even to a rationalizing
is
Catholic, so persistently as does the
he
part of the
integral
each
of suspicion
object
hard
5
to
life,
be sure it
was
necessary in a foreign and catholic city that he should with
himself
reconcile
the
Jesuits were
;
selves as in the
The
Church.
men they mixed with the world and bore themmen of the world they possessed great influence
learned
;
most powerful quarters
sympathetic, even lax.
He
on the surface they were
;
trusted to priestly honour or
to the secrecy of the Confessional,
an
office,
however, of
which, as excommunicated, he had no right to avail himself.
He went to a Jesuit father ^ An "ordinary" chair in ;
The University here
but got no help. the
University
did that of Paris, from
its
ordinary lecturers
under charge of heresy, there was not bling-block before him.
post
;
says
:
The
for
"
I
it
was
my doctorate
Parisian diarist
theology, passed at ^ *
Doc. ix. Auvray,
L
;
op.
He was
vacant.
tells
cit.,
so,
although
stum-
As
a
first step,
he
through the Dean of Arts." *
us that " Bruno
Rome."*
;
this particular
peculiarly qualified for the
to teach philosophy.
procured
fell
did not require attendance on Mass, as
This
" Doc. xij. sub Dec. 7, 1585.
is
is
a doctor of
a mistake of course, ^
Doc. ix.
'
GIORDANO BRUNO
52 and
easy to see
it is
how
it
The
arose.
diarist gives clear
evidence that he did not catch or remember everything
Bruno self
him, and
told
the
doctorate,"
Thomas
it
was Bruno's habit to call himtheology." ^ " The theses for his Whatever St continues, " were
Roman
a " doctor in
diarist
says in his
'
summary
against the Gentiles
true
is
and Whatever the Master of Sentences (St Peter Lombard) '
'
'
says
'
Summa and
He
true.'
is '
Armed
'
students
in his
all
" ^
with his degree, Bruno entered into the contest In those days, as
for the chair.
of our
ranks St Thomas above
Disputed Questions.'
Scottish
He must
Universities.
Rectorship
for the
still
lay with
the election
had done so from the
it
:
Universities,
first
the
beginnings of
have got a considerable reputation
through his private lessons, for the choice
I
was appointed and
presented myself to the meeting and
De Anima
approved, and gave instruction on Aristotle's
and other philosophical subjects."^
"
on him.
fell
This text-book would
give him an opportunity of treating a popular subject in his
own
original
way.
The nature and
had been eagerly debated
destiny of the soul
for a century, with all the inevit-
able rancour and vituperation which attend on disputation
without
of his
He
Probably the new professor,
knowledge.
real
whose zeal and courage,
modicum
in the end,
always got the better
of tact, contrived to arouse bitter opposition.
could hardly have avoided expounding the germs of
the philosophy which
there
was plenty
was shaping
to offend
evidence at the Venetian
trial,
in certain disputable points
mind
itself in his
therein.
In
the
MS.
a passage which runs
which
I
gave
forth,
;
and
of his :
" But
and proposed
1 He inscribed himself in the roll of students of the Protestant university of Marburg, July 25, 1586, as " Jordanus Nolanus Neapoli-
tanus Theologias Doctor Romanensis." '
Auvray,
L
;
loc. cit.
'
Doc.
ix.
AT GENEVA, LYONS AND TOULOUSE
53
conclusions
..."
opposition
and elsewhere Bruno wrote of the rowdy bear-
;
This points to some
cancelled.*
is
ing of students towards him at Toulouse, Paris and Oxford.^
At
the two last
named
we know
universities,
that his attacks
on Aristotle aroused violent resentment. Little freedom of thought was allowed at Toulouse in days when France was distracted
by
faction
and Catholics and Huguenots were
each other's throats. arrival in the city
at
During the year which saw Bruno's
and the
complete year of his stay
first
there ( 1 579-80) the Huguenots
made more than
forty attacks
on neighbouring towns.
The passage
referring to disputes in the school having
been cancelled, Bruno continues civil
wars,
reason
;
and went on
but did
it
He would seem when he was not
:
"
I left
Paris."
to
^
on account of the
A
very excellent
stand alone ? to
have employed his time at Toulouse,
teaching, in writing a big book on LuUian
artificial memory which he entitled "Clavis Magna" "The Great Key." He conceived that he had
method and
included and systematized in
it all
the theories
and
practical
devices of previous writers on these subjects and this in a
complete philosophic form.
The work was never
although Bruno frequently refers to
it
published,
in his earlier writings
;
doubt that parts of it were the bases of his " Seal of Seals " * and " Combinatory Lamp." ^ but there
'
'
Doc. Doc.
is little
ix.
'
ix.
'
" De Lampade combinatoria omnium Lullianorum etc.
J.
Bruni Oratio
Mclntyre; op.
Lulliana.
Est
et
Valedictoria.
cit.,p. 17.
UNICA clavis ad
:
CHAPTER
VI
FIRST STAY IN PARIS
There was series of
The seventh
relative peace in France.
of a
monstrous wars had been ended by a patched-up
Wrecked
agreement.
farms and
fields laid
and unpeopled
villages,
burnt
waste bore witness everywhere
to the
cities
fury of faction and the malevolent rancour of opponents
who
disguised personal hatred under the convenient
From
of religion.
mask
the disappearance of tolerant classic
paganism, the unformulated aspirations or discontent of races and classes found in this or that religious creed a
and now the opposed forces which
suitable rallying cry;
made
for Hberty
state
on the other
on the one hand and set
up
for
the
compact
their separate religious banners.
All the scoundrels in France gathered round the one or
the other of these;
they dubbed themselves Catholic or
Huguenot;
was
all
set loose.
that
atavistic
in
human nature was
and most primitive passions were " Pick me out," wrote Montaigne, " pick me out
aroused, and
all
the vilest
from the Catholic army
all
the
men who
are actuated either
by a pure zeal for religion or by loyalty to their country and you will not find enough to form one single company." Everywhere poverty, hunger, suffering and disease were the result of these wars. Bruno journeyed to Paris through provinces marked by scath and bale. All the way, to use the words of Castelnau, was " one long bleeding wound."
Bruno crystallizes his experience
in three significant
" the French uproar," " the French fury S4
"
phrases
and " the bloody
FIRST STAY IN PARIS Seine."
The
^
mind and
55
men
best of the sons of France,
of broad
and
dignified character, brilliant scholars
original
thinkers had, for the most part, been slaughtered or exiled.
Montaigne retired speaks of
it
remote home of his ancestors
to the
guard or sentinel but the
The
;
he
as the only chateau in France " which had no stars."
Gallic fury, which
had been
loose on Italy
let
and
now expending itself at home. Yet the invaders brought back a novel appreciation of letters and refinement, coupled with a far greater appreciabrought ruin there, was
When
tion of luxury.
pawn-
the descendant of Florentine
brokers became the mother of French kings, fashion aped the superior civilization of Italy
came
;
and
in
way
this
Italy
to exercise
an enduring influence on the quick aptitude
The
slaughter of St Bartholomew's day had not
of France.
wholly extinguished the torch of the Renaissance which
French hands had snatched up literature
:
it
still
burned brightly
and art; and Frenchmen shewed
genius for history, memoirs and the essay. just published the first
A
two books of
in
innate
their
Montaigne had
his immortal work.
group of French humanists, although unpossessed by
passion and unendowed with originality, had aimed at a rich vocabulary
and a splendid
style.
Italian literature as their example,
most of them were
in years,
and
architects
the later
French
living.
artists
imitated Italian models, breathing into
still
their copies a grace Gallic.
still
They took
and although stricken
At Court,
and refinement which
the
is
peculiarly
Queen Mother and her
Italian
followers were copied with such absurd detail as changed
permanently the very pronunciation of the language
French o was flattened by fashion terrible
and protracted
manner of ^
Italians
strife
from each
Lamp. Comb., Dedic;
throughout
little
the
;
In spite of the
into a.
the
land,
all
State came pouring over
Spaccio, Dial. II,
iij ;
Causa, Dial.
I.
!
GIORDANO BRUNO
56
the mountains to find their El or in French cities;
Dorado
most
and, for the
French Court
at the
they were
part,
cordially welcomed.
was
Paris
chiefly
The
a mass of miserable hovels.
luxury of the Court contrasted strangely with the squalor of the streets; the ignorant noble, caring for nothing but
horsemanship and sport,^ was
warfare,
implied the famished beggar.
Even the
a
which
figure
priests besought
Yet
alms as they paraded the streets with open missal.^ Italian
traders did well.
and
Italian astrologers
actors,
teachers of horsemanship and fencing-masters, doctors and scholars found a temporary or permanent
The
pulpits
were
filled
by
Italian
home
in France.
preachers and eager
ears drank in draughts of eloquence in Italianised French. Italian professors
were appointed
to vacant chairs at the
Small wonder that Bruno cast his eyes
seats of learning.
on Paris Moreover, the University, although she was no longer mistress of theologic thought and arbitress in Philosophy,
and her schools were now badly attended, maintained some measure of her ancient prestige.
whom we find calling name Giordano again, arrived in end of 1581. It was a common thing
Furnished with his degree, Bruno, himself by his monkish Paris towards the
wander from place
to place and fight their by securing popularity or influence. He says " When I went to Paris, in order to get me known and my measure taken, I gave thirty expositions of the
for scholars to
way
into office
:
Thirty Divine Attributes, taken from the
Summa Theologia
of] St
Thomas
part of [the
first
"I have always admired Catholic theologians, particularly St Thomas, whose works I have always kept at hand, perused and '
Castiglione,
»
Doc.
xij.
B
;
[Aquinas]."
// Cortigiano; Tasso,
T
;
*
Lettere. »
Doc.
ix.
FIRST STAY IN PARIS praised.
have them
I
still
Angelic Doctor, as the philosophy,
was no
students of Paris. in the
and hold them
The
dear.'"^
exponent
accepted
less highly rated
Catholic
of
by the professors and
Humanism had never
taken deep root
University, and, after the massacre of 1572, true
scholarship languished and
What
57
Catholic
studies
triumphed.
one?
choice of subject could have been a happier
Bruno's disquisitions were so successful that he remained in Paris, lecturing
on mnemonics and the
improved by himself, throwing into philosophic views. fire
and
originality.
He was a He would
standing on one leg as he did
and convincing
:
often he
it
the
art of Lully as
germs of
his
stimulating teacher,
own
full
of
dictate with great rapidity,
He
so.
could be persuasive
became provocative and
tactless.
His pupils say that he was marvellously ready of thought
and speech
he could deal with any subject that turned
;
he often employed a barbarous Latin jargon, but
up;
became truly eloquent at times he would carry his hearers away with him and his lecture room was packed.^ ;
His desire " achieved
to get
known and
measure taken
his
he was offered a chair at the University.'
;
"
was Un-
able to accept an ordinary professoriate, since, unlike the
University of Toulouse, that of Paris
Mass
made attendance
obligatory, " which," says Bruno, "
doing, having
left
my
order and cast off
I
at
always avoided
my
habit.
...
I
continued my teaching." His reputation reached the Court. " I got me such a name that King Henry III summoned
me one day
to discover from
me
if
the
memory which
possessed was natural or acquired by magic
him that
it
'
Doc.
2
Nostitz,
did not
;
I
satisfied
Artificium Aristotelico
— Lullio — Rameum,
BregcB,
— Eglin, R; B. Summa terminorum, prafatio. Ritiershaus, in Miscell. —Toland, J Schoppiu^ Doc.
161 5. ^
I
come from sorcery but from organised
xij.
J
art.
J.
ix.
Works, 1747,
;
vol.
i.
letter to
GIORDANO BRUNO
58 knowledge
;
and, following
printed, entitled to
'
this, I
The Shadows of
Forthwith he gave
His Majesty.
Lectureship with a salary."
memory
got a book on
which
Ideas,'
I
dedicated
me an Extraordinary
Bruno invented an enigma
1
and paradigm whereby the King might remember the Book of Genesis, and " a fruitful figure of letters, signs and
Among
^
bers."
num-
other subjects he probably lectured on the
Physics of Aristotle.* Giordano's royal patron was of a singular and
He had
disposition.
neurotic
and
received
received the fatal inheritance of a
temperament;
unstable
and quick
imitate
some
difficult
cultivation
;
he was quick to
His susceptible mind had
to change.
but his nurture was even more
unfortunate for one of such unbalanced disposition than usual with the ordinary prince
:
is
he was brought up in a
sty of luxury and encouraged to let himself go to each
momentary impulse. Tasso believed that Henry's character was injured in critical years by the dissipations which were forced on him during his sojourn in Italy.* His contemporaries maintained that he ting, a
man
moment and
was sound
at heart, but vacilla-
of whims, subject to the allurements of the the seductions of his companions.
he would parade
in the street as a penitent
;
One day
another day
he would don female garb and enact the painted harlot at a banquet, graced by the sanctioning presence of the Queen-
Mother.
He
filled
dalous youths.
his Court with loose
women and
scan-
Often well-intentioned, his favour could
not be depended on, for he frequently became irresolute,
incapable and indolent.
He
order to fondle lap-dogs.
in
left
affairs of state to others
So nervous
that a thunder-
storm would frighten him into the cellars of his palace, he '
' *
" De Umbris : Ars Memories, near Doc. ix. the end. Tocco, F Op. inedite de G. B. Nap., 1891,/. loo. Tasso, Torquato Prose Diverse, Firenze, 1875, vol. ij.,p. 286. ;
;
;
FIRST STAY IN PARIS
59
could be rash and bold at times, welcoming adventure and
He was
playing the man.
A
setting traps for his foes.
among statesmen
skilful
he was nevertheless devout, ordering prayers
for the success
of a projected murder and attending mass during
A fribble,
plishment.
in
seeker after forbidden things,
its
accom-
he preserved some interest in things
of the mind, and he had learned in Italy that to patronize learning and art adds to the prestige of a prince. as Tasso
Henry
III
favoured Itahan scholars, founded
professorial chairs
and augmented the endowment of
to the vulgar,
some
While,
the nobility of France abandoned letters
tells us,
De Thou thought
others.^
have made a good prince admitted that he was a
that,
with
all
his vices
in a better age,
man
he would
and D'Aubigny
of good parts who, as Tacitus
said of Galba, would have been judged worthy of the royal
power
if
he had never reigned.
Henry was but little in Paris he spent most of his time when Bruno saw him he saw his better side. In at Blois consequence of this and of the favour shown him favour ;
;
—
of which he got so
Henry than he
of
light of nations " like
a mirror."
^
—Bruno thought more highly
little in life
deserved.
He
calls
ears, and, as addressed to a reigning
necessity then.
and
it
monarch,
But the adulation of great
of insincerity.
piled,"
him the " admirable
and speaks of his " first-rate mind, most Such praise sounds extravagant to modern
The age was one
was Bruno's nature
to
folk
is
was a formal
of hyperbole " triple-
bespangle his friends
and bespatter his foes with reckless superlative. should
suggestive
And we
not forget that, in the i6th century, the throne
was
Archives curieuses, 1834-40, vols, x, xi.—De Thou, J. A ; Historia Duplex, Scipion Histoire de Henri III, 1633.— D'Aubigny, T, Agrippa ; Les Tragiques, 1616.— L'Estoile, P de Journal de Henri III, 1620 (?).— Bartholmfess, C Op. cit., vol. i, *
sui temp., 1620.
—
;
;
p. 8l. *
De
Umbris.
GIORDANO BRUNO
6o
regarded as a sacred temple of protection and
liberality,
a
sanctuary for learning and a source of honour and power the Court, too,
was
scholarship, science
ment of
;
the school of manners, the patron of
and the
letters rested
arts
;
hope of the advance-
all
on princes and nobles
the very
;
means of livehhood might depend on their favour; the Court was the avenue to success. And, even in our own simple-minded and undesigning days,
who
it
not every one
is
be so downright as was the Ettrick shepherd and address an antagonist as " damned sir " or subscribe shall
himself " yours disgusted."
But Bruno, although he the time,
felt real
servile in his tone
scious of his
is
in with the courtly fashion of
;
and there
he lauds the King, but he
is
noble as to
;
And
concoction."
nothing
also con-
asserts it. In the sentence " addressed as " famous and magnanimous
informed that the work presented to him
the greatest
is
is
own worth and
wherein Henry
he
fell
gratitude to Henry,
its
is
"
among
subject and remarkable in
its
Bruno's gratitude was exceptional in
When away
being no mere passing flush of feeling.
England, he extolled Henry,i and
in
Southern Germany, when Henry had incurred the reproach of all Europe,
Bruno had a work printed
in
later, in
which he allowed a laudatory
preface, written in Paris, to stand.^ It
has been considered uncertain whether the " Extra-
ordinary Lectureship with a salary," which the King gave
Bruno, was at the Sorbonne or at the College de Cambrai,
an institution which bore several names and
known
as the College de France?
doubt that he was appointed to the
I
is
generally
have, however,
latter college,
little
and think
^
Cena, Proemiale episiola
*
Acrotismus, Viteberga, apud Zachariam Cratonem, anno 1588.
Compare Centum '
was
Cr^vier, also
J.
Spaccio, Dial. Ill,
iij.
Impressum Parisiis 1586. Hist, de PUniv. de Paris, 1761, //, 407-8. as the College of the Three Bishops.
B.
known
;
et viginti articuli.
L
;
It
1
FIRST STAY IN PARIS
6
SO because,
first, although founded in 1 348, it was remodelled and endowed by Francis II and remained fostered and protected by the Throne. Secondly, it was a modern school, opposed to the teaching of the " ignorant Sorbonne," which
had pronounced " Greek, Hebrew and elegant Latin to be the language of heretics " and directed its attention to more Catholic studies. As more Hberal than the Sorbonne, the College of Cambrai was less unsuited to the highly unconventional teaching of Bruno, and, although both establish-
ments now slavishly followed
was
Aristotle, not long before,
it
Cambrai that the would be subverter of his Pierre de la Ram^e (Ramus) delivered his lectures.^
at the
logic,
Thirdly, Besler,
who
after the title of
one of his works
acted as one of Bruno's copyists, wrote :
" a treatise by Giordano
Bruno, verily the living sap of the Cambrai,"
^
and Bruno
himself calls a work, published in 1588, the " Acrotismus
Brunus of the Cambrai."*
of Jordanus
Fourthly, two of King and one dedicated to Paris, were printed in the
his works, that dedicated to the
the Venetian
Ambassador
at
immediate neighbourhood of the College of Cambrai, as set forth
on
their title-pages.*
Paris (1585)
Bruno was
Again, on his second
partly supported
by
is
visit to
friends
and
dwelt with them,^ and the diarist already quoted notes that
A;
—
du College de France, 1893,//. 240 sqq. pp. 384-86. ' Tractatus sicccus immo G. B. Nolani camoeracensis, Erlangen Codex 1279. Vide Tocco, F ; Opere inedite di G. B., Nap., 1891, pp. 98 sqq. ^ "Camoera" is bad J. B. Nolani Camoeracensis Acrotismus. Latin for "camgra" or "camara," an arched roof or chamber = French "chambre," taken as = Cambrai. * De Umbris Idearum Parisiis apud ^gid. Gorbinum, sub insigne Spei, e regione gymnasii Cameracensis, 1582, cum privilegio Parisiis apud jSgidium De compendiosa Architectura regis. Gorbinum, sub insigne Speiprope collegium Cameracense, 1582. ' Doc, ix. ^
Lefranc,
Crdvier
—
;
op. cit,
Hist,
t.
vj,
;
GIORDANO BRUNO
62
" he lodges near the College of Cambrai."
*
It is
unlikely that
he then held any chair, or he would not have required such aid,
and the
fact that his friends lived close to the College
points to that as the one over, the
was held
course, It is
to
at the College
which we
and not
More-
post.
shall
come
in
due
at the Sorbonne.^
Cambrai was opposed to the and Bruno consulted a Jesuit. But Prof. Mclntyre
true that the College of
Jesuits,
mistaken
is
where he had held a
famous disputation,
supposing that he did so during his
in
to Paris.*
He
tion of the
Spanish Ambassador.*
first visit
did so during his second stay, at the instiga-
Bruno was kindly received by his fellow-professors. At first, at least, his lectures were popular,^ and he speaks of the attendance of learned persons both at his public
and
He made the acquaintance of Regnault, Henry of Angouleme, Grand Prior of France. Angouleme was the bastard son of Henry II by a Scots lady named Leviston, and, therefore, was half-brother to Manuscript copies of Bruno's second book " The the King. private teaching.®
secretary to
Chant of Circe his
friend
to
"
'
get
were the
in circulation,
work
" occupied by weightier matters,"
King, Regnault undertook
D'Angouleme.
It
of Ideas," (1582).
its
and Regnault wished
printed. i.e.
Since Bruno was
the instruction of the
production, dedicating
appeared, bound up with the "
Among
it
to
Shadow
other influential persons
whom
know was Giovanni Moro, the accomplished ambassador of Venice. Moro had just replaced Lorenzo Priuli, who was destined to preside over Bruno's trial at Venice so Priuli may have known Bruno at Paris or heard of his reputation for heresy, which, as we shall see, was afloat.
he got
'
to
Auvray, L ; op. cit., sub bth Dec. 1585. " Mclntyre sub 2?>ik and 2ijih May.
^
Ibid.,
*
Docs, xij, xvij.
°
Centum
Filesac).
et viginti articuli;
'
Nostitz
;
;
op. cit.,fi. 20.
loc. cit.
Acrotismus Camoeracensis {Epist. ad ' Cantus Circaus.
FIRST STAY IN PARIS
63
He inscribed to Moro his " SubstanCe And Completion Of The Art Of LuUy," ^ (i 582). Lecturing and correcting proofs make heavy work in themselves but Bruno's energy was ;
unbounded and expended itself in close and continuous application. The same year which witnessed the publication of three Latin books saw that of a fourth, this time a comedy in Italian called " The Chandler." ^ He was in the royal favour, held a royal appointment and was not unfriended at Court. Yet all was not so well
with him as
seemed.
it
•
could
it
be with a
man who
My
thoughts
English contemporary, "
might say with his
are stitched to the stars "
He
How ?
*
sat apart, a solitary thinker, a
somewhat disappointed
man.
Excommunication debarred him from
learn
how he was
the title-page of his play: he
is
"
il
fastidito,"
But he has learned
with his stomach turned." as
We
his due.
regarded, or regarded himself, from
"the man
to accept life
comes, with serene outlook and even temper
it
he
;
declares that he
is
" cheery
yet surely there
is
a sub-acid flavour in the announcement
that he
is
when sad and sad
" an academician of no academy
strong, sad
man who
"
in
" *
cheer
—he
;
that
is
thinks for himself, and, therefore,
stands alone. It
behoved him
wary person. Paris,
^
and
to
The
walk warily
;
and Bruno was not a
Catholic Reaction
his printed
was triumphant
books contained dubious doctrine.
in It
De Compendiosa ArcMiectura et Complimento Artis Lulli. Ad D. D. Joannem Morum pro serenissima Veneiorum
illustrissimuin
Rep. apud christianiss. Gall, et Poloii. regem Henricum III legatum. " // Candelajo. ' John Lyly ; Endimioti, Act I, sc. i. The phrase seems to have been Americanized by Emerson who talks about hitching one's
waggon '
" In
to the stars. tristitia
Candelajo.
hilaris,
in
hilaritate
tristis,"
Title-page
of
//
;
GIORDANO BRUNO
64
hardly likely that his lectures were free from
is
all offence.
There had been a time when Ramus and Postel attacked crowded benches and it was still possible new ideas under cover of the Stagirite's mantle former attacks had not been made on the Aristotelian
Aristotle before
;
to introduce
but
Bruno had once held with
Cosmology.
Aristotle,
Copernicus had obliged him to change his mind.^ as accepted and expounded by the schoolmen,
be a
pillar of Christian
philosophy ; the
new
but
Aristotle,
was held
to
science over-
threw more than one foundation-stone in the teaching of the Church, and Bruno never missed an opportunity of assailing Aristotle
on a
side
which was generally unquestioned.
Pundits, too, like poets, are an irritable folk.
the sixteenth century, were not invariably
breadth of vision, and they were apt to
Scholars, in
endowed with grow waspish.
Students at the universities were undisciplined in manners, and the natural genius of the student calls on him to seize every opportunity of converting the lecture-room into a
Moreover, in social intercourse, Bruno was
bear-garden. far
from cautious
on
his tongue.
what fermented
in his brain must out somewhat confused manuscript record wherein he runs, or was reported as running, two separate ;
^
In a
stays in Paris together, he told the Inquisitors that he
left
England on account of tumults which were brewing.* But, from the peace of Fleix in 1580 to the outbreak of the "war of the three Henrys " in 1585, there was an almost complete lull in religious and political strife. France
for
Bruno must have been conscious
that
personal trouble
His scandalous doctrines got talked about. Opinions so unhallowed shocked every kind of Christian.
loomed ahead.
Sir
H. Cobham, the EngUsh Ambassador '
Infinito, Dial. I.
2
Cfr.
'
Doc.
in Paris,
Cena; Eroict furori, Argomento del Nolano. ix.
was
in
FIRST STAY IN PARIS
65
correspondence with Sir Henry Walsingham, the Queen's Secretary. Walsingham was a master-organizer of espial, and it was Cobham's business" to find out everything that was going on and send the news home. The Ambassador told the Secretary, in a letter dated March 28th 1583: "II S'' Doctor Jordano Bruno Nolano, a professor in philosophy, intendeth to pass into England; whose religion I cannot commend."^ Whatever may have happened, Bruno de-
parted from France bearing a letter of recommendation
from the King
who was
his
evident that
to
Michel de Castelnau, Lord of Mauvissiere,
Ambassador
Henry
had some respect
at the
Court of Elizabeth.
It is
could be broad-minded on occasion, and
for intellectual pluck
and power
:
it
softens
one's judgement of that egregious monarch. 1
Elton,
dum
O
;
to note 9.
Modern
Studies, Arnold, London, 1907,/. 334) adden-
CHAPTER
VII
THE EARLY WORKS
The Shadows of Ideas
I.
In
Gorbin, whose shop was
1582,
under
the
sign
of
" Hope," produced the second of Bruno's printed works,
which has been preserved down to our own De Umbris Idearum " " The Shadows of Ideas " was dedicated to Henry and issued "with his privilege." but the
Now
first
"
time.
Chicus ^sculanus asserted " that Solomon wrote a
commentary " In work on the shadows of in his
Spheram and perhaps this statement suggested the title to Bruno for more than once he refers to Solomon and his Song in this book.^ The work aimed at setting before the ideas,
;
King,
men
of cultured mind, scholars and students an im-
proved art of remembering displayed
is
;
but, since the
mnemonic system
loosely associated with metaphysical bases, the
latter are treated of in the first part of the
book as " Shadows
is entitled the "Art of The first part is frankly Neo-Platonic. Bruno had absorbed much Neo-Platonism it was a popular doc-
of Ideas," while the second part
Memory."
;
trine in his time.
It is
true that he despised
ponent, Pico della Mirandola the
;
^
its
Italian ex-
but the symbolic doctrine of
One True Light approached
so near to the conceptions
1 Bartholmfess, C /. Bruno, Paris, 1846, //, p. 190. Tocco, F ; Opere Latine di G. B, Firenze, 1889, p. 44. The Canticles were supposed to be symbolic. " I sat down under his shadow with great " Until the day break and shadows flee delight," Canticles^ II, 3 away," ibid., 17 ; also IV, 6.^ 2 Auvray, L ; op. cit., sub Dec. "jth. ;
;
66
THE EARLY WORKS he was forming, or had already formed as
God
of
that he had no scruple in using
67 to the
He
it.
the doctrine of universal animism, which
immanence
accepts, too,
was held by
ancient world and generally received by thinkers of his age.
The
treatise,
is
" Art of in
the
own
Memory," following the philosophic divisions which
three
contain
some
rudi-
mentary psychology and an attempt at mental analysis.
The
notions which
Lully conceived to be irreducible are
number of concepts, chosen for mnemonic method. Bruno
replaced by an increased
their convenience in illustrating
'^
retains Lully's mechanical arrangements, the various com-
partments bearing symbolic labels for economy and concen-
There
tration of thought.
to
however,
little
serious attempt
Severe orderly arrangement would
at systematic treatment.
seem
is,
have been repellent
to all the
men
of the Renais-
was by no means conformable with the swoop and circlings of Bruno on the wing. The book was intended to be generally acceptable and therefore its author sance, and
it
;
reserved much which must have been maturing
His thought was
to
in his brain.
be quickened and strengthened by the
clarifying stimulus of opposition
and contumely
;
his bold
and penetrative insight to be sharpened by the obtuse folly of his foes. His present object was to arouse the mind of his reader without incensing him unduly. Eastern ideas reached Plato, and he endeavoured to but Neo-Platonism retranslated thought
formulate them; into
imagery.^
Bruno never
Neo-Platonic method.
He
entirely departed
often
with a mystic symbolism which
is
from the
associates his concepts
not always a mere aid to
memory, but implies some subtle and profound cosmic sympathy. Words, nay alphabets, he holds are the shades ^ *
Tocco ; loc, dt. Zimmermann, R
IVien, 1858.
;
Gesch.
d.
Aesthetik als pMlosoph. Wissenschaft,
GIORDANO BRUNO
68
of things, and things are the vestiges of the Being of beings.
Throughout, he presupposes an ultimate identity of thought
and thing
memory and nature
of
;
and the unknown
of
;
what
and power.
of fact
;
knowable
is
This opinion has
The
been pretty generally held by the profounder thinkers.
age was so convinced of the reality of a single principle that
sought
it
eagerly for
the
of
Elixir
and the
Life
Philosopher's stone. It
had been shown by the later Greeks that sense-perwas not to be depended on for the discovery of
ception
The Neo-Platonists
truth.
therefore relied
of intuition concerning high matters
;
on the directness
they regarded intuition
as having the force of perception on a higher plane.
was
characteristic
also
of
But he held man
influenced Bruno.
We
achieving the very truth.^ Ineffable
One
;
"
mystics and
the
for the light
to
This greatly
it
be incapable of
are but shadows of the
which reaches us
is
confused
and contradictory and mixed with darkness; we perceive good and evil together and in contrast, the beautiful associated with the ugly to which it is in opposition.*
Looked
at
from the eternal point of view,
worst evils are perfection; perfect
and everything
The human ship
:
it
soul
is in it,
is
strives to
to the
even the
all,
everything descends from the
wing a homeward
human body
but not of
it,^
as
flight.*
a pilot to the
is
and, being associated with
body, the soul perceives truth confusedly and as in flux.
But the Idea draws us on ; and, in itself, it is not abstract but concrete and articulated.' Our ideas, we must remember, are as an admixture of light and shadow and not that absolute truth which they can never reach
>
De Umbr, Ibid.,
«
Ibid.,
^ Ibid.,
Int. I.
Ibid., Int. VII.
Conct IV, V. Cone. V, VI
Int. II.
Enn., iv, Enn., Cfr. Plot.
Cfr. Plot.
;
;
'
Ibid., Cone.
4,
»
36
;
*
;
but none-
XXI.
lUd., Int.
v, 5, 12
iv, 3, 21
XV.
;
;
vj, 5, 12.
iv, 7, 1. '
Ibid., Int.
II
THE EARLY WORKS theless the
mind can
ing unity in
69
above the things of sense, perceiv-
rise
Mystic union with the Divinity was
plurality.'-
experienced by Plotinus and others.^
From
the acceptance
of this mystical experience thus avowed in this early work,
Bruno never departed.
But
works, wherein he
in his later
reproduces far less Neo-Platonism and becomes vastly more
he proclaims that by the exercise of reason also we
original,
Who
can attain comprehensive contact with the Absolute,
God is immanent as well man share a measure of the
as transcendent; for does not Ineffable Light ?
The
*
connection of ideas naturally corresponds with things.^
But memory
does
we may mend
so,
natural operation.*
and uses
it
by working on the
He feels He
it.
inter-
of
that
apt to break down, and, where
is
it
lines of its
the significance of the principle
of the Association of Ideas, which Aristotle indicate,
is
and object of our search.'
at once the source
was
the first to
also culls the best from
all
writers
of his time on mnemonics, as he told us in the preface he
intended to do.
Our
ideas being
shadows of these shadows
in
shadows of
truth,'
we use
We can economize
mnemonics.
thought by means of signs the nature of which
is
that they
are shadows or traces.
To force,
fix attention,
maintain interest and arouse emotional
he introduces mythological subjects.*
Imagine what a good "draw" a really useful
tool
for
unearthing the buried treasures of the mind would be to
men who
But Bruno was found books so hard to come at endowed with a prodigious memory, and he falsely attributed Probably his natural power to the artifices he employed. !
the expectations he excited were not Cone. V.
'
Cone, xvij-xix.
fulfilled.
There
Cfr. Porph.
Ibid.,
This forms the subject-matter of the Eroiei Furori. = Ibid., Int. VIL De Umbris, Int. VII. ' Cfr. Plato; Repub. Ibid., Int. XIII. De Umb : Ars Memoriae, Pars II, De Subj. §§ 2-5.
' ' '
no
v, Plot. 23.
'
"
;
is
vij. 515.
;
GIORDANO BRUNO
yo
great novelty in his mnemonics thieves " of his generation.
;
he was one of the " celestial
There
are, in
De
shadowings of his philosophic syncretism
Umbris, fore-
but he has not
;
yet welded the conclusions of others into a vital whole or
made them
live
anew
own
in his
completer thought
;
the
work
tentative and contains only the germ of the Bruno was presently to appear ; but such remarks as the one
is
religious mysteries
mere
are
institutions
to train
that that
human
eyes/for the perception of " the steep passage from darkness to light " are truly Brunian.
He
introduces symbolic verse of his
own
composition and
gives us brisk dialogue between Hermes, Philotimus and Logifer, with thrusts, less severe than those which were to follow, at the doctors
and masters of the schools.
Scholars had travelled a far road from the elegant Latin of
Bruno's Latin
Cicero.
bad
ledges that his Latin
One
is full
of neologisms
his prosody, abominable.
;
coarse and rough.
is
finds the elements of
delights in brisk
But
it is
alive.
Bruno's manner in this early work
and they may be conveniently examined
He
his syntax is
;
In a later work he acknow-
here.
and varied dialogue which knows
Sometimes the thread of mystical symbolism
no curb.
which runs through
it finds a natural expression in metre and there he breaks into verse, which, no less every here
than prose, he writes with impetuous fury.
one
is
He
tori.
to
has
At
its
worst,
reminded that he came from the land of improvvisais far
too
much
in a
hurry to be over careful as
and never dreams of polish; for the thing he declare is infinitely more important than the manner
style,
to
of declaring failed to
it.
amend
craftsman-like
thought;
his
Later, he hinted at being too diffuse,^ but his
ways.
mind
In his verses, there
is little
of
His pen flows as rapidly as his
skill. is '
full
to bursting point;
Spaccio, III,
ij.
he indulges
1;
THE EARLY WORKS in
7
He
wide circlings and side-long sweeps.
most unlikely allegory;
for the
and Swedenborg and Emerson, products of the
human mind
and
fell
in this
century,
he
perceiving
own
Dante the
all
are symbolic of higher truth the
analogies
Hence,
whether sacred or profane. for authority, he supports
to
nature and
all
into line with
deep
casts about
for to him, as
conviction
in
fact
and
of his fable,
an age of respect
in
an argument by drawing on
his
vast lore; he lugs in learning by the ears, not for
display but to reinforce his meaning. impartially:
Cabala and
There
is
He
does this quite
the Bible, the Pre-Socratic philosophers, the classic
myth are introduced as
of equal weight.
real unity underlying each of his
each intruding half-thought to burst into vivid
works
;
but
all
For, each trivial occasion,
give the impression of disorder.
as a spark which he allows
is
and vagrant flame
:
his
imagination
plays riotously round his immediate theme, and then sud-
Sometimes
denly leaps aside. If the
purpose.
men
this is a trick,
done of set
of the Renaissance rejoiced in
life,
towards the close of the period they expressed their vigour
Hence Bruno lost no opportunity of keeping awake his readers by the oddness of his antics he surprises them by bombardments and unexpected raking fires.
in violence.
;
He
thinks to throw each noble design, each lofty thought
into relief
by the dodge (not wholly unknown to modern Prolixity and the grossly
authors) of smart paradox.
grotesque entertained his age:
overdone: there
is
insight, soaring imagination, novel
have a setting of sheer
indecency.
they bore ours.
not a thought of repose.
jest
and
He was
All
is
Penetrative
wisdom, severe thought
jeer,
clumsy buffoonery and
justified
in
being
sure
of
himself; but his bombastic self-assertion repels the modern reader. is
He
delights in contrast
and
invective.
His polemic
implacable and often unjust, but less so than that of his
!
GIORDANO BRUNO
72
contemporaries and immediate successors readily than
they to the
Tocco remarks,^ no thought of
life
and he flies less argument of abuse. As
final
always noble
his motive is
"
and proved
^
;
it
by
he " made
;
and
sacrifice
sufier-
ing and sealing his faith in death.
The Incantation of Circe
II.
Books of the period bore odd titles to catch the eye. Bruno called his next work the "Cantus Circaeus" "The Incantation Of Circe." The Homeric sorceress, who transforms men into beasts, discusses with her handmaiden the human vice which each kind of beast represents, and each beast and its vice are memorised under initial letters. Now the nature of memory is occult, and the recalling of ideas may be regarded as a sort of magical process. So the art of cantation.
memory may be regarded as a fascinating inThe dialogue is full of bitter satire on human
A
depravity. locutors.
second dialogue follows with different inter-
"Art
previous
more
treats
It
of
directly
Memory"
and precisely than the There
of that subject.
attempt to localise the functions of the brain physical of
the
than in are
principle
followed
mental process.* ideas
De Umbris and
own.
merely to
Bruno found where
obscure those
few
perilous
in
it
who had
doctrine.
in
it
that age
convenient
was wiser the
But
which
obscurities,
superior minds
to
Later on
occasionally
understand
copious illustrations of method
The work abounds
given.
were as attractive our
The
of
of
more
to
as in to
Tocco,
'
Bruno ;
'
Cantus
capacity really to
Bruno never erred
F
Con/erenza, Firenze, 1886. ; Eroici, Dial. Ill, beginning.
Circceus, Dial. II.,
be
suggest
on the side of over-caution *
an the
closely
conditions association
is
is
as
Prima pars
Th.,
Cap
I.,%
i.
THE EARLY WORKS III.
The Lullian Architecture
same year appeared a
In the
Of The Art
Architecture
73
of
was published by Gorbin and was
book, the " Brief
third
LuUy With
Its
Completion."
^
duction of Lully's " Great Art."
way
a key to the structure of the universe and the ready
a complete philosophy, proceeding from foundations of
knowledge
;
he conceived of
it
It
more than a reproBut Bruno thought that art little
to all
as a demonstration of unity,
the shortest of roads for thought and memory, and a useful
symbolic
logic.
Of
the value of Inference in extending
knowledge, Bruno had
much
in Scotus
Lully.
worked outside scholasticism and ex-
For, although Lully hibited
more notion than had
little
of that spontaneous originality which
we
find
Erigena before scholasticism began, mediaeval
thought was harnessed in the syllogism and employed
itself
donkey round a grinding
mill,
in ceaseless rotation, like a
but mostly grinding philosophic
Lully captured
many
chaff.
In Bruno's time
able minds and had a great vogue.
work from other than were posited as there was no notion of subfundamental and ultimate mitting them to criticism. For Bruno, the art of Lully was alive; for us, it has become dead and valueless. Lully tried to prove the dogmas of the Church by human Before Kant,
dogmatic
it
was not possible
premises
;
certain
to
concepts
;
Bruno, in
reason.^
able:
any attempt
Christianity
is
this
work, denies that they are reason-
to prove their truth "ig'a blunder; for
irrational,
contrary to philosophy and in
disagreement with other religions. faith
syncretist he relies on
We
As a
and through revelation.
only accept
it
and quotes pagan authority as
freely
as Christian. '
De
*
Lully,
Compendiosa Architectura
R De Articulis ;
Fidei.
et
by
Neo-Platonist and
Complemento Artis Lulii.
GIORDANO BRUNO
74
Berti thinks that at
some time before Bruno
he wrote a book, never published, of which
all
left
France
we know
is
he promised to send his English friend
two years later, Smith his " Purgatory of
that,
'
the redemption
Hell,'
wherein you shall see the
One judges from
redemption."^
fruit of
was from
scientific
the context that
and philosophic
error.
The Chandler
IV.
saw another work from Bruno's This time he wrote in Italian, and the book was
The same year rapid pen.
(1582)
printed by an Italian
Giuliano by name.
who had
Bruno
few burning days."^ writings, for
it
Its
sters of illusions
;
satiric
world
settled in Paris,
us
it
was
Guglielmo
the fruit of " a
wholly from his other
differs
a stage-play,
is
and furnished with a and pretence.
It
tells
full
of rattling, roaring fun
probe for credulity, pedantry
is full
of the pursuers and huck-
rogues abound, and fools are duped by
miracle-mongers, alchemists and pretenders to magic arts. This comedy is entitled " II Candelajo," which may be translated as "
who
The Chandler." In Bruno's time made them. Now
supplied candles also
facture of tallow-dips is a noisome
the person the
manu-
and undignified
trade.
Bruno, like Dante, loved to load words with more than their " Behold," he says in the dedication, surface-meaning.^ " behold in the candle borne by this Chandler, to whom I
gave
birth,
truth
that which shall clarify certain
shadows of
This product of imagination which shall set forth
ideas."
dedicated with a letter to the lady Morgana, a
is
very suggestive of Fata Morgana illusion.
—the
mirage
name
—which
is
In this dedication a multitude of ideas surge pell-
^
Cena de
"
// Candelajo, a la signora
'
Bacelli,
A
Dial JV. Morgana. // Candelajo, Soc. Dante
Ceneri,
le
;
At., 1901,/. 86 sq.
;
THE EARLY WORKS mell
75
they only get themselves out as obscure half-hints
;
the language
tortuous and the syntax involved.
is
and pedants may banish
his
but they shall not shackle his soul or obscure
life,
Priests
body and make chaos of
his
its vision.
Here he presents some shifting shadows, but all the moving shadows of the Universe are really the expression of One "
Reality.
I
perishes
One
;
away
all
only
is
grows,
day look if
my mind
may
the night
be,
I
With
itself.
my
who
dwell in
Rejoice therefore, and keep whole,
for night
for love."
^
characters of the play, being vicious, are inversions
office to
higher ends, as does the one
who
fulfilling
gives the play
an its
our provider of gross matter which shall furnish shin-
The
ing flame.
at writing
that he
title
In the two
scenes.
is
smith.^
their
of the play
first
repeated in three of
is
of these our protagonist,
amorous poetry,
its
who aims
great perplexity,
is told, to his
trying to change himself from chandler to gold-
In the
in the bonnet,
and
gives
Whereof, however obscure
expands.
of virtue, integrals in the scheme of things,
title,
Time
philosophy
this
await daybreak, and they
you can, and return love
The
belief:
everything changes but nothing
;
immutable, eternal and ever endures,
one and the same with spirit
my
need not instruct you of
and takes
all
last, it is
related
who hanker
how
all
the folk with a bee
after miracle-mongering priests
" water of St Peter the Martyr, seed of St John,
heaven-sent food of St
Andrew and marrow from
the bones
wont to consult an ancient dame who wise-woman. poses as a An intended bride, doubtful as to
of St Piantorio " are
her marriage, goes to this old lady. orlly
The
recorded by one of the characters,
dialogue, though
may
be translated
as fairly illustrative of Bruno's brisk and vigorous dramatic
manner. It reminds us of that of Plautus and Moliere. " Mother mine, they want me to marry Bonifacio Trucco. '
// Cana.,
A La
Sig" Morgana.
«
Ibid.,
Act
I, sc.
VIII, IX.
"
GIORDANO BRUNO
76
He "
"
well off."
is
My daughter,
Have him
!
don't have him
" Yes, but he
" !
my
" But
"
too old."
is
parents advise
" Have him " " But he don't please me too well." to." Then don't have him " "I know he comes of good blood." " But I hear he has not teeth enough to " Have him " " Don't have him " " They tell me he has a bite a bean." " But, oh dear " Have him " pure-bred greyhound."
me
!
"
!
!
!
!
!
" Don't have him me, I hear he is only a chandler." " Everybody thinks him mad." " Take him Take him !
seven times over
His being a chandler doesn't count
!
no concern of yours you, no matter him."
what
;
he can't eat;
if
he be old
if
Herein are furtive thrusts
^
The
if
By
A
mad, so take
Then comes from
convention dating
a
times every play required a prologue. this.
is
round.
all
play begins with a few verses.
mock-dedication.
!
it's
he doesn't please
but he
;
;
Bruno
will
the
classic
none of
love of buffoonery pervaded his age, so our author
next gives us a synopsis of the characters and of the three closely interwoven
but distinct plots of his comedy for
prologue and follows this up with an anti-prologue, then with a pro-prologue and there
is
finally,
before the curtain rises,
a speech from the beadle;
all
synopsis, being done in that spirit of
this,
excepting the
humorous provocation
so characteristic of Rabelais.
The play has an
Bonifacio,
five acts
and eighteen characters, whereof
amorous
elderly,
miser;
Bartolomeo,
avaricious seeker after the philosopher's stone, furio,
pedant and
The pedant
fool,
to hold. conceit,
poor
but
pretentious
intelligence;
mean capacity, which bursts into when crammed with more than it was designed
naturally a vessel absurdities
are chief.
of
is
an
and Man-
of
His ineptitude overflows
and he speaks »
in affectation
and
self-
in inappropriate Latin or latinized
Ibid.,
Act
V, Sc.
XXIV.
THE EARLY WORKS
He
Italian.
is
man
a
and phrases, of subtle
of words
no value
distinctions with
in
them, and of painstaking
He
accuracy about trumpery matters.
He
lore at every breath.
is
attached to his pupil Pollula
name
is
fooled
lugs in classical
unmarried and it is
specially
is
significant that a female
Manfurio has a hand
given to the boy.^
thing that
:
']']
in every-
going on and understands nothing of
is
and laughed
sham watch, and
eventually
at, is
falls into
it
he
;
is
the clutch of a
soundly thrashed, as are the other
protagonists. Bonifacio, married to the youthful Carubina,
is in
love
with Vittoria, a lady no better than she should be,
who
only pretends to return his affection in order to bleed his
He
purse.
commits endless absurdities
keep
in order to
her to himself, and goes to a professor of magic to help him.
This gentleman drains him dry; whereupon Vittoria
manages
to substitute
Carubina
the dress of Bernardo, a painter,
Carubina,
is
is
also in love with
own wife dressed in The pretended watch appear and force
Bonifacio to give a is
who
thus confronted by his
Vittoria's clothes.
Carubina
Bonifacio, in
for herself.
bribe
t6te-a-t6te
to
with
captain;
their
the
deceived husband has to entreat his wife
meanwhile Finally
painter. to
the
pardon him,
and sails into more tranquil waters " by the grace of the Lord and the Madonna." The third protagonist, Bartolomeo, trusts himself to the direction of a designing alchemist his
lean
A
purse.
" powder of Christ of roguery, the
" fails to
false
who
well-nigh exhausts
mixture, which contains a fictitious
work ; and
after
amusing scenes
watch appear and, by threatening
make their profit. The play is a series of
prison,
pictures of the
seamy
* For the morals of schoolmasters, see Garzoni, T. ; Universale di tutte le professioni del mondo, Venezia, 1617.
side of
La
piazza
GIORDANO BRUNO
78 Neapolitan
life
and repeats the coarse
talk
which Bruno
would have heard as a boy. He may have written the work when he was in the monastery: certain references and its fresh and vigorous touches smack of the direct transcript
recent
shows
strokes in France,
that
if
received
it
not in Paris.
to
a
finishing
least
at
In his castigation of
the very unpleasant is unduly prominent;
vice,
play
But a reference
of recent impressions.
event
but the
not so foul as those of Machiavelli, Bibbiena and
is
Aretino.
It
must be admitted that
great knowledge of the
seamy
product of monastic discipline.
comedy exhibits a and is a queer
this
side of life
But not so many years
before a Prince of the Church had officiated at the altar of the Cyprian as well as at that of Christ, and his
comedy
brought a blush to the face of that by no means severe
Erasmus
prude, Isabella D'Este, while
who
took a part in a Latin play.
days of Catholic Reform the
Trent was not
We
lapses.
felt,
tells
Even
in
full effect
us of a priest
Bruno's stricter
of the Council of
and no great blame attached
must not press too heavily on the
to
fault.
such
The
Renaissance found frank indecency attractive; we have
become more "delicately
indelicate."
Natural
instincts
held in leash are apt to manifest themselves in this vicarious
and disagreeable way, and a "virile" young man, "
virile "
century at
least, will roll in the
unconstrained gratification of a puppy dog.
it is '
for pre-
said to
fascination in the repellent
and
apt to produce an undue impression on the mind.
The
plot is
unduly complicated and reminds the reader
of the Spanish stage. like
is
a
Moreover,
many young men indulge in obscene speculation cisely the same reason that lunatic maidens are utter foul oaths: there
in
obscene with the
rank ;
The
characters are abstract types,
Ben Jonson and dramatists of the second but they are drawn with rare felicity. The dialogue
those of
;
THE EARLY WORKS is quite
79
"The
as vivacious and clever as any by Aretino.
Chandler" comedy.
quite sui generis
is
It is easy,
—a
of the
play
amused;
audience introduced
with
in
spontaneous, the overflow of an ardent
and imaginative temperament. buffoonery
new development
Both the obscenity and
are half intended
and
buffoonery
purpose
this
Bruno's
in
to
keep
indelicacy
the
are
also
more serious
writings.
The
rediscovery of the classics led, in time, to degenerate
humanists
knaves
hands.^
and
Bruno
:
— probably
is less
tender to these pedants than to
because he had suffered more at their
Philosophical theory peeps out in the play here
there.''
He
believes that his enemies rejoice at his exile
convinced he will obtain his due, "
is
then under another
;
if
not in one
if
life
but he
;
not under one hood, yet in another "
;
*
a
remark which some have thought to show that he believed an immortality not guaranteed by the mere pantheistic
in
Neo-Platonism he had so far expounded. In a somewhat earlier and more liberal age, Machiavelli
expressed his contempt for the miraculous.
Guicciardini
thought those wonders which were best attested to be
examples of natural phenomena not yet understood.*
This
many passages
in his
was Bruno's
attitude, as is clear
In "
books.
from
The Chandler " he pours
He
trickery of the priesthood.
his scorn
on the
hints at the miseries of
monastic discipline.
He
is
aware of
his
own
originality
and declares
it;
he
does not disguise his Horatian contempt for the herd.
There
is
no evidence that the play was ever performed A;
'
Cfr. Baccelli,
*
Cfr. Telli, Carlo; // Cand., Prefaz., Biblioteca
»
// Cand.,
A
La Guicciardini, F
op. cit.,p. 74.
Sig" Morgana. Opere Ined., I, 129. ;
Rara, Dalit, 1862.
GIORDANO BRUNO
8o but, influenced
by
prior productions,
turn on those which followed.'^
it left
mark
in its
of that
many-
its
The comedies
(who was a Neapolitan and a contemporary of Bruno), which were published more than twenty years later than the Candelajo, show a singular resemblance to it.^ Within two generations, a French adaptasided genius, Giambattista della Porta
tion, entitled
followed
Boniface et
le
Pedant, was staged, and this was
by Cyrano de Bergerac's Le PSdant j'ouL
Cyrano
concentrated Bruno's trifold plot to the advantage of the play; but he missed dialogue.
He
much
indirectly
of the vivacity of the original
admits
this,
for
he vows that
" Italian twins would joke in their mother's
womb." These adaptations influenced Moli^re; he extracted what suited him from Cyrano's version, saying that he had a right to " On reprend son bien partout on le trouve." * it Prof. Adamson suggested that Manfurio was the prototype of :
Holofernes in Shakespeare's " Love's Labour's Lost." •
Spampanato, P
;
Alcuni
;
Somiglianze tra due commediografi Napoletani,
antec. e imitaz.fr. del Candelajo, Portici,
Delia Torre, 1905. '^
Spampanato, P
Napoli, 1906. ^ Bartholmfess
;
op.
cit., I,
p. 262, n.
iv.
CHAPTER
VIII
AT OXFORD
Having made the disagreeable passage from Calais to Dover (Bruno's first experience of a journey by sea) he would not find that almost distinctive character of English scenery which obtains to-day. It was more like that of Northern France. For the most part, corn-land and pasturage were unenclosed, and there was a vast amount of
credentials
Oxford
poorly
or
uncultivated
enclosures
cultivated
spite
of his
to
some
foolishly repeated best,
in
to
to try his fortunes there.
Opposition, disappointment
Bruno
land,
made under the Tudors. He presented to the French Ambassador and went on
"tried
Aristotle."^
attack
fresh
ancient
and defective teaching
excuse
the
Barbarians
who
to
and defeat always on the " parrots " of
defects
their
incited ^
who
or,
at
divinity,
dwelt at the ends of the
earth must assuredly be only too glad to welcome so highly So he began by beating the qualified a teacher as he. big drum.
He
sent a foreword to the Vice-Chancellor and
dons of the University which began thus
:
" Jordanus Bruno
of Nola, lover of God, doctor in a more perfect divinity, professor of a purer and
more harmless wisdom, a
philo-
sopher known, esteemed and honourably entreated by the foremost Academies of Europe, a stranger to none but churls and barbarians, the awakener of souls from slumber, the queller of presumptuous and recalcitrant ignorance, one »
C. de le Ceneri, Dial.
IV.
^
8i
De
la Causa, Dial. III.
Y
GIORDANO BRUNO
82
who sheweth
in all his actions the love
men, whether Briton or
he beareth to
all
female or male, whether
Italian,
bearing the mitre or the crown, the
gown
or the sword,
wearing a cowl or without one; but who chiefly yearns for the
man whose he who
converse
profitable;
peaceful,
is
human, true and
seeks not for an anointed head or a
crossed brow, for the washed hand or him that
is
circum-
man which be his one who is abhorred of
cised, but for those true lineaments of
soul and trained understanding
;
them that spread foolishness and are but petty dissemblers, but
whom men
proven and
to a request
.
."^
.
This
permission to lecture.^
for
more calculated
earnest love, and
in
applauded by the nobler sort
is
who
is
the prelude
Was
anything
to
" Cleave the general
Make mad
ear,
and appal the free, Confound the ignorant and amaze indeed " ? But, after
all,
the guilty
the epistle only follows the pomposity of
Even
the age with Brunian emphasis.
and polished gentleman of travelling to the Court of
the most courtly
his time, Sir Philip Sidney,
Rudolf
on whatever house he lodged
at,
II,
had
his
when
arms emblazoned
with the announcement in
Philothei Jordani Bruni Nolani Triginta Sigillorum Explicatio : Procancellarium, clarissimos doctores atque celeberimos magistros. '
Ad excellentissi?num oxoniensis Academiae ^
The
letter,
and a few leaves are not which have been preserved.
the dedication to Castelnau
in all those copies of the " Thirty Seals "
Moreover they are printed on different paper, a different type was employed, and certain additions, of the nature of improvements, are present,
which leads
to the conclusion that the extra leaves
serted as an afterthought.
Cfr.
Tocco,
F
;
were inLe Opere Latine di G. B.
pp. 63-66. May not Bruno have inserted these leaves after his quarrel with the University, as an act of defiance, and conjoined with this a mark, in the form of a dedication to Castelnau, of his appreciation of the service he rendered him after that event ? It would, I think
be
just like
Bruno
to
do
this.
AT OXFORD
83
Latin that they were those of " the most illustrious and well-
born gentleman, Philip Sidney, son of the Viceroy of Ireland,
nephew
of the Earls of
Warwick and
Leicester,
from the Most Serene Queen of England
What
reply Bruno received
we do
Ambassador
to the
Emperor."
not know.
versity could hardly have acquired " the fine Oxford
*
The Unimanner "
and self-assertion were and " unEnglish " even then, and this letter
so early ; but, surely, inflated speech
" bad form
may
"
be referred to by a certain N.
W, who
remarks in the
preface to a translation of Paulus Jovius by Samuel Daniel, the poet, at that time an undergraduate at Magdalen.
writes
" you cannot forget that which Nolanus (that
:
He man
titles amongst other phantastical toys) truly noted by chance in our schools, that by the help of translations all sciences had their offspring." ^
of infinite
Oxford, like other Universities, was throttled by the dead
hand of
In 1574 one Barebones, a follower of
Aristotle.
Ramus, was the thinker
ejected from the University for daring to attack
whom
a strangely ironical fate had
pared
to challenge
had begun, the
made one
Bruno was
the chief props of the Christian Church.^
He
Oxford or any other seat of learning.
and he continued
fight,
it
of
pre-
through England,
France and Germany, seeking and giving no quarter, undeterred by authority, undismayed by poverty, superbly
contemptuous of censure, immeasurably confident in his
own
strength and superiority.*
This
the only notice of Bruno at Oxford which has
is
been discovered so far himself.
He
set
up a
:
all
else that
class
we know he
somewhere
in
tells
the city, and
found the University sadly in need of an " awakener Sir P. Sidney, 1889, J. A O Modern Studies, 1907,//.
^
Symonds,
»
Elton,
'
Mclntyre,
*
Cfr.
;
;
G. Bruno, J. L De Monade, Cap. I, v. ;
j!S.
us
"
38.
7, 8.
1903,/. 22. 38 sq; Cap. VII, v. 128 sq.
;
he
—
GIORDANO BRUNO
84
her " the widow of true knowledge so far as philosophy and mathematics are concerned." He laughed at her preYet, less than a century tensions to Greek scholarship. calls
before, the
Oxford Hellenists, although but a small band,
were distinguished by the presence of such scholars as Grocyn, Linacre and Croke, and Erasmus found Greek better taught in
England than
in Italy.^
Indeed, the English Universities had
high estate.
fallen
from their
Sport had always more attraction for the
bulk of English gentry than learning, which was almost
The French wars and
confined to the priesthood.
more the Wars of the Roses were a hindrance
still
to learning.
Even before the Reformation John Barclay wrote of men "
Lesynge their tyme at the unyversyte. Yet count they themselfe of great auctoryte With their proude hodes on their neckes hangynge, They haue the lawde ; but others haue the cunnynge.
They thynke that they haue all scyence perfytely, Within theyr hertes bostynge them of the same, Though they thereto theyr mynde dyd neuer apply Without the thynge, they joy them of the name." *
When of the
The
the Reformation
menace
would be
it
of
dissolution
the
was
effected,
to learning
monasteries
scholarly class which opened
ft
;
Erasmus's warning
proved well-founded. impoverished
that
career to the clever lad
of the people and gave him university instruction.
But, to
employ the words of Descartes, the Universities had not yet begun " to
make merchandise
of science for the better-
ing of their fortunes."
Theology was the main the most part, absentees. '
interest.
for
Erasmus, Desiderius; Opera Omnia, Lugd. Batav., 1703, Tom.
Tert., Epist. ccclxiii. '
The dons were,
Appointed by the Court, they
Barclay, John
;
Shyppe of Fooles.
AT OXFORD
85
followed the Court, clad in velvet.
Bruno describes two
of
these
"One wore two
graduates.
resplendent gold
chains on his neck; another twelve rings on two of his fingers
:
he looked
easily obtained
;
it
a rich jeweller."
like
was purchasable ;
A
^
to
doctorate
was
become a doctor
in
medicine only needed a fee and that the candidate should
have been
the habit of perusing medical books during
in
The dons " knew much more about
ten years.
quite
young
The
lads.
beer than
Most of the students were
about Greek/' says Bruno.^
any master
statutes provided that
or doctor diverging one jot from the teaching of Aristotle
No one
should be fined five shillings* for each offence.*
could be admitted to the degree of Master or Doctor unless
he had quaffed of the Aristotelian fountain three fountains in
the
Pythagoras and Plato qualify
;
the waters thereof were used
to
and beer; "so that," Bruno maliciously by three or four days' stay in a college or else-
where one could imbibe from
He
but there were
cider
observes, "
Dean New.
;
respectively called Aristotle,
city,
seems
to
*
have found some favour with Matthew, the
of Christchurch,
He
all three."
and with Culpepper, the Warden of
speaks respectfully of both these clergymen.*
He would make
the acquaintance of Italian teachers at the
University, and he probably met Alberico Gentile there at festivals or elsewhere.
Gentile
and was appointed professor of years
Bruno
later.
met him again
certainly
came
to
Civil
Law
knew him
England
in
at
in
1580
Oxford four
England^ and
at Wittenberg.
After he had taught between two and three months, ^
C.dele Ceneri, Dial.
'
Equivalent to at least two pounds sterling of to-day's money.
*
Mclntyre;
'
Causa, Dial.
^
Ibid.
op.
cit.,
"
I.
pp.11.,
Ibid.
-ii.
I.
Concerning these worthies, consult Lagarde, Op.
G. B.,p. 220, Gottingen, 1888.
'
Doc.
ital.
ix.
di
GIORDANO BRUNO
86 there
came
Oxford
to
of Siradia, a Pole,
(in
June) Adalbart Laski,^ Palatine
who was
in
England on a mission
to
The visit of from regions so remote, one, moreover, who was with great bravery as a soldier and with much
prevent the exportation of arms to Muscovy. a prince credited
learning, created a great stir
linguistic
in
England, and
Oxford welcomed him with heavy feeding, erudite disputations, spectacular displays
and
all
that ebullience in which
the surcharged vitality of the Renaissance found vent.
It
must have heightened Bruno's acute perception of that " vicissitude
had shown
" to
which he constantly refers that Laski, who
his greed of gold
Henry
at the election of to steal
away from
tions of silence
by taking the bribes of France crown,^ soon had
III to the Polish
his English creditors, with all precau-
and secrecy, accompanied by the
Dr John Dee and one
Kelly,
who was another
occultist
professor of
the art of transmuting base metal into gold.
Among
was Mathew Gwinne of a young Welshman who became one of Bruno's
the entertainers of Laski
St. John's,
English friends and, later on, helped Florio in his incom-
Gwinne was an
parable translation of Montaigne.
round man
;
all-
he added the accomplishment of music to a
knowledge of French and
Italian.
He became
a dramatic
Latin) and possessed of a smattering of physic*
author
(in
When
Laski was at Oxford, Gwinne held forth with others
on such problems as whether males or females are longer lived, and whether events can be foretold from the stars.
These disputations, held
Bruno
his chance.
where you
will in
W
He
in
honour of the Prince, gave
shall tell his
England to-day you
own
tale.
"Search
shall find
everybody
' Camden, Annates, tr. R. Norton, sub anno Anthony k Athenae Oxonienses c. Fasti, sub Alaskie. ^ Bain, R. N Camb. Mod. Hist, 1904, III, p. 85. ;
;
;
'
Nat. Diet. Biog., 1890, xxiij, 399-400.
1583.
— Wood,
AT OXFORD a Doctor in
Grammar
;
87
so that the happy country
who
a constellation of pedants
is
ruled by
exhibit obstinacy, ignorance
and presumption, mixed up with such boorish rudeness that might provoke the patience of Job. Should you doubt, go to Oxford and get them to tell you about what happened to
it
when he disputed
the Nolan
publicly with these Doctors of
theology before the Prince
Laski the Pole and certain
Learn how they replied
English nobles.
to his argument and how, on that great occasion, a wretched doctor got
stuck, like a chicken in stubble, fifteen times in the fifteen
syllogisms he propounded as Coryphaeus of the University.
Hear
how
tell
vulgar and violent the pig was, and
and forbearing was the
patient
how
who shewed
other,
Neapolitan breeding and rearing under a kindly sky.
how
his
Ask
they put a stop to his public lectures, both on the
Immortality of the Soul and on the Quintuple Sphere."^ Brave, tactless, self-assertive missionary of truth
Mr
F's aunt,
Bruno hated a
opponent a " pig in
"
merely,
was an
exhibition of self-restraint
tent with scurrilous epithets
all,
dictionaries,
but
traduce the whole house and ancestry of
to
an adversary, including the chastity of then,
aroused
slumbers in a favourite less with
were not con-
which a bargee might envy
and which are now expunged from our
Bruno,
Like
Nevertheless, to call one's
days when scholars, theologians above
were wont
!
fool.
many an
the lair.
its
female members.^
Aristotelian
lion
from
his
Oxford rejected him, doubt-
insular sneer at the excitable, gesticulat-
ing foreigner, hairy as Pan.'
Later on, when the feeling of resentment had somewhat
subdued, while
still
continuing to pass some satiric strictures
on the University he gave a more balanced judgement and ^
C. de le Ceneri, Dial.
IV.
^
As
Bayle's Dictionary
'
Bruno,
evidence, see
G
;
Tie
e.g.,
innum. imjitenso
;
ei injigur.
article, I.
viij.
Schoppius.
GIORDANO BRUNO
88
even tried to make amends.
He
admitted that she had
been "founded on an excellent basis and was marked by such decorum, dignified ceremonies and as to place her, in these respects, polish
many other
first in
adjuncts
Europe, while in
and quickness of mind she can hold her own." ^
—she
was Aristotelian to the core. Three generations Thomas Browne wrote of the Copernican theory being still a subject for debate among the learned.^
later Sir
as
But
'
De
'
Browne, Sir
la Causa, Dial. I.
T
;
Pseudodoxia Epidemica,
I.
vj,
c. 5.
— ;
CHAPTER LONDON
IN
Bruno was
sad plight
in
unable to speak girdle.
He
stranded in a strange country,
:
language and with a lank purse
its
found a saviour
Castelnau, he
tells
and from hunger "
IX
;
in
us, rescued
at his
the French Ambassador. him " from these doctors
he proved a " firm and effective defender
... a solid, secure and enduring rock." ^ The Ambassador was himself in pecuniary straits: his salary was irregularly paid and he was obliged to borrow money,^ but he gave the wandering
Italian scholar a
home.
"
You
did not
maintain a
of
whom you had
but
in
many ways," Bruno
man in your household one who stood in need of you "
wrote him.' merely that."
*
remained
I
in his
need,
house as his gentleman
Doubtless Castelnau found him of service
Bruno frequently accompanied him to the Court of Elizabeth, and the French Ambassador, in want of money, might have been glad of the aid of an
unofficial secretary at
no great
cost.
Michel de Castelnau, Lord of Mauvissiere, was sixtythree years old, a perience of
man
He was
life.
of considerable learning
one of the very
earliest
of the Alps to become a professional diplomatist. travelled in Italy
elsewhere
;
and had served
in
and ex-
men north
He had
campaigns there and
he had been ambassador at the Court of Mary
Stewart and also
in
Germany, and had represented France
*
Causa, Proem. Epist.
'
De
I'lnfinito,
^
Proem. Epist.
*
89
Mclntyre, Doc. ix.
op. cit., p. 27.
a
GIORDANO BRUNO
go
at Elizabeth's court during the past ten years.
He had
Hterary tastes and had translated Ramus' book on the
Gauls. in the
His memory was
excellent,
memoirs which he wrote
two sons, a searcher impartial judgement.^
and he shows himself,
for the instruction of his
after causes, truthful,
Unhappily he
tells
and a man of
us nothing about
Bruno, for the memoirs end with the year I574-
have been reticent and firm
to
;
great success in diplomacy.
He seems
but too scrupulous to obtain
It is
a testimony to his high
character that while he defended the interests of
Stewart he retained the
warm
Mary
regard of Elizabeth Tudor.
His great antagonist was the Spanish Ambassador, Bernardino de Mendoza, for Indeed, Castelnau
whom
he was a poor match in guile.
was a broad-minded generous gentleman, Bruno
sincerely religious, but so tolerant that he excused
from attending mass and the other religious his
house
;
nay more,
of four of Bruno's
offices held at
in permitting the dedication to himself
works Castelnau accepted three of the
most daring he ever wrote.^
Bruno found the embassy a peaceful haven, where,
for
more than two years, he was sheltered from the blasts which had whirled him hither and thither for seven years
swoop on him again. The embassy was Beaumont House it was in Butcher's Row,^ a
past and were to
known
as
;
narrow lane which led into the Strand, close by St Clement
—
Danes, not far from the boundary line of the City " timber-framed house, with projecting upper stories and barge-boarded gables, the front decorated with fleur-de-lis
and coronets." *
M
de; MSmoires, Paris, 1621. "Exposition of the Thirty Seals" in Latin; "The Ash Wednesday Supper," " On Cause Principle and Unity," and " The Infinity of the Universe and its Worlds," in Italian. ' Pulled down 1813. ' Wheatley, H. B Story of London, 1904, p. 392. ; '
'
Castelnau,
LONDON
IN
We
91
have a word or two about the lady of the house
from Bruno.
It
occurs in one of those innumerable and
protracted digressions which seem to have served the double
purpose of entertaining the reader and discharging the surging back-waters of his own mind.
had been which
is
Italy a stupid
in
not obsolete even
the extravagant eulogists
possible
perfection
For a century there
and interminable discussion
—
now a battle of woman as
of books between
a prodigy of im-
and equally absurd detractors^ who
debased her even below the more recent depreciations of
Weininger and Strindberg. art " that
Bruno satirises the "oratoric was employed by making one of his interlocutors
almost exhaust the language of vituperation
;
he
loatds the
female sex with no fewer than nine and thirty consecutive epithets, all equally abusive.^
Yet one retains a lurking
suspicion that, behind the obvious satiric intention, there
lay a secret satisfaction in the diatribe inhererit obligations of masculinity
an acquittal of the
;
and of coarse monkish
And he had suffered recently from the active ill will of some woman of whom he complains bitterly to Castelnau. She is mad and malicious, he says, with an
prejudice.
evil tongue,
and trusts
to squeezed-out tears to
back up
Anyhow, Bruno succeeds in keeping reader thoroughly awake after his long diatribe by one
her evil designs.^ his
of his swift turns.
In the worst possible taste
all
these
Madame de Castelnau's sex are made to She is an excepher own excellences By a clumsy general depravity of woman.
objurgations of
serve as a
foil
tion to the
to
!
literary artifice another interlocutor
men
Castelnau *
is
happy
in a wife
made
to
say that
all
"of no mean beauty, which
These works make curious reading. Sometimes, as in Bruno's from the same mouth. ' Ibid., Proem. Epist. Causa, Dial. IV., Polinnio log.
case, opposite opinions fall '
is
are not unfortunate in their experience of the sex:
— GIORDANO BRUNO
92 indeed
is
a
clothing to her soul
fit
she
;
a lady of judge-
is
ment, prudence, modesty and polite dignity,"^ whence
may conclude that the time,
had
still
the noble lady,
who was in
some
good looks and was
traces of
we
failing health at fairly
gracious and kind to Bruno.
But the heart of the monk, pathetically debarred from fatherhood, went out to the younger of the two girls of the
whom, perhaps, he gave
house, to
French and English so
six years of age, she speaks Italian,
equally well that no one can
tell
One can dishow " hardly yet
lessons.
cover real tenderness in his description of
her nationality
;
she plays
various instruments so that one wonders whether she be flesh or spirit,
and from her already
and noble bearing,
ripe
whether she be of earth or have come down from the skies.
Both her parents reappear alike
in her
body and
In a year or two both mother and
mind." ^
little
in her
daughter
were among the dead.
However
filled
with the music of the starry heavens and
with immortal thoughts, genius wi'."
We
and not a
is
peculiarly " gey
ill
to live
can credit Bruno with being very thin-skinned little
trying at the fire-side.
He honestly believed He him. "No one ever
himself to be a model of politeness and self-restraint.
thought that every one was against
blamed
me
— so
for discourtesy"
he assures Castelnau
" no one can justly complain of me."
He
a cataract of contrasts in order that
we may know how
the worthy love
plunges us into
and the unworthy maltreat him.*
worries tortured the nerves of a
death could not dismay.
man whom
Small
the cruelest
Like the rest of us, his was a
strangely compounded clay.
Full of noble gfratitude, lofty
wisdom and an heroic passion to know truth and proclaim it, he was yet a trifle prejudiced, a trifle conception, serene
^
Causa, Dial. IV, Gervasio loq. 3 Cena, Dial. V.
•
Ibid., loc. cit.
LONDON
IN irritable
and vain, very impulsive and
somewhat crotchets
asms
93 restless, a little
resentful, wholly indiscreet
and
and given
snappy,
to singular
ill-timed bursts of strange, if generous, enthusi-
—probably such would be a contemporary's judgement But our wonder at
of Bruno.
tinued purpose
is
this
man of high and conhuman weaknesses
not lessened by his
;
our respect for the unfailing patience and kindness of the
towards
Castelnaus
somewhat
their
difficult
guest
is
increased.
The
passionate Southern Italian, knowing about three
words of the English tongue and, since he deems it fit for dogs, not wishing to learn more,^ may have got into trouble the
in
London
streets;
if
whose
possibly the lady
so,
"malicious feminine rage and false tears, which can be
more powerful than any volume of swollen billows something
to
do with
it.
"
^
had
Sensini thinks he got into a row,
was imprisoned, released by the good offices of Mauvissidre Certainly Bruno rehearses at home for a time.*
and kept
to Castelnau
how
" not only did you receive and sustain me,
but defended me, set
harbour." severe
*
We
strictures
me
free,
held
certainly learn
on the English
me
that,
safe,
kept
me
in
on account of his
people,^
he dared not
and remained shut up at home,® and possibly the lady in question had some hand in this. Very soon after taking up his abode at Beaumont House, appear
in the streets
Bruno must have accompanied his host to the Court, for he knew the Spanish Ambassador there,' and Mendoza was expelled from England in January 1584 after the detection " The of his complicity in the plots against Elizabeth's life.
Queen knew me," says Bruno, "for "^
' *
«
I
accompanied the
" Causa, Proem. Epist. Cena, Dial. III. Sul pensiero filosofico di G. B., 1907. Sensini, T ;
" Cena de le Ceneri. Causa, Proem. Epist. Causa, I, where Armesso speaks for the first time. ' Doc. xvij.
—
GIORDANO BRUNO
94
Ambassador to Court habitually." ^ Italian gentlemen were welcome at Elizabeth's Court. She prided herself on her knowledge of
their
visited Italy;
many
and
literature,
model.
It
;
most of her courtiers had
of them were well-versed in Italian
formed their manners on the Italian
all
was
language
advantage of our be-
to the incalculable
haviour and of our literature that so " tried and tutored in the world "
came back from
their
tricks," the absurdity of
Shakespeare
did.
;
many gentlemen were
but the less stable spirits
travels to exhibit " strange
antic
which Bruno did not catch.
But
" Look you
lisp,
.
.
."
says Rosalind,
"and wear strange suits and disable all the benefits of your own country and be out of love with your nativity, and almost chide God for making you of that countenance you
or
are,
gondola."
It
I
will
scarcely think
you have swam
was the prevalent passion
for Italy
in
a
and deep
respect for the Italian language and literature which gave
Bruno an opportunity of publishing, through a London works in his own tongue. There was
press, his noblest
no university
in
London, or
its
scholars would have despised
any thought, however profound, which was not expressed in the
language of the learned.
Bruno admired Elizabeth and wrote of her as superlatively as custom demanded.*
He
called her
—a Protestant ruler
"diva" "sacred" or "divine," just as he did His Most ChrisMajesty and the Head of the Holy Roman Empire it was treasured against him and brought up at his trial.^ Of Elizabeth's courtiers, he neither knew nor expected tian
to
:
know
Leicester, at least in the earliest part of 1584;*
known
but he would certainly be noticed
by Fulke
two years younger than •
3
Doc. xij. Doc. xiij.
to
Walsingham.
Greville, a scholarly
himself. " *
young
He was
courtier,
about
Greville stood high in
Cena, Dial. II ; Causa, Dial. Cena, Dial. II.
I.
—
LONDON
IN favour and
Elizabeth's
was
95
fortunate in
favourites."
To know Master
^
enjoying
....
longest lease and the smoothest time
Greville
of
was
to
" the
any of her
know
Sir
Philip Sidney, his close friend from their school-days at
The two
Shrewsbury.
friends were, at this time,
translating the Frenchman, Philippe de Plessis- Marly.
Sidney,
whom
Spenser
" the president
calls
and courtesie " was the cynosure of
of nobless
busy
Mornay, lord of his time
polished courtier, poet, scholar, patron of letters and the
stage and a passionate admirer of Italian literature.*
Bruno was not exempt from the fascination he exercised.' Sidney, Greville and Dyer were devoted to each other, but of Dyer he does not speak.
The
courtiers probably regarded
an eccentric
oddity,
London Thibet.*
of
society
foreigner,
to-day
Bruno as an
interesting
and accepted him as the
accepts
a
philosopher
The more sympathetic Sidney expressed .
from
willing-
ness to do him some service, and Greville followed with the
same
Greville might have proved quite as munificent
offer.
a patron as Sidney, for he held more than one post with
— about ;£^2O0O
and enormous
light duties
—but
a year
salaries attached
he spent a great deal in furnishing the Court
with tournaments and amusements.^ displease
English
him
the
"Ash Wednesday Supper" and by closely with the banquet supposed to
in
be given by Greville. ill-conditioned ^
' '
*
to
them so
life
associating
Bruno contrived
perhaps by the strictures he passed on
;
He
tells
and unworthy
us that " the arsenic of
folk "
vile,
caused their relations to
Naunton, Sir R; Fragmenta Regalia, ed. A. Arher, 1870, p. 50. Cfr. Bourne, H. R. Fox; Sir P. Sidney, N.Y, 1891. Spaccio, Epist. Esplic ; Eroici, Argomento del Nolano. Symonds, J. A ; Renaissance in Italy : Catholic Reaction, II,
P-SS° Edmondson, J Family of Greville,
;
An Historical and 1766, p. 79.
Geographical Account of the
;
GIORDANO BRUNO
96
be strained: he proposed to dedicate a book to Greville/ but never did
To Sidney he dedicated
so.
works on moral
his
two important
subjects.^
Sidney was the English representative of Petrarchism, though he was far from copying the current ignoble and degenerate affectation of love which
He
now
prevailed in Italy.
tumbled head over ears in love with Penelope Devereux
when she was still a child. The only satisfaction he ever was a kiss stolen from her when she was asleep
obtained
but sexual fascination remained so divorced from matrimony in the sixteenth century that
he continued to address verses
of passionate devotion to her after she became (1581), with the
full
and the lady who was now
sister
Lady Rich
knowledge and consent of both
"Stella" with Beauty;* and
it
is
his wife.
He
his
identified
the opinion of the best
judges of the age that the representations of Spenser* as to the sincerity
and depth of the passion are "calm and
deliberate facts."
*
Now Sidney's verses were
until after his death;
manuscript and were already famous
was generally known.
not published
but they were widely circulated in ;
his love for Stella
Bruno writes
to him as a disLondon and attending the Court at least considerably more than a year, if not over two years, when he did so, and would know therefore of this passion, and of how, repelled by Stella, Sidney had
tinguished poet
;
*
he had been
in
turned his love to nobler issues than personal gratification,
though he nursed
it still.
Bruno wished
to put before
Sidney
and the world a higher form of adoration he would substitute devotion to the imperishable beauty of wisdom for the courtly ;
1 *
" '
^ »
Spaccio, Episi. Esplic. Spaccio de la Bestia Trionfante
;
Gli Eroici Furori.
P Asirophel and Stella, 1598, xlv, Spenser Ed; Astrophel. Arber, P Eng. Garner, 1897, vol. I, p. 469. Sidney, Sir
;
;
Eroici,
Argomenio
del Nolano.
Ixxxvj.
;
LONDON
IN service of
97
mere perishable charms, whether of body or mind
with characteristic zeal and directness of attack and
so,
equally characteristic absence of prudence and
tact,
he sneers
Tuscan poet who displayed such spasms on the banks of the Sorgue for a lady of Vaucluse though I do
at "that
—
No one who was
not desire to say he was mad."^
not
what might be passing in the mind of another could write thus. But Bruno was singularly defecentirely insensitive to
regard and, ultimately, it brought him to his end. same dedicatory letter there occurs a paean of virility. It has been remarked that " his tone is that of Walt Whitman he is strenuous and invincible and male." ^ FalstafF might be addressing Prince Hal in the Eastcheap tavern when Bruno asks " What do I hold ? Am I per-
tive in this
In the
;
:
chance a foe to generation
Do
?
,
come
regret having
from the delicious
me
to
I
hate the sun ?
into the world ?
Shall
I
of our earthly paradise ?
fruit
bar the holy law of nature ?
Shall
I
Do
I
keep men Is
it
for
try to set myself
or others free from the sweet-bitter yoke which God, in His providence, hath placed -on our neck ?
we
myself and others that
we have
Methinks
received ?
Am
to
I
persuade
are not born to carry on the I
am
not cold.
doubt
I
if
life
the
What do I snows of Caucasus would put out my fires. conclude? Eminent Knight, that we should render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things .
honoured and loved as such." ^ Mercutio, Bruno
He
himself talk.
stand to in
a^,
.
That women, being women, should be
which are God's.
like
.
is
We
should not forget that,
"a gentleman
that loves to hear
say more in a minute than he will
will
month."
Nevertheless, here
was strange
matter for Sidney's "wit, high, pure, divine"* to digest, 1
Eroici,
Argomenio
O
'
Elton,
*
Spenser,
;
del
Nolano,
The work '
op. cit.,p. 22.
Ed
;
Epitaph upon
the Rt.
bears the date 1585.
Eroici, Argomento.
Hon. Sir P. Sidney.
G
GIORDANO BRUNO
98 was a
unless there
from our view favoured, a "
in his apotheosis after
Zutphen.
And he
is
farther on, with the unromantic avowal,
little
made without
which disappeared
side to his character
blushing, that a
woman
worthy of being
is
loved in the flower of her beauty and ability to produce children
of Nature and God."
Nolan"
contrasts
ardour.
A
least
it
the
sexual
^
with
intellectual
strange address from a poet to a poet
shews that Bruno knew
minded and
title
men
but at
his patron to be broad-
was wholly incapable of covering up a many sides to his character and that he the merit of both
!
Sidney would perceive that Bruno
tolerant.
as the best possible
" the
farther on,
Still
instinct
single
to consideration.
—the
one of the
trusted to candour It is
evidence of
sincerity of the suitor is
by the tolerance of "a spotless
friend,
matched
a matchles man,
whose vertue ever shinde." Here
London, Bruno seems
in
to
have renewed his
acquaintance with Gwynne, and he became friendly with
John
Florio,
an Oxford man, but an
the son of a refugee country.
Florio
who was
introduces
Italian
by
birth,
being
a protestant preacher in this
Bruno and an
adversary at Oxford as Nolano and Torquato
unidentified ^
in "
Second
Fruites," published six years after Bruno's departure from
England.
A
Dickson,
who
follower and friend of Bruno's
published " The
Shadow
year of Bruno's arrival in England.
of
was Alexander
Reason
It is in
"
^
in the
Latin and
is
a
mnemonic and Neo-Platonic work of little value, being but a poor imitation of Bruno's " Shadows of Ideas.'' Bruno says Dickson was as " dear to him as his own eye." * Among other adherents of "the Nolan" was one Smith, who be^
Eroici, Argomento.
'
Called Torquato by Bruno himself in the Cena.
De Umbra Rationis. Cfr. Mclntyre, and Watson^ who mentions Bruno. 3
*
Causa, Dial.
I.
op.
cit.,
p. 36, for
Dickson
LONDON
IN
comes an interlocutor
The
in the
99
"Ash Wednesday
Supper."
difficulty of identifying this particular bearer
patronymic
of the
enhanced by the absence of his Christian
is
whom
Claudius
Hollyband dedicated the "Italian Schoolmaster "
in IS7S,*
name.
He may
have been John Smith,
or Joseph Smith,
who was
at
some
to
time, not yet ascertained,
consul at Venice,* or William Smith, the author of " Chloris or the Complaint of the Passionate Despised Shepherd."*
There are other
folks introduced into the dialogues
who
also remain unidentified. '
L
Einstein,
;
The Italian Renaissance in England, N.Y.,
1902,
p. lOI. "
G
;
'
Sicardi
G.B.
;
// Candelajo, Prefaz. e note, 1889, p. 39.
nella Storia delta cultura, 1907.
Mclntyre
;
op.
cit.,
pp. 35,
36.
Cfr. Gentile,
CHAPTER X IMPRESSIONS OF ELIZABETH'S ENGLAND
Bruno
produced seven books while
in
The
England.
first
Mnemonics and
of these, a treatise on the Lullian art,
The second, Metaphysics in Latin,^ appeared in 1583. " ^ The Ash- Wednesday Supper," the main object entitled was
of which
Physics and Astronomy
to refute Aristotelian
and extend the Copernican conception Cause, Principle and The One," the fourth, "
The
Infinite
Universe
in Italian, dedicated to Castelnau,
The " Supper " " Cause
the
"
third
And
Its
Worlds
and appeared
" *
in
Infinite
On
Universe " at Venice
some
declare that all were issued from
;
were 1584.
professes to have been printed in Paris
and "
"
;
a metaphysical work, and
'
the
;
but experts
unidentified
London
told the Inquisitors that " all those
press.^
Bruno
set forth
on the title-page that they were printed at Venice
were really printed
in
The
London.
which
printer wished
it
to
appear that they were printed in Venice to secure a better sale
and get them abroad better for were printed in England ;
that they
if it
had been indicated
their sale
would have
They were all printed in England although they bear the mark of Paris and elsewhere."^ The " Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast ," ' dedicated to
been more
1
ExpHcatio triginta sigillorum.
sigillorum.
.
.
'
La De
'
Cfr. Elton,
^
J.
difficult.
L "
;
cena de
.
.
,
Quibus adjectus
le
Ceneri.
Vinfinito, universo et
'
De
la causa, principio et uno.
mondi.
O ; Modern Studies, 1907, p. 322, n. 20. G. Bruno, 1903, p. 358, n. 5.
Doc.
xi.
est sigillus
.
'
— Mclntyre,
Spaccio de la Bestia trionfante.
^
IMPRESSIONS OF ELIZABETHS ENGLAND
lOI
Sidney, bears the press- mark " Paris, 1584" but, since the work contains a reference to a riot at Naples which occurred ;
May
in
1585,
is
it
obvious that
must have been printed
it
The next work, the " Cabala Of The Steed Like unto Pegasus, With the Addition of the Ass of
after
that
date.^
Cyllene,"^
bears
the
press-mark "Paris,
1585,"
and
dedicated to an imaginary bishop of Casamarciano, a
Following
place in Bruno's native province.
same
year,
the
the
Souls,"
Cabala, to have been printed by a
Antonio Baio at Paris.
fictitious
this, in
came "The Transports Of Intrepid
purporting, like
is
little
was dedicated
It
to
Sidney.
Several of the Italian books contain remarks on England but the " Ash-Wednesday Supper " has pages of satiric
;
mingled with
observation
humorous exaggeration,
half
never without a touch of severity. Bruno makes some in the " Causa " but sticks to his main
apology for these
He was
indictment.
struck by the pasturage in England,
so rich and green, by the splendid flocks of " pretty, excellent,
fat,
white and nimble lambs"
by the Englishman's love of sport
;
*
it
nourished, and
he liked the climate,
" the heavens being more temperate than anywhere else
beyond and on
this
side the Equinoctial
;
being banished from the subjacent earth excessive heat of the sun,
ground
flowery spring."
^
charming.
witnesses,
which the perpetually green
and
so
enjoys a perpetual
Like Erasmus, he found
She
is
snow and heat as well as the
the
Englishwoman
" graceful, gentle, soft, delicate, youthful,
beautiful, slender, with fair hair, rosy cheeks, divine eyes,
firm breasts and shining hands " '
Fiorentino,
F
;
;
®
to select
from a string
Dialoghi Morali di G. B., Giornale Napoletano,
N.S., 18S2, fasc. ig,p. 42. " Cabala del Cavallo Pegaseo, con I'aggiunta de I'Asino Cillenico. ' De Gli Eroici Furori. * Spaccio, III, iij. ^
Spaccio, III,
ij.
*
Cena, Dial.
I.
;;
GIORDANO BRUNO
I02
He
of epithets.
" lives long on the almsbasket of words "
express his admiration
to
England
that he wrote in
make a ing
"
:
One
!
of the very best stanzas
nymphs who Thames so charm-
praises the " gentle
stay on the green banks of the
had spoken of " the
just before this, he
gracious
nymphs of Father Thames."
and
beautiful
He
^
noticed the
marking of the royal swans, and the great flocks of crows
how inhuman Englishman
the game-laws were and
to
He
be a landowner.'^
minded Britons who became
how eager was
valued the broad-
his friends,
Italianate gentlemen of the Court.
;
the
But
and the educated
was
his disposition
not a specially forbearing one, and he was fastidious as
Horace "
I
in shrinking
hate the populace
To
from the rude humours of the mob. "
he told Castelnau.^
pass from Italy to France was to go back more than
one generation in polish of manner and cultivation of mind and, compared with France,
barbarous country.
England was
still
almost complete silence, was indeed chirping the perfect notes of a
a semi-
Poetry, after nearly two centuries of
new morning-song, and Spenser music
first
im-
trilled
a
" Shepheard's
Calender " Lyly in " Euphues," a rural romance, attempted to give fresh,
delightful
finish
and
mighty
line " did not yet
of
the
elegance
metropolis,
Doyster" and
a
in
prose
British
to
and
his
;
but " Marlowe's
resound in the rude play-houses " Gordobuc," " Ralph Royster
few masque-like
productions
of
Lyly
represented the best that had as yet been done for British
drama. •
Eroici, P. II, Dial. V.
—
Spaccio, Dial. Ill, ij. iij. " What must we do with the swan, demanded Juno. Said Jupiter, I order that it be marked on the bill with my seal and put into the Thames because there it will be more '
;
safe than in
any other
part.
And
for fear of capital punishment." »
De
Vinfinito,
Proem. Epist.
thus none will be able to rob me, Ibid. II, Cfr.
iij,
Horace
;
Odes, III,
i.
:
IMPRESSIONS OF ELIZABETH'S ENGLAND
IO3
After a year's residence in England, he could not contain
He expresses it with wonted ebullience, hurling epithet after epithet and
his disgust for the British commonalty.
piHng metaphor on metaphor.
common
"England can boast a
people which will yield to none other in disrespect,
outlandishness, boorishness, savagery and bad bringing up."
"When
they see a foreigner they become so
and bears, by the Lord
;
when you take away
pig
" who
many wolves
they put on the malevolent look of a
English courtiers
his trough."
sit near the sun " [Elizabeth] are well bred, but the
natural proclivities of the masses, or at least of
some
of
them, are only comparable with those of " Arabs, Tartars
He
and Cannibals." "
describes the swaggering bully who,
you don't make way for him, shoulder and spin you round.
if
his
you
shall be
made
had encountered a
He
Should you be a foreigner
as well acquainted with space as bull."
you
if
^
speaks of two great classes in the English plebs
there are traders and serving-men.
somehow
out
you a shove with
will give
that
The
former, " smelling
you come from abroad,
at you, jeer, snigger,
make
dog, traitor and foreigner, which last
the vilest epithet
is
they can bestow and implies that you are
worst treatment conceivable be young or bearing arms.
old,
twist their faces
disgusting noises, and call you
;
^
it
fair
game
for the
matters not whether you
a noble or gentleman, wearing a robe or
Should you, finding yourself in a
fix,
repel one
of them or put your hand on your sword, you shall straight-
way 1
see
them come surging out of
their shops
and
filling
Cena, Dial. II.
Three generations later, an Englishman, returning from the continent, would, if he were incautious enough to wear foreign dress or foreign manners, be pelted with garbage by the London rabble, French dogs A Mounseer A who would shout " French dogs Mounseer " A character of England, as it was lately presented to a Noble Man of France, London, 1659. *
!
!
!
!
GIORDANO BRUNO
I04
the whole street, and you find yourself surrounded by an
mob
excrementitious
who have sprung up more when
of rowdies
quickly than did the warriors, fabled by the poets,
Jason sowed the dragons' teeth. disgorged them
;
but, in
and present a highly
fact,
It
would seem as
if
earth
they come from the shops,
dignified
and
civilized
array of long-
and rusty forks which, for whatever worthy purpose the Sovereign may have granted them, staves, halberds, partizans
are always held in readiness for this and the like opportu-
They
nities.
shall fall
on you with outlandish fury, not
on whom, why, wherefore or how
reflecting
;
there is no
deliberation; each discharges himself of his natural con-
tempt for the stranger very press of
folk, all
;
and,
if
he be not impeded by the
bent on the same purpose, you shall
have the measure of your doublet taken by if
you be not wary, you
this
even
if
—
or quality
shall
fist
or rod, and,
have your hat staved
in.
All
you be accompanied by some person of means let him be count or duke, it shall be to his
damage and not
to
your
profit
—
for, in
a herd, these folk
are no respecters of rank, and, however he
may disapprove,
he must stand aside, look on and await the
finish."
The serving men, he
^
says, are of various grades
:
needy
gentlemen, bankrupt merchants, broken-down students, run-
away soldiers and sailors as well as gaol-birds and wastrels who are wont to hang about the Exchange and St. Paul's for hire.2
Even
much
in refined circles, the loving
to
Bruno's disgust
:
cup was passed round,
he draws a nauseating picture of
and of some other scenes. These are not the only strictures he makes on English The work entitled "The Ash Wednesday social life. this
Supper
" is
an attack on Aristotelian Physics and Cosmoup to by a row on the Thames and a
logy, but this is led 1
Cena, Dial. 11.
»
Ibid.
IMPRESSIONS OF ELIZABETH'S ENGLAND
I05
walk through London to Fulke Greville's abode, where a supper has been prepared for Bruno and his antagonists.
A
hot disputation follows the repast.
have taken I
cannot do
this as a veridical so.
I
Everyone seems
to
account of real happenings.
do not dispute
some
that, at
time, Greville
may have heard Bruno debating the point, perhaps in his own apartment, and certainly it would be a very frequent between Bruno and his friends or Beaumont House, and he admits that this was case at supper on an Ash Wednesday. When asked
subject of discussion visitors
the
by the
at
Inquisitors whether he had written concerning an
Ash Wednesday Supper and what was he replied entitled,
:
"
I
have written a book
his purpose therein,
in five dialogues
so
which dealt with the earth's movement, and, because
debated the matter in England at an Ash Wednesday
I
supper with certain doctors of medicine at the house of the
French Ambassador at which I dwelt,
Ash Wednesday Supper.
the
cisely.i
and
The book was intended
I
cannot
that there are
now
their opinions concerning these matters."
Bruno
made a
deliberately
recall pre-
to ridicule these doctors
quisitors did not pursue the subject.
that
called the dialogues
may be
It
certain errors in the book which
I
It
^
The
In-
has been suggested
false statement as to
where
the supper took place in order to minimize his offence, and located
it,
house of an orthodox Catholic.
therefore, at the
That would not be
like
Bruno
:
men he sometimes
like other
evades an inconvenient question or puts the best face he
can on the answer he
is
obliged to give, but, to direct
unescapable questioning, he straightforward replies.
book
;
they
la lettre '
it
may have had
The it
invariably gives Inquisitors
before them
;
perilously
knew about
the
taken au pied de
refutes Bruno's reply so far as the place
is
con-
There were errors in his exposition of Copernicanism which he ^ Doc. xiij. He Immenso.
corrected in
GIORDANO BRUNO
I06
And he
cerned.
was held
after
could not have forgotten where the supper
he had written a whole book around
work convinces me
careful examination of the
A
it.
that, while
the supper and disputation are based on facts, these have
been altered, rearranged and played upon by Bruno's lively
He
imagination and worked up into literary form. to
make
discussion go
down by furnishing
wants
attractive dishes
;
he wants at the same time to open the safety-valve of his indignation at British obtuseness and British manners.
he and a few friends discussed Natural Philosophy and together on turn
to
Ash Wednesday, it would be quite
in his
If fish
manner
physics and cosmology into a
the Aristotelian
" Supper of Ashes."
He more
than hints that he has invested everything with
such literary merit in his prefatory letter to Castelnau. " You will ask me, What symposium, what banquet is '
this ?
'
'
nesday's.'
The
is
It '
a supper.'
'
What
Who talks about
repast must have taken place before
say "
I
have eaten ashes
like
banquet after sunset'^ on the priests call the is
bread
first
Ash WedAsh Wednesday ? then. Would you
supper ?
a supper on
" ?
i '
'
'
'
No,
day of Ashes and Remembrance.'
the banquet for ?
'
Not
it
is
a
day of Lent, which our
to consider the
*
What
mind and pos-
sessions of the very noble and worthy Master Fulke Greville,
whose honoured abode
at
it
takes place
;
nor the fine man-
who were there as who will may see what
ners of the very courteous gentlemen
lookers-on and listeners;
nature *
is
Psalm
but
capable of in producing two fantastic fooleries,' cii, 9.
We must always
bear in mind the possibility of symbolic allusion and at the hands of a past -master of the art. The Aristotelian sun had set for the wise. I do not wish to push this, however, after the manner of Shakespeare-Baconians. ' I.e., the journey and the display of ignorant prejudice at the ^
in
an age passionate
discussion.
for allegory
IMPRESSIONS OF ELIZABETH'S ENGLAND
107
two dreams, two shadows ^ and two quartan agues, of which as one goes on, criticizing the historical meaning and then tasting
and chewing, one comes on apposite topographical,
geographical, moral enquiries, and yet others of a metaphysical,
mathematical and natural character."
Bruno must have gone and pleasanter
(the usual
often
enough
route),
^
Court by water
to
and he says that on
this
occasion he was accompanied by Florio and
Gwynne, the former, at least, being very well acquainted with London yet (although it is late, the company await them at Westminster and they are in a hurry) he makes his party go ;
eastward
in order to get
ignore the nearest stage their
westward
—the
to
boat from Dorset Stairs,' as
clearly
that
of the work,
if
Stairs
— and
take
more
indicate
to
long introduction to the main subject
this
with the " topographical and geographical
and absurdities
enquiries "
Westminster; they
Temple
it
includes,
a
is
literary in-
vention.
Nor
Although England had thrown
is this all.
yoke of Rome the Anglican Church did not pudiate venerable religious habits, nor has to observe
Ash Wednesday
were not Puritans. would be no
But
it
court-festivities
a convenient season
for
ever ceased
it
The
as a Fast-day.
off the
violently re-
Courtiers
might be urged that there
on that day, and
it
would be
a quiet supper and discussion.
Yet the town-house of the Grevilles was
This
may
close
by Holborn and one did not go from St. Clements Prof. Elton suggests that to Holborn by water.
Dane
Greville
be
so. ;
was lodging
" in or near Whitehall."
he was not lodging near Whitehall. •
Query, the dream of the supper and journey to
of the Peripatetic physicists • Cena, Proem. Epist. •
Elton,
O
;
loc. cit.
*
The crowd it
Assuredly of people
and the dream
? '
Elton,
O
;
op.
cit.,
p. 12.
GIORDANO BRUNO
Io8 and servants
whom
of the palace
itself,
may have
the guests find in the hall
and Bruno, who gibes
directed
is
suggestive
at their rudeness,^
sarcasm at Elizabeth's servitors
his
because he had experienced small courtesy at their hands. If
tude
my
view be correct, Bruno has run together a multi-
may have
been at
and adorned them, not merely
to "ridi-
one
of experiences,
Greville's
table,
which
of
cule these doctors," but also to satirize English manners.
Let us look at Elizabeth's London through Bruno's eyes.
Two
messengers come to him from a certain esquire at
him
the Court, asking
Copernican
He
theory.
views concerning the
to give his
that
replies
he does
through Copernicus' eyes, but with his own.^ find
Bruno
conversation
in
with
who
it
;
he (Bruno)
talk to images
furnish
the
Greville
is
whom
Greville
asks
Bruno
earth.
he has not the measure of Greville's capacity
grasping
for
see
next
Fulke Greville,
we must infer is the esquire in question. Bruno why he believes in the rotation of the replies that
not
We
may be
as
and address the dead
reason
for
his
belief
he
one of those if
;
will
Greville will
reply to
it.
very pleased at this answer, and invites Bruno
meet and discuss the problem with a company of gentle-
to
men and
learned folk on Ash-Wednesday.
but begs that opponents
may
be chosen
Bruno
accepts,
who
are not
"ignoble people, miscreate and of small understanding
in
these matters.
Master Fulke replies that Bruno need have
no
men he has in mind are of the best learning ^ The " learning and behaviour " thus skil-
fear, for the
and behaviour."
by no means exhibited to their advantage Bruno hears no more of the matter, and when the day appointed comes round he waits and waits dinner fully introduced is
in the sequel.
;
time passes over, so he gives the whole thing up and goes '
Cena, Dial. II, end.
^ '
Ibid., Dial. II.
Ibid., Dial. I.
IMPRESSIONS OF ELIZABETH
S
ENGLAND
He
out to call on some Italian friends.
IO9
does not return
Beaumont House till after sunset and, behold, John Florio and Matthew Gwynne are kicking their heels at the doorway while they impatiently await his return. They tell him he must hurry on with them; for a company of knights, gentlemen and doctors have assembled at Greville's and expect him. Bruno is aggrieved and shows it: he to
supposed he should be asked to dinner and discuss the matter with a long day ahead.
Gwynne
says certain knights
desired to be present, but they were unable to
dinner and have come to the later meal.
come
to
Reading between
the lines, Bruno, while always ready to praise those English
gentry
who have
conceivable that Greville
It is
some
and learned manners
has received a slight or so from them and resents
there, it.
travelled in Italy
may have found
Our author then works up
his
London
experiences,
placing the narrative in the mouth of Teofilo, as his
The
little
Westminster.
" Yelling
ness on the way.
to
'
oars
'
reach the great watery
and pleasantest route
we wasted
as
go by land and do a
much trifle
to
time as of busi-
At length two boatmen answered from
and slowly, slowly drew
After much question and how and when, they brought
in.
reply as to whence, where, why,
prow
cut,
safest, speediest
would have taken
the
serves
party who, although in such a hurry, have
— the
highway
afar
who
own mask.
taken anything but the shortest
it
in this
side-hit at himself.
to the foot of the stairs.
And
lo
!
one of them,
who might have been old Charon, held out his hand to the Nolan, and another, who was his son I think a fellow of about 65 took us in." The boat looked like a cork it was so ancient and worm-eaten— but it went like lead, so palsied
—
—
were the arms of the rowers.
Its
—
creakings and gratings,
mingling with the splash, splash of the feeble oarsmen, were
—
!
no
GIORDANO BRUNO
the burlesque of a musical accompaniment and incited Florio to break out with a love-ditty,
we had
and, before
and Bruno followed on with
" It took us a long time to
another song.
make
little
way
covered a third of our journey, just past
a place called the Temple, our old fathers, instead of hurrying on, turned the '
What
prow shorewards. The Nolan asked, Do you want to take breath ?
'
are you doing ?
Their answer was interpreted to him farther;
their station
was
at
they were not going
:
Entreaty after
spot.
this
entreaty proved worse than useless
.
.
Having paid and
.
thanked them (what else could be done to such scoundrels
showed us the way to the street. commenced in mud which, nilly willy, must be gone through." Here comes a sly laugh at himself, in the " The satiric spirit which pervades the whole composition Nolan, who had studied and taught in the schools more
in such a place ?) they
The
.
.
.
footpath
:
than we, said,
'
I
observe a
way
filthy
out
:
follow
me.'
But while he was yet speaking, he got so firmly stuck in the
mud
that he could not stir a limb
;
and we had
to
help one another, hoping that this purgatory would soon
come
to
But by malicious
an end.
luck,
he and
ourselves engulfed in a slimy passage, which
rounded by strong walls, as
if
or on
;
on up
so,
could not
tell
hoping every step would be the
to the
streets, even,
sur-
And, there
the
last,
way back we waded
knees through that deep and gloomy
Bruno must have sighed
At
we
was
had been a veritable
it
enclosure of jealousy or a garden of delights.
being no light to guide us,
we found
hell."
for his Italian cities, their side-
paved with stone
last the adventurers
came
to a
mud-cake with a stoay
margin where they could walk dry-foot, but of tumbling and
breaking head or limb.
in
some danger " Finally,
arrived at what seemed to us to be the Elysian
the main street
.... and
behold
!
there
we
field's
we were about
IMPRESSIONS OF ELIZABETH'S ENGLAND
III
twenty paces from the spot which we had set out from to look for a boat close to the Nolan's abode! .... We
—
had so
effectively
could hardly
annexed Masters
move our
Filth
and Slime that we
limbs."
They now debate what shall be done. Shall they venture on through dangerous streets in black night? Civility urges that they must not disappoint the expectant supper-
much
Bruno musters up courage Soon they are descried and mobbed, and matters grow very bad "at the pyramid near the mansion where three streets meet" (Charing Cross). Bruno musters up enough of the "dog's language" to After
party. to
hesitation
keep his word.
man of higher rank than the who is content with giving him a mere shove or two, "and not a reminder from the boss of his buckler or the There be gentlemen who are such in crest of his helmet. say " Thank ye, Master " to a
rest
nothing but descent ; and
it
is to their
advantage and ours
to have nothing to do with them."
Arrived at
last,
"
we
and many servants
many sorts of people They neither made way
enter and find
in the hall.
nor inclined the head nor gave any sign of reverence, but disdainfully did us so
way
upstairs."
The
much favour
with waiting and were sat little
as to point to the
guests had wearied themselves out
down
polite dispute as to seats of
to supper.
honour;
There finally,
is
a
Florio
takes the foot of the table, with Greville on his right and
Bruno on
his
left,
and the meal
is
resumed.^ " Your Englishmen
After supper comes the discussion. of quality," says Bruno,
confined to their
own
"know
island,
that their
own tongue
is
and would deem themselves
savages could they not speak Latin, French, Spanish and Italian."^
But English doctors who are
called Nundinio
and Torquato were present, and they were not 1
Cena, Dial. II.
'
travelled
Ibid., Dial. III.
GIORDANO BRUNO
112
Even small tradesmen educated
men.
grammar
the
at
schools could write to one another in Latin, so, in deference to the doctors, the debate
since
was conducted
Bruno spoke no English.
The
portraits of Bruno's opponents
time by a scornful, pitiless burin
all
celestial
council
were engraved
" has an emphasis on
fulminate an awful
to
He "admired
against impious Lycaon."^
for
there they stand, self-
Gods wore when he
his face such as the Father of the
the
:
One
important pompous pedants.
at
in that language,
sat
sentence
the gold chain
round his neck and then glanced at the Nolan's breast,
were more
be found."
where the
loss of a button
"
sat bolt upright, took his elbows off the table,
Then he
shook himself a
little,
gave a short
made
cap, twirled his moustache,
likely to
snort, adjusted his velvet
his scented face
assume a
due expression, arched his eyebrows, distended his
nostrils,
cast a glance backward, set himself in order, struck an attitude
—
left
fencing-match
hand
to left side, as if
— held up three
he were opening a
fingers of his right
began, with a few preliminary flourishes."
But the longer Bruno stayed ciled
he became to
its
England the more recon-
in
He
ways.
hand and
^
even finds
fortunate and chivalrous country."
it
" a beautiful,
When in Germany
he
and disappointments he had
forgot the petty annoyances
experienced and expressed his admiration at the aggressive
achievements of our sea-dogs.^
After
most peaceful days he ever knew during
A
all,
he had spent the
his exile in England.
French contemporary wrote of " blessed England, the
Yet even here " the Nolan
abode of quiet and humanity." *
was
far
from feeling settled
;
for Castelnau's recall
issued and he had long awaited
it
to
be put into
"
had been
effect.
And
even the most distinguished among Elizabeth's courtiers were '
'
Ovid Metamorph., I, 170 De Immenso, Lib. I. ;
Cena, Dial. IV.
'
sqq. '
Languetus,
H
;
Epistolce, xciv.
IMPRESSIONS OF ELIZABETH'S ENGLAND far
II3
from recognizing the genius of the most distinguished
ItaHan they had ever received of
thought" raised
his
Englishmen seem
to
among them. The " footfall little echo here/ contemporary
have had small inkling of the profound
originality of his speculations
easily grasp
and found
was, in truth, not cared
means
Neo-Platonism they could
his
and
for,
by
easily read, even
;
too familiar
it all
his subject-matter
;
his Italian style,
by no
own countrymen, was very
his
unpleasing to a generation that delighted in Tasso.
At
October, 1585, the Castelnau family went Bruno with them. Black clouds were already gathered round the Ambassador still more evil days awaited
back
last, late in
to France,
;
that generous gentleman.
of everything he had, in a state bordering
During the journey he was robbed
down
on
He landed at Calais
to his shirt.
A
destitution. ^
recently discovered
manuscript informs us that Bruno, who, even less than Castelnau, could afford the loss of worldly goods, was also
A diarist enters, under Dec
plundered.
has told
me
suffered
him
27, 1585, "
Jordanus
that his man-servant either has robbed him or
be robbed."
to
*
Bruno had spent two and a man's powers are at their
half of the years
fullest
when
a
flow in England, and
these years had witnessed the writing and actual production of great books.
husy
at
Not content with these labours he was
an astronomical work,
of Hell,"
which he promised
might see the
fruit of
to
be called the " Purgatory
to lend to
redemption."
*
Smith "that he
We hear no more of
' Bacon groups him with Patrizzi, Telesio, Campanella and others as neither excellent nor successful {Hist. Nat. ei Exper., Londini^
1622).
He
is
just
mentioned by the author of Antidicsonus and by
Thomas Watson in the dedication oi Compendium Memoriae Localis ; the former ranking him with Dickson and others as a self-advertising writer on mnemonics ; the latter speaking of his mystical and profound '
Auvray,
L
;
op.
cit.
*
Mclntyre; op. cit.,p. Cena, Dial. V.
H
47.
GIORDANO BRUNO
114 this.
Was
it
He may
ever printed ?
and we may possess the work tnenso ; for he
would seem
to
in the
have altered the Latin poem
title,
De Im-
have been labouring on
this
during the hours of waiting to embark at Dover/ although it
was not
finally
finished
and published
later. ^
De Immenso,
I, iv, schol.
until six years
CHAPTER WORKS PRINTED
IN
XI LONDON
I
The Thirty Seals and Seal of Seals Soon
after
Bruno's arrival
Explanation of Thirty Seals
England appeared " The
in
For Finding Out, Arranging
^
And Memorising All Sciences And Arts. To which Is A Seal Of Seals For Comparing All Mental Operations, And Is Conducive In The Highest Degree To Embracing Their Reasons," etc. etc.^ Some copies, as already
Added
stated,
do not contain a preliminary poem, a
letter
to
Castelnau, the famous letter to the Vice Chancellor of
Oxford and an Introduction.* " Incantation of Circe
The second
part of the of "
The The Explanation of Thirty Seals," and then more important pages, " The Seal of Seals." The " Thirty Seals " is but one more exposition The " Seal of Seals," * in two parts, is of Mnemonics. Art of Recollection."
Neo-Platonic and
important work.
is
*
" is
reprinted under the
Then
very
title
follows "
artificially
Bruno wishes
it
arranged.
But
it is
an
to be understood that his
views must not be taken as absolutely
true, but as
more
conformable with sense and an understanding of the world than
is
the generally received opinion to which they
seem
to
be in opposition.
'
*
' •
Or Impressions
may
or Images. Triginta SigiUorum ExpHcatio, etc. Tocco, F ; Opere Latine di G. B., pp. 63-66. » Sigillus SigiUorum. Ars Reminiscendi.
"S
;
GIORDANO BRUNO
Il6
He makes
an advance on the Neo-Platonists
intellect to
be always with us, whether
fact or not
;
^
there
we
in declaring
are aware of the
an evolution from sense upwards,
is
more complex and more
perfect as
it
ascends.*
One
ciple alone unfolds itself in all its manifestations,
these be high or low lity
and
Parme-
Possibility are all one in the last resort, as
The guides
nides saw.^
producer of
Nature
Power, Activity, Actua-
for Essence,
;
all
things
;
of the
Art, which
Intellect is
are Love, the
when nearest World * operates)
highest
Nature the Soul of the
(for in
Prin-
whether
Mathematics and True Magic, which reveals the inner nature of
themselves
Form and Matter do not exhaust any particular thing; they are endless
things.* in
Here and there acute observations are
found
to be
;
such
as that Alchemists will never arrive at the secret of the Philosopher's Stone, but will ries in their attempt,
emotion
is its
make many valuable
and that Logic
driving force.
And he
is
discove-
a sharp spur, but
expresses his abhor-
He
rence of the enthronement of suffering by religion.
one with the
at
of our
own
time
less cautious of the Psychical ;
he accepts the
is
Researchers
levitation of St
Thomas
Aquinas, second sight, the migration of the soul, and trances,
wherein a wise " control " unites with the psychic
;
'
spirit
of the
while he scoffs at vulgar pretenders to magic
arts.
»
Sig. SigilL,
Pars
II, § 31.
«
Ibid.,
Pars
I, §§31-34.
'76ici.,§§33, 34. * The Middle Ages found in Plato the notion of the world and stars being " animals," and of a Soul of the Universe proceeding from the Creator and enjoying " a never ceasing and rational life." Cfr. Plato, Timtsus ; 30-37. This philosophical doctrine was generally current in Bruno's time. = Stg.sigia.,p.ii,^^2-s. " Ibid., p. 11,^7. ' 76«i., 7, §§ 45, 46.
7
WORKS PRINTED
IN
LONDON
1
1
11
The Ash Wednesday Supper In the next work, so full of those English experiences
with which
we have
already dealt, Bruno for the
gave his great original genius tion.
At a time when
the old
time
first
free scope in a novel direc-
Greek questioning of experi-
ence had been well nigh abandoned for centuries, and before the advent of methods of induction, he provided, to borrow
Bacon's
phrase,
" anticipations
reasoned interpretations."
somewhat
He
^
Nature
of
These were
rather
brilliant,
than
and,
perceived that to get at truth you must extract
Nature, wherein
it
imbedded
lies
like
her
own
it
from
Nature
gold.
He
the one solid ground on which to " build for aye."
is
if
rash, they have usually turned out to be true.
was one of the first to break away from the worship of antiquity and the retention of time-mouldered opinion and to
open a new era. The " Cena De Le Ceneri
Supper
has
"
brisk,
five
four interlocutors.
"
"
The Ash- Wednesday between
entertaining dialogues
Teofilo,
who
is
Bruno under another
name, recounts those famous episodes we know of and defends the Nolan's views to Bruno's friend Smith, Trulla
and Prudentio, the
last
named being a
representative of
narrow-minded, ignorant and obstructive pedantry in general and, in particular, of those Peripatetics who " get heated over what they don't understand Aristotle's books."
^
—not
As we know,
even the
the talk
is
titles
of
enHvened
with caustic observations on the Aristotelians and social England, for " these animals have no such tender skins that they '
Bacon
would mind a ;
trifle
of blows yet heavier."
Nov. Org., xxvj. '
Ibid.,
^
Proem. Epist.
*
Cena, Dial.
Now, I.
;
GIORDANO BRUNO
Il8
as always, he scoffs without reserve at
men who
object to
changing their opinion simply because they detest novelty, and he seizes each congenial opportunity of displaying a
and scholarly prejudice against the common herd,
patrician
those "_souls of geese
That bear the shape of men.''
Bruno took Englishmen
much
else,
among "
his opportunity of being
" to
own tongue
write in his
being a pioneer
for
;
Italianised this,
in
;
he was one of the
as in
first to
such high matters as philosophy and science in a
treat of
modern language; nor was the
dignified
and once con-
venient habit of addressing the cultured classes in Latin quite
He
abandoned
two centuries
until
will give full
later.
expression in his native Neapolitan to
his fulness of thought
and
feeling.
shall imitate the painter, "
His
who does
he determines,
style,
not content himself
with depicting his main subject, but, in order to
canvas and
to
make
and
rocks, mountains, trees, fountains, streams
Here, you
may
find
merely indicated by head, horn or limb
some
but at another spot
characteristic
is
here a
movement
;
or expression
is
enhanced
^
Again, he
mighty prose, taking
tells
its
own
but these
may
given; so
interest
criticises and, finally, centres one's attention
subject."
;
or ears, even,
the whole shape of a beast
that one discerns everything with
art,
;
sky with the half of a rising sun, and, scattered
strip of
;
his
hillocks.
a royal palace, there, a wood
about, a bird, a pig, a stag, a donkey, a horse
suffice
fill
art conformable with nature, puts in
;
one
on the main
us he will achieve " a
full
and
time ; coming, not as of clerkly
but flowing and strong as are the waters of a mighty
current."*
With what success does he pursue '
Cena, Proem. Epist.
this '
aim
?
He
Ibid., Dial. I.
records
WORKS PRINTED
IN
LONDON
II9
a feast and compares his work to a banquet.^
Each
dish
is
designed at once to gratify and stimulate the palate for the
But the courses are served
next.
and
in tumultuous profusion, groans with " miscellaneous feeding." Nor is
his table
this all
;
the repast
accompanied by a wild, resounding
is
makes
orchestra, which stuns a deUcate ear and
employed
;
big drum, marrow-bones, cleaver, every conceiv-
able instrument
we
;
used in turn, and sometimes, which
is
We pass
worse, together.
modulation
the brain
For not wind and brass and strings only are
spin round.
are swept along in a Bacchic rout.
times boisterous gaiety drops into coarseness
was unwilling
is
rapidly from key to key without
to omit the zest of obscenity
;
Some-
;
but the age
it
appealed to
every reader and, throughout time, wit has flourished on
Bruno
the dung-heap.
alights but he does not dwell there.
For him even the Earth he escapes, soars
The
is
even richer measure
in
The Supper
when he
can,
" are to be found in
almost every other work.
with the wealth of a
filled
;
and bursts into rapturous song.
aloft
characteristics of "
no abiding place
full
and impetuous
All are
personality.
Aristotle conceived of space as being " the limit of the
surrounding body in respect to that which
it
universe is split into a celestial region
His
terrestrial
below
localization of
—a
elements.
very convenient
Above
is
removed from the
strife
On
is
of the four
the solid sphere of earth, which lies in
the centre of the universe, are those of water, ether.
^
the
for
Heaven, especially as his upper region
with ether and
filled
doctrine
surrounds."
above and a
air, fire
and
earth the elements are mixed and therefore
impure,* and,
since
everything
passes from opposite to
opposite, one passes into another. '
Cena, Proem. Epist.
»
Zeller,
»
Aristotle
E
Costelloe
;
Arist.,
tr.
;
Gen.
Corr. II,
et
3,
But everything tends
and Muirhead,
330, 6, 21.
1897,
/,
p. 432.
GIORDANO BRUNO
I20 to
move
to its
own
proper place
hence there can be only
;
Like Plato, Aristotle conceived of the stars as
one world.
being souls of a god-like nature,^ the causes of physical change.^ it
Such was the accepted
He
pertained to physical theory.
Not of him as of
Bruno conceived it which
faith.
every article of
to destroy
to be his mission
Aristotle can
carried
it
on with
zeal.
be said that he was
it
" moderate to excess."
In the " Supper " Bruno's bent towards natural science bursts forth with
the sudden vigour of an Italian spring.
all
Henceforward the secrets of Nature claim the greater part of his attention. in his
youth
he was the
^
;
He
first to
did not accept the Copernican theory
when he became convinced
but
see beyond
of
its
truth
Liberated from the fetters
it.
of the past by the genius of one solitary thinker, he sent a search-light through the heavens
and applied Copernicus'
Nature repeats her operations of which revolve round the sun, each showing
theory to the fixed stars. in planets all
If
but a variation of one single plan, shall she cease to repeat herself through an unending universe of stars
The
universe
is all
of a piece
;
on earth are observed throughout space. indisputable merit.
He was
nican theory to
the hosts of heaven.
all
and planets
?
the principles which obtain
the
first to
Here Hes
his
extend the Coper-
He
did so with
was a marvellous sweep of the scientific imagination, for we must remember that Galileo and Newton had not yet come to supply their confirmatory
characteristic boldness.
evidence.
He went
It
further: he
was soon
the physical universe occupies infinity
—a
to declare that
magnificent con-
ception which the hardihood of the science of to-day would
perhaps hesitate to '
Aristotle
;
De
;
Meteor,
affirm.
Ccelo, II, 12, 292, a, 18
;
Eth. Nic, VI,
2,
269,
30, 6, 14. '
Aristotle
I, 2,
339, a, 21.
»
Cena, Dial. IV.
a;
WORKS PRINTED He
LONDON
IN
accepts the animation of the universe
are vastly higher, others vastly lower than
;
121
some creatures
we
are
;
but the
more
earth, the planets, the stars, are "celestial animals,
In a universe which
*
intellectual than we."
and
is infinite
eternal " the flaming bodies of space are the messengers of
Thus our
God, declaring his excellent glory and majesty. vision
is
enlarged to behold the infinite effect of the infinite
Cause, and
we
are taught to seek the divinity not far off but
closer to us than
are to ourselves."
portance of
man
He
^
perceived that
Copernicus had diminished the im-
discovery of
the
if
we
in the Universe,
it
had exalted him as a
being capable of grasping so large a view.
view of the universe was based,
totelian
man's, on sensible appearance intellect to
The
Aris-
the
plain
the function of the
it is
pass beyond the mere appearances of sense
Yet,
truth.^
but
;
like
to
do this
we must
quitting the Aristotelian definitions of Essence
bute and the
and enquire
like,
we
to
observe Nature and,
and
Attri-
should examine natural phenomena
for the conditions
under which events do or do
not happen.
Existence and
its
Cause are
alike Infinite,
"This
perishes though everything changes. this star, not
time to time renews
taught
;
a body there
There
*
is
itself
anywhere
*
altering
all
its
no absolute up or down, as Aristotle
is
in space
;
but the position of
relative to that of other bodies.
Everywhere
incessant relative change in position throughout
the universe, and the observer things.
Nature, from
in
by changing and
no absolute position is
entire globe,
being subject to death, and dissolution and
annihilation being impossible
parts."
and nothing
is
always at the centre of
All celestial bodies are no less secure than
Cena, Dial. Ill, 4a Prop, di Nundinio
Nic., vj, 7, 1 141, a, 34 « Ibid., Dial. I.
;
De
Coslo, "
;
cfr.
is
Aristotle
;
i, 2.
Ibid.
•
Ibid., Dial. V.
the Eth.
:
GIORDANO BRUNO
122
There
Earth; they require nothing to support them.^
no absolute Hghtness or weight taught,
in
as
things,
is
Aristotle
but (here he almost foreshadows the great dis-
covery of Newton) they have a certain impetus towards or
away from each conception
He
other.^
there
:
is
certainly
accepts an ancient scientific
an ether ;
only take place by direct contact too light to
move the heavenly
pelled
by the energy of
axis
but this
;
not
is
which
stars, of
is
it
;
varies
it
:
He
one.
Cusanus that there are spots
movement can
bodies, they
their souls.*
all
for
but, since the ether is
must be pro-
The sun moves on its its position among the us of the discovery of
tells
in the sun,*
and he attributes
the scintillation of the stars to their being suns which give
out their
own
a reflected
is
light
;
light.®
Venus does not
He
twinkle, because hers
observes that the Earth's atmos-
phere rotates with her.
Much shrewder
is
the geologic
discernment that natural forces are in constant operation
and produce very slow but vast changes Bacteriologists cipation of
may
modern discovery
me more than
to
in land
and
sea.*
choose to find a remarkable anti-
passage
in the
likely, since
:
"
It
seems
everything shares in
life,
that a countless multitude of creatures live not only in
us but in
all
composite things."
'
He
goes on to say
"
when we observe anything to die as we call it we should not so much believe it to be death as change; the mere accidental composition and harmony ceasing, but the things which they happen remaining immortal whether they be
to
spiritual or material, as 1
Cena, Dial. V.
we
shall
show on another occasion." * "
Ibid., Dial. V.
4a Prop, di Nundinio. ' Ibid., la Prop, di Nundinio. * Ibid., 3« Prop, di Nundinio. ' Ibid., Dial. V. ' Ibid., Dial. Ill, 4a Prop, di Nundinio. 8 Ibid. Metam. xv. " In this vast universe nothing Cfr. Ovid perishes but it varies and changes its appearance and to begin to be something different from what it was before is called birth, and to '
Ibid., Dial. Ill,
;
;
;
WORKS PRINTED
IN
LONDON
1
23
Instinct is not mechanical activity induced from without,
but
due "
is
to a sixth sense or reason or pure intellect,
working within the creature who manifests
Bruno was keenly
alive to the evils
it."
*
which attend com-
mercial greed, especially those which follow the conquest
and occupation of
alien lands.*
In Science, then,
he shows himself the precursor of
Newton and
Galileo,
and points
Lyell,
to
paths which
recent investigators have pursued.
He
could not but recognize in Aristotle one of the most
inquiring
minds of Antiquity.
Passages are to be found
works wherein he accepts the teaching of the Stagirite and follows him very closely. He felt the force in
his
of a thinker who, even in the mutilated form in which he
came
to the Middle
many
generations of highly disciplined
Ages, exercised despotic sway over minds.
But he
regarded the Aristotelian Cosmology as wholly reactionary it
had put an end
to the
by the early Greeks
;
:
advancing speculation commenced
and the dead weight of
authority kept the world in bondage.
The
Aristotle's
Christian
fol-
lowers of Aristotle were far more obscurantist than he.
So Bruno determined to smite and spare not. In the Cena he commences a battle which occupied most of his energies through the years when he was still at liberty. " Ever a fighter,"
he attacked the defenders of Aristotle wherever
he could find them with whole-hearted zeal.
he opens up new channels stitutes
of
for
Cena
mental energy and sub-
genuine thought for the paralysis which had come
making everything conform with
Bible.
In the
What
Aristotle
he finds worst in his opponents
and the is
their
cease to be the same thing death. Whereas, perhaps, those things are transferred hither, and these things thither ; yet in the whole all things continue to beJ' " Ihid. 1 Cena, Dial. I.
GIORDANO BRUNO
124
pretentiousness born of their ignorance.
were better
It
be frank about one's ignorance than to pretend to false
to
knowledge."^
From a
perusal of Algazel, the Arabian theologian, he
has learned that religions have a practical object ordinances are designed for
their
:
good conduct, general welfare, Their
peace and the progress of the State.^
social needs,
authority must be recognised interpretations of
abstract and
the
many
but there are as
;
metaphoric as there
are faiths.*
Now
such early Fathers of the Christian Church as
much
Tertullian and Augustine had taught that ture
must be regarded as purely
allegorical
;
of Scrip-
Aquinas had
*
emphasized their doctrine,^ and Dante had expounded the vernacular that " such speech
But
comprehension."* that religions
in
itself
Scripture condescends to your faculty of
your mind.
to
must accommodate
embody
nothing to do with
it
was a great advance
to declare
a merely practical attitude, and have theoretic
truth
— an
advance on the
compromise of William of Ockham and Duns Scotus, who excused the results of their
dialectic
by asserting
that,
however much the results of reason may contradict the teachings of the Church, both are
have but one
will
final
by the
the approach thereto is
He
equally true.
and one
truth
final
Bruno
reality,
and
free exercise of intellect.'
foresaw the quarrel between science and religion, but
thought,
if
the Scriptures were interpreted in the Ught of
lofty
minds
will find
1
Cena, Dial.
*
Tertull.;
"
I,
Adv. Marc.
Sum.
is
persuaded that
support in rehgion more than in any IV. Aug. In Gen.
xvij.
xix, 11; I^, iv,
7.
Ibid., Dial.
II, 16.
°
Aquinas
;
'
Dante
Par., IV, 40-48.
*
Cena, Dial. IV.
;
Nay, he
might be avoided.^
science, this
Theol. I,
i,
—
S.
10
;
;
'
»
Ibid.
Cfr. Sigillus, I, §33.
WORKS PRINTED Other philosophy.^
time-honoured
prets them to his
He
forgot
he
:
may suit own end.
that in
some
inhabitants,
LONDON
1
25
And, quite ingenuously, he adopts a
device
Scriptures which
IN
quotes
filling
better
everything from
and artlessly
his purpose
the
stars
the
inter-
and planets with
and some worse than ourselves,^
he dealt a blow to the central Christian doctrines of the Fall
and Redemption.
He
is fully
aware
that the thinker
and the investigator
of nature have no easy road to traverse in their aim to
overcome contradictions underlies them.
"
O
and arrive
difficulties
to
the
at
unity which
be endured, cries the
coward, the feather-head, the shuttlecock, the faint-heart.
The
task
stand aside. place and the
way and
the difSculties of the
You may
necessity.
race nevertheless. a business.
He
is
labours.
.
.
fail
force an immortal
to reach
palm from
Run
your goal.
the
Put forth your strength in so high
Strive on with your last breath."^
always conscious of the importance of his own
"The Nolan has
and made
spirit
.
The craven must Ordinary, easy tasks are for the commonherd. Rare, heroic and divine men overcome
not impossible though hard.
is
its
given freedom to the
knowledge
free.
It
was
human
suffocating in
the close air of a narrow prison-house, whence, but only
through chinks,
were
it
gazed at the
clipped, so that
it
far-off stars.
was unable
to
cloud and reach the reality beyond."^
words
;
Its
wings
cleave the veiling
These are big
but in sooth Bruno had pierced the stubborn vault
of old heaven and enlarged the boundaries of the Universe. 1
Cena, Dial. IV.
^
Ibid., Dial. II.
»
/jj(^_
GIORDANO BRUNO
126
III
On This
Cause, Principle, a
is
brilliantly original
The new view
new
on Metaphysics.
of the Universe carried with
departure in Philosophy.^
The
dialogues.^
intended
is
treatise
a perception
it
inadequacy of scholasticism and the need of a
the
of
And The One
to
The work
consists of five
of these has three interlocutors and
first
and vindicate the
excuse
England which had proved
on
strictures
In the four
distasteful.
fol-
lowing dialogues, Teofilo expounds the Nolan's philosophy to Gervis,
Dickson and a humanist called Polinnio.
by a
dialogues are prefaced short poems, of
feeling
which three are
These verses
Italian.
letter to
which finds
in
Latin and two in
strike that note of lofty thought
fuller
lark,
and
expression later on in the work,
Bruno springs from the ground and wings skyward the
The
Castelnau and five
like
soaring in ever widening circles, floating his
throbbing song into the
infinite,
and again by a sudden drop
but interrupting
for rest to the
Throughout Bruno's life-work we
homely
it
now
earth.
find Plato's doctrine of
Ideas and the Neo-Platonic imagery of Emanation becoming less
and
less
Aristotelian
operant.
In
the
" Cause " he
takes
up
conceptions and works by means of these
philosophic distinctions, as well as through certain theologic distinctions, to
an independent view.
But, while he
obliged to use current terminology and the categories
is
of Aristotle and the schoolmen, he feels that they
him
" Aristotle ^
never
tires
of distinguishing
by reason what
Cfr. Cena, Dial. I.
The second Rand's Modern "
hamper
thought out clearly and unmistakably.
in getting his
&
dialogue has been translated by I. Classical Philosophies, London, igo8.
K. Royce in
'
WORKS PRINTED indivisible in
is
LONDON
IN
1
27
For Aristotle had
Nature and Truth."*
reduced Actuality into two principles, Matter and Form,
and neither can be deduced from the set
bounds
to the Universe, and,
Further, he
other.
which
worse, perceiving
is
unmoved mover beyond the ether, at the circumference of the world and unconditioned by it.^ Bruno finds such abstractions as
thought to be non-corporeal, he assumed an
matter, form, potency etc. incapable of yielding
He must
interpretation of the world.^
unshackle the mind and give
logical distinctions,
play in order that
may
it
new path
but, as is
;
free
it
grasp the unity to which they
He
point and wherein they must coincide.*
extent,
a true
above these
rise
always the case,
opens up a
doing
in
some
so, to
he confuses methods and boundaries.
Human
knowledge
limited;
is
is
it
no easy matter
to
discover the immediate cause and principle of dependent things. traces,
Cause.
And
things which are knowable by us are but
universal effect,
the
To
of
the
First
and
Principle
use an illustration, in contemplating statues
which are the works of a sculptor we do not behold the real being of
him from whom they proceed, but only
"No
effects.*
Him who
eye can draw near
absolute light and deepest obscurity."
*
is
Bruno
its
once
at
will there-
fore leave the Absolute, as transcendent, to revelation
and
theology and turn himself to the interpretation of Nature,
where he
shall find the
Absolute as immanent.
There
is
a " Soul of the Universe." 1 "
Causa, Dial. II. Met, vj,
Aristotle
;
I, I, 403, b, 7 sqq
;
i,
1026, a, 13
;
Phys., vhj, 10, 267,
xij, i, 1096, a, b,
6
;
De
30
;
De Anim.,
Casio, I, 9, 279, a,
16 sqq. »
Causa, Dial. III.
'
Ibid., Dial. Ill, V.
»
Ibid., Dial. II.
'
Ibid., Dial. III.
'
Ibid., Dial. II.
TimcBUs,
34.
The germ
of the notion
is
to
be found
in the
;
GIORDANO BRUNO
128
He
has worked himself through the trammels of schoterminology and subtle but inadequate distinctions
lastic
but they are mental currency and there
A
between Principle and Cause. lies its
is
Principle
within the constitution of a thing and being, while the cause of a thing
"concurs" with
as necessary to
it
no other way
So he begins by distinguishing
than to employ them.
is
is
is
that which
necessary to
external to
it,
production.
its
yet
Now
the Schoolmen, following Aristotle, employed certain useful distinctions
Cause as
in
Bruno
Causality.
Efificient,
makes a thing what
and
it is,
Mind, yvhich
characteristic faculty
Soul."
It is
and, so far, thing,
and
is
and
;
therefore,
with
Formal, that which
Final, purpose to be attained.
In the Efficient cause of the " Universal
deals,
the source of change
Universe he discovers the the inmost,
is
most
real
and
potential aspect of the Universal
not fully expressed in any particular thing, is
extrinsic
yet
;
it
also operates within the
therefore also intrinsic.
The Formal Cause
that " ideal reason " without which the agent could not
is
operate any more than an artist can work without the idea of his work in his mind. is its
The
the forms actually exist.
This end so delights and
the universal intellect that to
all
Final Cause of the Universe
"perfection, wherein, in different parts of matter, all
it
kinds of forms in matter."
reason,"
as presupposed in
actualized,
Principle
it is
a Principle.
and Cause
coincide.
satisfies
never wearies in giving birth
the
We So
^
But while the " actual, is
ideal
a Cause, as
find that, in this regard.
far
we have been dealing we have also
with Forms (another ancient distinction):^ to deal with the
Matter in which they are realized, using
Causa, Dial. II. Aristotle asserted the ultimate cause of movement to be a final cause. {Met. xij, 7, 1072, a, 25.) " Mop^ii, ?'5o!, ISta, figure, species, appearance, are almost synonyms. For Bruno, Form is an "impression" of the Ineffable, whether idea ^
or material configuration.
WORKS PRINTED
LONDON
IN
the term as that out of which anything
1
may come
to
29 be
formed.
Of course distinction
there is not to be found in Bruno any sharp between the " thinking thing " and the " extended
made
Until Descartes
thing."
that
thinkers
distinction,
were content, with the child and with primitive man, take body and soul as a unity in action.
to
In less mature
had indeed been led away by ancient philosophers and Avicebron, and had regarded Matter as the sole sub-
years, he
"
But on deeper thought and taking consideration, we must distinguish between
stance of things. other facts into
The Soul
form and material substance."^
of the Universe
must be as the individual soul and, to use our old image, may be Hkened to a pilot guiding a vessel,^ who is none In our world Matter the less within that which he guides. and Form are never separate. wrote that the world
is
Virgil
he says " The Spirit of the Lord all
things, directing
for ever
changing;
filleth
the world
and that
:
things hath knowledge of the voice."
" If Spirit, Soul, Life, is in all
when he
this
Solomon declares the same thing when
Mind moves Mass.* which containeth
knew
interpenetrated by Spirit and that
all
things,
it
is
the form
what has been, ;
in
of
Forms are
and governing matter."*
things, becomes nothing
*
the vicissitude of
there must be something, then,
beyond the varying forms of
there must also be
spirit;
something beyond varying material forms.* be a Soul of the Universe which gives
it
There must
We
unity.
must
conclude that this exists wholly in the whole and in every part.
To understand how
this
"
It is
metaphor from Plotinus
may
be, let
us borrow a
as a voice which
is
wholly
For the Scholastics the Soul was a Form.
1
Dial. III.
^
Cfr. Aristotle
'
Virgil
6
Causa, Dial. II.
;
:
;
De Anima,
^n., VI,
724-7.
II, j; Plot. * *
;
Enn.,
iv, 3
;
7,
Book of Wisdom,
I, 7.
Ibid., Dial. II, III. I
GIORDANO BRUNO
130
throughout the whole of a room and in every part of it
wholly heard by
is
universe
I
It
would
it
be
still
.
.
Could
.
all in
it
it;
the whole
fill
all."^
became a necessity with the early mediaeval thinkers In a nugget of gold, for example, there
to posit substance. is
all.
;
but these qualities are to be
They
exist in unity in the nugget,
yellowness, hardness, etc.
found elsewhere
also.
and the inexplicable
cated by the word substance.
may
do so
fact that they
be indica-
Later on, in order to support
the doctrine of transubstantiation, they went further and 1
Iwhich " supports"
To
accidents.
its
able and ever the same with
Bruno
underlying, enduring reality
substance an
attributed to
itself,
substance, unalter-
attributes
were ascribed.
and works through the
usually employs
notion of substance, the "
know not what "
I
earlier
of Locke,
which gives unity .^
We allow
substantive value to brute matter and also to
Let us consider material substrate, that invisible
spirit.
something which gives one-ness to It
all visible
forms.
exists not merely in actual being, but also as the possi-
bility of being.
All that
must be referred
or potency has caused
substrate
and
possible
Everything that exists
substance.
existing
is
a principle which
to
;
it
it
Now
that
is
actual
power more than an
possible, but
is
is
and possibihty and
potentiality
actuality in undistinguished unity. finite to
all
both possibility and
So matter
to be.
is
is
Aristotle held the in-
be potential only, not actual. in
what
relation does the substrate of brute matter
stand to Spirit or
Form
in
general?
material worlds can be distinguished distinction
without
'
Causa, Dial. II.
"
Cfr. Sensini,
op. cit, p. 165.
T
;
an
underlying
— Cjr. Plotinus
;
;
The
spiritual
and
but there can be no identity;
Enn., VI,
so
we
are
iv. 12.
Sul pensiero filosofico di G.B., 1907
;
Mclntyre,
WORKS PRINTED bound
to
acknowledge
LONDON
IN
I3I
and
that, in the last resort, spirit
Form wherever
occurs and Matter in
all its
forms, imply one Subject or Substrate or Substance.
Nor
brute-matter,
it
enough: Power, Possibility and Actuality, whether
is this
material or spiritual, must also be One.^
many, sending
all
forth from her
Nature
womb
one and
is
in endless flux.^
Bruno comes near asking the question
What
:
is left
of
when stripped of all sensuous quality ? But he never did so. One little step and he had anticipated Berkeley's advance, made a century and a half later. He would have asserted sensuous experience to be the minimum
existent matter
He
of being.
perceives however that there
no real divorce
is
between the individual mind and that Universe dwells and whereby shall not
it
"
is.
sound badly which says
and
all
all
forms are in
all
all definitions
it,
things in
one,
is
possibility,
act,
One
to
which
its place, for itself,
is
since
no other
there
it is all.
no whither
is
It
to desire or wait for
nothing to parts."
grow itself,
which
all
it.
It
best,
and com-
is infinite
and
does not move it
can transfer
does not decay, for
things being
less, for it is infinite.
for
It
The
absolute
does not come into being, for there
can change with no other, increase or
to
is
limits
pletion cannot be set, which, for that reason,
unending and consequently established.
"
and the
being, the greatest
thing,
which cannot be comprehended,
therein,
its truth."
unalterable.
infinite,
and
itself,
come together
contradictions are enunciations of
universe
it
things are an unity
all
which, through mutability possesses since
which
in
That judgment of Heraclitus
the
infinite
has
It
itself.
It
it
cannot
adds and takes
no
proportional
3
" Ibid., Dial. IV. Causa, Dial. III. V, beginning. Aristotle had got so far as to assert the eternity of the world he claims to have been the first to do so (De Ccelo, i, 10, 279, b, 12). But he also declared the world to be a complete, finite whole (Phys. iij). 1
^
Ibid., Dial.
;
GIORDANO BRUNO
132
Plotinus and the Neo-Platonists, while apprehending the
j
one-ness of the Universe, had divorced unity from reality
i
and unwarrantably asserted the independent being of a mere abstraction. Bruno advanced far beyond this nor,
'
;
although Schelling found in the Nolan's thought a kinship
with his own, was Bruno's Absolute a mere Indifferenzrejoice " he punkt, a " blank featureless Identity." " writes " in the unity of the sensible {in uno sensibile) but
We
most of
that which comprehends in itself
all in
sensi-
all
in one knowledge which comprehends one power of apprehension which embraces all that can possibly be apprehended, in one being which completes
bility
all
;
cognitions,
in
everything itself." ^
stract,
all, in the unity which is the whole " absolute simplicity " not because it is ab-
most of
;
—
It is
not because no differences exist within
but because
all
prehensive, harmonious intuition which i
words Bruno arrives
knows
its
bosom,
divisions are healed in the one single com-
itself in its
at
many
One
is
God.
Reality, which
aspects and
through which the manifold exists.
is
that
In other
moves and
Whole
and
in
All things in process
are nothing apart from the Whole.
"The
highest good,
^the highest perfection, the highest blessedness consists in
the unity which enmeshes the
all."
^
Bruno's thought reappears in Spinoza, influenced
;
whom
but Bruno's speculations are less
*
and systematic than Spinoza's.
he directly
rigid, statical
Bruno never loosens He stands by
hold on the notion of Living Spirit.
his
his
master, Cusanus; philosophy points for both thinkers to the union of
all
distinctions
»
Causa, Dial. V, end.
'
Spinoza,
B
;
'
Tractaius
annoUes par C. Appuhn,
and contraries
t.
De Deo 1,
1907.
et
Homine ;
— Sigwart,
in
that which
Ibid.
(Euvres,
C. von
;
tr.
et
Spinoza's
Tractat v. Goti etc., Gotha, 1866 ; Ibid.j T. v. Gott, Titbingen, 1870. Avenarius, R ; Die Beiden Ersten Phasen d. Sp. Pantheismus,
—
Leipzig, 1868.
2
WORKS PRINTED
LONDON
IN
transcends and includes them and which
mere unity of
tion of parts or
parts.
1
no mere
is
33
collec-
Both men were on the
road towards the Metaphysic of a great English thinker of
own day
our
:
they had the root-idea of an all-including
^
Absolute, wherein are
all
centres
of experience and
differences as such, but not merely as such
Whole they
transcendent, ;
in
and
all
for the
are also transmuted and harmonized.
Whatever tion
:
else the Absolute it
unites
as immanent
eternal meaning,
all is
it
may be we know
that, as
contraries in one perfect cogni-
the Universal Soul, unfolding the
infinite
and without beginning or end.
Living out our share of the divine meaning and being actually Infinite and Eternal, we need not fear death. Bruno flatters himself that he has " taken away the dread of Orcus and greedy Charon, which spoils the sweet of
one with the
life."
Such are the conclusions of Reason, let Theology say what it will. But " discreet theologians will always admit natural reasoning, whithersoever
it
may lead, provided it does
not dispute divine authority but submits to
Indeed,
it." ^
from the early days when Scotus Erigena wrote, there had
been thinkers who had no desire
were permitted conclusions
;
to interpret
it
by
to
oppose dogma
own
their
nor had the Church thought
with them seriously.
it
if
they
metaphysical
wise to interfere
As has been said, from the less couraOckham and Duns Scotus, philo-
geous days of William of
sophy had evaded the interference of the Church and secured
some independence in philosophic thinking by a dodge. Truth was held to be of two kinds, philosophic and theologic, which might be in opposition to one another. Bruno belonged to the bolder line of Erigena. '
Bradley, F.
H
;
Appearance and Reality.
Cfr.
Book
II, chaps,
xiij-xv. 2
Causa, Proem. Epist.
'
Ibid., Dial.
IV.
GIORDANO BRUNO
134
has been generally supposed that Bruno, following
It
Cusanus, had some dim perception of the possibiUties of a \
method when he wrote " Profound magic is it to draw the contrary out after having discovered the point of union." ^ Hegel in his review of Bruno's philosophy found dialectic
in
:
" a great word."
this
^
Schelling,
discovered in
too,
spirit akin to his own in his attempt to deduce the Universe logically from the " point of union." ^ But it is
Bruno a
very doubtful whether he had first-hand acquaintance with Bruno's point of view seems to
the Causa.
to that of the thinker
who
is
to
day
me
in fashion
to be closer
;
for
he
is
of
the intuitive rather than of the logical, abstract school. '
Bergson writes
" Concepts, as
:
we
shall
show elsewhere, There
generally go in couples and represent two contraries.
hardly any concrete reality which cannot be observed
is
from two opposing standpoints, which cannot consequently be subsumed under two antagonistic concepts. thesis
and an antithesis which we endeavour
reconcile logically, for the very simple reason that sible,
Hence a in vain to it is
impos-
with concepts and observations taken from outside
make a thing. But from the object, seized we pass easily in many cases to the two contrary concepts and, as in that way thesis and antithesis can be seen to spring from reahty, we grasp at the same time how it is that the two are opposed and how they are points of view, to
by
intuition,
;
reconciled."
*
Bruno writes
:
Nature descends lect
"
It
is
one and the same series whereby
to the production of things
ascends to the cognition of them
Causa, Dial. V. ' Hegel, G. W. F XV, pp. 224-44.
;
and
and the
intel-
in both unity
'
'
Schelling, F.
;
W.
Werke, Vorlesungen J.
Dinge. Bergson, H ; Introd.
Prinzip.
von
;
u. d. Gesch. d. Phil.,
Bruno, oder
U. d. gOtt, u. natural.
d.
to
Metaphysics,
tr.
B.
Hulme,
1913,
/>.
34.
"
WORKS PRINTED
IN
LONDON
1
proceedeth to unity, through the multitude of means
" ^
35
—an
emphatic statement of the essential identity of the process of thought with the transformations of Nature.
Bruno's philosophy of the " animation
—
his
view that
was
it
"interpenetration"
—readily lent
itself to
sympathy " or " magical properties covered natural principles. of that half-quack, celsus,^
who
"
of the Universe
no mere " collection " but " infusion," "
—
doctrines of "secret
that
is to
say undis-
Hence he thought very highly
half-genius, Aureol Theophrast Para-
audaciously burned Galen and Avicenna in his
lecture-room and
commenced a new era by studying Chemical
That worthy had
Therapeutics.
at least directly questioned
Nature and experimented on her, and Bruno was desirous of a Natural Philosophy above
all
things.
Because
Ramus
neglected to attack Aristotle from the side of Physics, he
regarded him as nothing but a logical
trifler.
For the same
reason he despised Patrizzi and denied that he had an intimate
acquaintance with the philosopher he attacked.
Blind folk
cannot open the eyes of the blind. So Ramus is for him a " French archpedant " and Patrizzi " another filth of an Italian
pedant
"
;
but for Telesio he has nothing but praise.^
Following the Italian Platonists, he shows a great interest in all kinds of out of the way, unverified or " occult
phenomena.*
"
I
do not contemn those who
roots,
to
the rigor of theologians will allow 1
Causa, Dial. V.
"
Ibid., Dial.
author '
*
and
III.
me
to
speak
in a purely
In Sigillus Bruno calls Paracelsus " chief
among physicians." Le fonti piu recenti Cfr. Tocco, F Acad, dei Lincei, Ser. Rend. V, vol. i, p. 530.J
Ibid., Dial. III.
del B.,
in the various
work magically by applying hanging stones on, and murmuring incantations, if
departments of physic set
;
della /.
Cfr. Sig. Sigill., II, § 5.— J. B. N. Opera, Vol. Ill, c. Tocco Vitelli, 1891, De Magia «fc.— Troilo, E, La filos. di G. B,
Torino, 1907.
GIORDANO BRUNO
136 natural sense.
.
.
better than others
was ready
That physician who
.
who
employ those forces which he did not under-
to
we employ
stand, just as
He
electricity.
much
accepted
when he
writes
"
:
I
am
now
not
that not without reason do necromantists
of
He
the miraculous as due to undiscovered natural causes. hints at this
is
In fact he
or torment me."^
kill
me
shall cure
considering
hope
do much
to
with the bones of the dead, believing that these retain
some
vital activity."
The
^
dialogue of the Causa
is
natural even at
Sometimes Bruno thinks
flights.
its
highest
to give his readers breath-
ing time by digressions, which, however, are anything but
Every now and then,
restful.
a point, he calls
to press
every auxiliary he can think of into his service ; every kind of sacred writing, the lore of strange peoples distant
ages
is
drawn upon
;
and of
profane, in which he can detect a resemblance to his
views,
pounced upon and cited as authority.
is
far-
any utterance, sacred or
there not a measure of the truth in
all
things ?
own
For
is
Without
any discrimination he heaps together Mystics and Magi, the Wonder-workers and wise
Cabala and the Latin poets.
men
The
are referred to as of equal value.
effect
on the
is comic. Goldsmith, one thinks, must have come across him when he put " Sanchoniathon, Manetho, Berosus and Ocellus Lucanus " into the mouth of the vendor of the gross of green spectacles to Moses Primrose.
modern reader
IV
The
Infinite Universe
And
This work begins with a dedicatory
which contains much self-revelation not dared to write to one 1
Causa, Dial. III.
Its
Worlds
letter to
Castelnau
—words which
who knew him
he had
so well had they '
Ibid.
;
WORKS PRINTED been other than world the
LONDON
IN "
strictly sincere.
I
1
my labour, to awaken and open the understanding of those who are
to possess the glorious fruit of
soul
deprived of that light which, most assuredly,
own
am
for
I
vile
Should
invention.
And
go wrong.
wilfully I
37
wish," he writes, " the
I
be
in error,
not mine
is
do not believe
I
and writing as
in speaking
I
do
I
not contending through the desire of being victorious
deem every kind of renown and conquest God's
and without a
truth;
particle of
He
weary,
will give his
I
we
rack,
I
foe,
be not the
if it
in the effort to
torment myself." ^
itself,
in
eternal
throughout
flux
" From which contemplation,
space.
the mind,
it,
reasons for holding that the Universe
endures, ever one and infinite
in
wisdom and
but, for love of true
reflect aright, I
honour
we apply
if
be dismayed by incidence of
shall neither
pain and dread nor exult in pleasure and hope
;
we
shall
pursue the path of right conduct, shall be large-minded observers of
puerile
matters than gods
thoughts and shall behold greater
whom
the vulgar adore
;
we
shall secure
clear-sighted contemplation of the course of nature, which
written in ourselves,
and observe, with even
divine laws which are graven in our hearts."
nature
is
to
be found in the skies as here
;
so
is
tenor, those
The same we may quit
ourselves " of the vain desire and stupid anxiety and hanker-
ing after distant good; for us."
"
By means
that well-being which
The of God is
it
is
already at hand and with
of this knowledge
we
we
shall surely attain
so vainly seek elsewhere."
^
consideration of the Universe as the manifestation will,
he considers, set the human
spirit free.
" Here
the philosophy which opens the senses, contents the soul,
enlarges the mind and brings true blessedness to man.
.
.
.
For deeply considering the Being and Substance in which we are fixed, we find there is no such thing as death, not '
Infinito,
Proem. Epist.
'
Ibid.
:
GIORDANO BRUNO
138
Substance never
for US alone, but for the true substance.
diminishes but changes, and this throughout infinite space.
we
Since, in the vicissitudes of particular being,
we ought
subject to the best Efficient Cause,
are
all
not to believe,
think or hope otherwise than that everything, which
wholly derived from the good,
by one who immediately before him
The contrary can only be
good.
to
understands nothing but what the beauty of an edifice
but
part
is
most apparent
is
held
not to be judged from
is
is
good, through good and
is
to
its
smallest
him who views the
Good and
whole and the relation of part
to part.''^
are contraries which are, in
eternally reconciled in the
eternal core of being
evil
— the " That Which intrinsically brings
pass"^ the whole of
to
fact,
"wherein we
reality,
live in
an
appointed order."
Contraries imply that which transcends
and holds them
harmonious unity.
and
Evil,
in
The Divine one
"
God
but our highest conception of him extols his
own
is
is
above Good
as Good.*
glory and sets forth the
greatness of his sway, not in one sun, but in uncountable
suns
not in one earth, but in worlds without end."
;
*
After the letter to Castelnau come three sonnets, and then all
new
the
intellectual tendencies of the era are
a head and the directions which science pointed out in five dialogues.
was
brought to
to follow are
Bruno habitually introduces
real people into his dialogues as interlocutors, and, in the first
four of the Infinito, Filoteo expounds the Nolan philo-
sophy
to
Girolamo Fracastoro, the humanist,^ and two other
persons, one of 1
Infinito,
whom
is
the indispensable pedant.
Proem. Episl.
Be Immenso, VIII,
2
In the
Causa,, Dial. II.
x ; Lampas Triginta Siatuarum, Op. Lat, iij, pp. 21, 108 Eroici, passim. For modern treatment of the conception see Taylor, Prof. A. E Problem of Conduct, « London, 1901, cap. viij. Infinito, Proem. Epist. '
Cfr.
vij,
ix,
;
;
^
For Fracastoro, see Greswell, W. P
1805.
;
Memoirs of Politianus
etc.,
;
WORKS PRINTED fifth
IN
;
;
LONDON
1
dialogue, Alberico Gentile, the great jurist,^
whom
39 he
had met here in England, is introduced. The entire work has an unwonted didactic tone yet the dialogues are easy ;
and spontaneous. indication of
have attempted furnishing some feeble
I
Bruno as a poet by a
free translation of the
third sonnet in the Introduction. " Rising
What
on wing secure, with burning
fate
Bursting
may
all
heart,
scare me, smiling at the tomb.
bonds and scorning gates of doom.
Whence few
are chosen for such lofty part
?
beyond the mortal years, and start For regions where grim irons cast no gloom Nor adamant restrains. Forth from the womb Of darkness, free and passionate, I dart. I dread no barrier of banished spheres I cleave the sky, and other suns behold
I soar
Celestial worlds innumerable I see
One
My To
He
left,
pinion
another company appears
and
fails not,
journey on through
my
heart
is
bold
all infinity." ^
frequently quotes passages from Lucretius through-
out this work.
The Latin
poet exercised a powerful in-
fluence over Bruno, as the upholder of atomism and of the infinity of space.
very
old, dating
The
notion of a plurality of worlds
was
from Anaximander, but the paramount and
paralysing authority of Aristotle and the Church put an
end
to all
such speculations.
Bruno opens
his
campaign by distinguishing between
certain functions of cognition.
" The service done by sensa-
tion is to excite the reason into action, to indict, to point
out the way, to impart and to witness."
The
sensible
Author of De Jure Belli, not written at this period. * Its author would seem to have approved of this sonnet, for he paraphrased it in the Latin poem on Immensity (De immenso, I, i). " Amor It is an imitation of two sonnets by Tansillo, which open m'impenna I'ale," and " Poi che spiegat'ho." '
:
;
GIORDANO BRUNO
140
object " is only a small part of
Truth
The
therein lies no certitude.
;
it
as a mirror "
is
may
reports of sense
—the
—which
standing" of Kant higher
them
is intellect,
which
"reason."
calls
is
a fourth faculty, " mind,"
" the proper and living form of truth,"
is
Still
and draws from
directs principles
Highest
their conclusions.
which
Bruno
be
" under-
brought into harmony by discursive thought
and
none
is
other than direct insight or intuition or immediate apprehension, beholding
contents in an immediate compre-
its
hensive whole.'^
We
crown of enquiry
is
works that
shall find in later
an exp>erience
in
this
which we share,
in
our feeble measure, that of the Godhead, and he allows the rare experiences of Plotinus and the Mystics to be of the
same
essential nature.^
His temerity
is
unbounded
he strikes out a perilous a
;
God's power, he says,
priori path to his conclusions. infinite
therefore his
;
works also must be
agent would be imperfect
power
thing but infinity infinitj'
as
more an carries
it is
is
but
man
a shadow of the
it
impUcations
is
an
for
any-
real, forbids
we must remember
than
is
for the
works did not fulfil his must have infinite effect. Our
for itself, all particulars are
infinite
many
;
;
his
if
power, then,
infinite
;
imagination, too, which
infinite
one
"
:
infinite ass." *
we
Bruno, as
that
that, in
no " Ass "
it
is
shall
see
later on.
More convincing, perhaps, are other arguments which be quickly summarized. Our sense - perception is
may
limited
and changes with change of position
appeal to reason, which shows
be entirely
to
all
relative, as are constructions
•
Infinito, Dial. I, beginning.
'
Eroici, P. /, Dial. II, after Canz. xj
Dial. IV, after Canz. 71. Infinito, Dial. II, end.
after Canz. vj '
;
;
but
we can
the observations of sense
based on them.
and xv ; P.
II, Dial. I, vj
WORKS PRINTED Here
where
is
stand
I
LONDON
IN
(my now
what
is
I41 I
immediately
Position and motion in space (and time) must
experience).
be conceived as relative to any point which we choose to " In the
take for the purpose of comparison. is
no centre and no circumference
where, and every part
may we
this
is
Universe there
but the centre
some other
is ^
part."
everyIn
all
not detect some glimmering, primitive per-
some
ception,
outside
;
germ
feeble
of an idea
which has been
developed by Lorentz and others into the revolutionary " Principle of Relativity " ? But Bruno lived too early, science
thought
was too
little
developed for him to pursue his
he thinks that, although not the Transcendent
;
Absolute, he can rise above sense and
and grasp the riences
its
real conditions in
tions
and
So
vicissitudes.
and so
spacial continuity, all
if
that
interpretations
far as sense goes,
it
should be interpreted.
it
shapes are contained
by space, and
its
which the World-Soul expe-
space and bounded
in
which contains has no
limit,
space be
so
prove with the contained
:
if
Bruno's certitude as to
the
reveals
All posi-
infinite,
so will
is
Infinity of the
it
matter.^
Universe
was by no means accepted by his younger contemporaries Galileo and Kepler. The latter, who refers to him by name, inclined strongly towards the opposite religious reasons
and
my
^
;
mental powers do not enable
either finitudg^r infinitude."
world to be
finite
determinate."
Infinito, Dial. V.
Kepler, Johann
No
me
Reason
to conceive of
one has proved the
and determinate or
infinite
and
in-
in
;
means admit of Brunus'
infinite worlds."
Lettera a F. Ingoli.
*
Galileo,
^
Ibid., Dial, dei
;
"
"
" Ibid., Dial. I. Cfr. De Immenso, IV, i. Op. Omnia, ed. C. Frisch, vj, pp. 137, 8. his Anatomy of Melancholy : "Kepler will by no
1
G
*
:
^
'
Burton writes
view, perhaps for
the judicious Galileo wrote
G. B., 1889, p. 380.
massimi
sistemi.
— Cfr.
Tocco, Le Op. Lat. di
GIORDANO BRUNO
142
Bruno grasped the general principle of the relativity of In this work he demonstrates the relativity
knowledge. of sense
morals
in the Spaccio
;
in
;
De Minima
he
he
out the relativity of
will point
demonstrate that there
will
which claims
to
knowledge
is
obviously an assertion
is
Bruno goes
be absolutely true knowledge.
further than such a claim, although, while it
The
by no means a modest one.
an assured,
it is
contradictions which
and space were
are involved in conceptual time
no
But the asser-
absolute measure for either time or space. tion of the relativity of
is
even
felt
But Bruno unhesitatingly grasped one horn of the then. dilemma for him the other horn did not exist. " In infinity, :
thought out, there
is
hensible number,'' he
no measure, no proportion, no compre-
Yet he has just argued from
says.'^
mathematical conceptions to physical
him an actually boundless
the motion of an actually endless It is filled infinite
.
.
taining in,
He
with the ether.* .
the simulacrum
actual, existent being.
He
Space
reality.
is for
continuity, an endless field for
number of
solar systems.
writes of the " corporeal
of the First Principle "
^
as
distinguishes between the con-
and the contained, between space as room
to
move
the condition for motion, and the ether which occupies
room;*„ but, infinite space,
in
positing an
ether asj occupying
infinite
he clearly asserts absolute position in space,
or in the language of the generation preceding our own, that space
He
is
This question
absolute.
perceives that continuity
*
Infiniio, Dial. II,
2
Ibid., Dial. I.
*
Ibid., Dial. I.
III ; De Imm., '
Cfr.
De Imm.
is
under dispute.^
quite a different thing from
is
II, viij.
De Imm. IV,
Ibid., Cfr.
I, vij,
t'.
3,
4
;
10-13
and
i.
schol.
Hon. B Position in Time and Space, Mind, Foundations of Geometry, chaps, iij A, iv ; Campbell, N; Common Sense of Relativity, Phil. Mag, April igii Poincar^, H Derniires Pensees, Chap. II, L'espace et le temps, p. 35 sqq. Paris, See pp. 121, 141. 1913. Bruno contradicts himself. ^
1901
Cfr. Russell, the
;
;
;
;
— WORKS PRINTED
LONDON
IN
1
43
series;! but does not perceive that one cannot think of an infinite (as
opposed to a merely
thinking of
it
dictory.
have
It is
sum
is
true that of late years Dedekind
an
defined
Infinite
systematic
a
as
structure of which
internal
indefinite) series [without
as a sum, and an infinite
self-contra-
and others whole,
the
and consistently
completely
expresses a single self-consistent principle
;
^
but Modern
Metaphysics, in trying to apply' this analysis of the nature of Infinity,* has fallen into an ancient, hopeless blunder that of explaining Metaphysics by Mathematics instead of
confining
it
positions of
to its legitimate task of criticizing the presupall
the sciences, including Mathematics.
blunder from which Bruno time to time, and
is
not free;
very conspicuous
is
a
crops up from
it
in
It is
one of his
last
Further, the question does not occur to Bruno,
work^.?
Are the characters of the members
of the series wholly
determined by the principle of endlessness to which they are referred?
If not,
The grave
claim.
the answer would be fatal to his
perplexities
which are involved
in
terms
or qualities and relations, like those already referred
to,
were, happily for the Nolan cosmology, reserved to a later age.
For the present,
would appear
to
too, Lorentz's
Principle of Relativity
have banished the ether
But
scientific curiosities.
it
may
to the
museum
of
only be suffering tempo-
rary eclipse.^
Not content then with merely
stating that
we can extend
our knowledge by taking Nature to be of one pattern, inderepeated with variations, he asserts and reasserts
finitely
that Nature repeats herself infinitely throughout '
Infinito, Dial. I.
*
Dedekind
'
Cfr. Royce, Josiah
;
Was
'
sind ;
Appendix. °
Campbell, N. op.
cit.;
infinite
und was sollen die Zahlen. The World and the Individual, Ser. * Cfr. De Monade. Poincard, op.
cit., c. vij.
II,
^
GIORDANO BRUNO
144
" There are countless suns and an infinity of planets
space.
which
round their suns as our seven planets
circle
round our sun."
circle
Particles are incessantly shot out through
^
space from each of these worlds to other worlds and from
one body
He
to another, bodies being a composition of these.
tells
us that each heavenly body, being animate,
moves by its own intimate energy. The moon is an earth, and our earth, seen from the moon, would appear a luminous disc, as the
moon does
to us.
"
It is
suppose that there are planets which
not unreasonable to
circle
round other suns,
not perceived by reason of great distance or small mass or (reflecting) water on their surface." He speaks World-Soul as an " animal, the all-sustainer of worlds
much
not
of the
which are souls and contain souls, some of which are higher, some lower than we and there must be plants and minerals ;
in the
worlds of space like those of our earth or different.
We can
attribute
life
can to our own earth."
He had
to
worlds with better reason than
we
*
the merit of perceiving that comets have a regular
course and are bodies not altogether different from the
Some
planets.* .\they
of his speculations are very remarkable;
read like intuitive forecasts of modern discovery.
such are
:
The
sun's heat
is
those which produce heat on earth
;
light
emanates from
the atmosphere immediately surrounding the sun
has
own motion
its
iplanets,
;
some
Of
produced by similar causes to
of the suns
may
;
^
the sun
revolve, as
round others ; there are suns which cannot be seen
by reason of
their great distance
1
Infinito, Dial. III.
»
Ibid., Dial. Ill,
*
Ibid., Dial.
;
®
probably the heavenly "
Ibid., Dial. II,
IV.
IV.
IV.
In fact he thought they revolved round the
sun. "
He
supposes solar heat to radiate outwards only dark body.
relatively cold, '
Infinito, Dial. Ill,
:
the sun
is
a
WORKS PRINTED
LONDON
IN
bodies decay and give place, in time, to their particles are in constant
motion
;
45
1
new
formations
^ ;
and the fixed stars
^
are really in motion.'
He
accounts for the phenomenon of cohesion by the pre-
sence of water.* Possibly the difficulty of accounting for the phenomena of light,
heat and meteors was one of the reasons which in-
duced Bruno
to
adopt the theory of indecomposable atoms
or " prime bodies " of which
These atoms are always from body
to
all
worlds are really made up.
movement, passing
in incessant
body and from world
to
world
they are for
;
ever entering or leaving some combination of themselves.^
This reads almost Hke a dim prophecy of the discovery of radio-activity;
and the disappearance of the
ether,
if
not
temporary, will necessitate a very serious modification of the undulatory theory of light.
A
great part of the Infinito
is
given over to vigorous
attack on Aristotle's limited conceptions of the Universe.
Bruno's arguments are acute, and structive; but
Galileo and
Newton brushed them
aside.
serve for examples of the remainder.
spheres of water, air and points out that there
these spheres.
other
way
;
On
of them are de-
;
Two
Aristotle
of
them may
had imagined
Bruno
surrounding the earth.®
no evidence
for the existence of
the contrary, the evidence all
is
mixed up together
all ;
the
there
hot and cold springs prove the presence
of water in the rocks
An
is
fire
the elements are
the earth
is air in
many
they sound strange to-day: the work of
;
fire
leaps forth from the mountains.'
argument employed by Aristotle against Proem. Episi.
1
Infinito,
3
Ibid., Dial. Ill, V.
infinity
'
Ibid., Dial. II.
'
Ibid., Dial. III.
was
' Aristotle De Ccelo. Dial. Ill, IV. centre of the earth is the hottest part of it, for being animal, this must be so to sustain its vitality {De Imm. Ill, v.). 6
Ibid
'
The
,
;
K
an
GIORDANO BRUNO
146
move down
that heavy bodies
;
light bodies,
up
;
therefore
there would be infinite lightness and infinite heaviness in
Bruno shows that the phenomena of upward and downward motion are determined by relations what appears to us as an of situation between bodies upward motion towards the moon would, to an inhabitant an
infinite universe.
;
of the moon, appear a is
towards his own globe. ^
fall
acutely argued, but Bruno's cosmology
is less
All this
reasoned
many of them reachmind may wander far
construction than leaps towards truth,
ing
The most
it.
from truth prejudice
powerfully logical
by innate disposition or education or habit or
:
it is
apt to incline towards wrong paths.
Bruno's strength that,
And
the right direction.
success
is
most
emphasizing
in the
likely to
need
the
it
fall.
when
He
there
is
experience
is
to
ahead of his time
"
itself to
Why
and experiment,
teach us ?
" ^
retains a lively recollection of the Calvinists of
He
say on the doctrine of Predestination and
In God, since to
make
is
the
same as
in
turn to vain fancies
and other protestants he had come across. to
was
such an instinct that
He was
observation
of
abstraction and comparison.
It
main, he had an instinct as to
to
its
Geneva
has a word
moral
be made,
effect.
free-will
and necessity are the same but for man they are partial, Theology is right in maintaining that yet valid aspects. ;
the will
is
free, for
man
is
not the same as God, though
supported in His immanence. truth.
Men
Antecedent determination
is
misconceive of absolute not basal truth.
Prac-
be free are one and the same, and man possesses a measure of freedom.* " The rude and ignorant tically to will
and
to
are wholly unable to understand election, dignity and the merits of justice,
whence
predestination, filling
assurance or desperation, they become very 1
Infinito, Dial. II.
« '
Ibid., Dial. I.
them with
vile.
Whiles,
Ibid., Dial. III.
WORKS PRINTED
IN
certain corrupters of laws, faith
LONDON
and
appear wise, have infected so many
1
religion,
folk
47
wishing to
by the conclusions
they draw from such like premises that they become more
barbarous and wicked than they were before, despisers of
good works and tightly bound to all vice and wickedness." True theologians condemn such evil teaching, allowing instructed and disciplined minds only " to entertain true
we do
propositions, from which truth of nature
do not
and the excellence of
set before
who may
not infer other than the its
Author
;
which we
the populace, but only before the wise
be able to understand our reasoning.
Hence men
not less learned than religious have never obstructed philosophic freedom, and true, politic and experienced thinkers
have supported religions
know
that faith
folk,
who
for
thoughtful
the
others."
is
require
;
for
both the one and the other
necessary for the organisation of rude
government, and that ratiocination
who
can
govern
themselves
is
and
^
Later on, Bruno set too much of his philosophy before one who was not wise or " able to understand our reasoning," with the result that he learned
what
sort of notion
Pope and Princes of the Church " not less learned that religious "
had of " philosophic freedom."
^
1
Infinito, Dial. I.
'
Bruno, whose works had never become popular
in
England or on
the continent and had become scarce in Catholic countries on account of their being on the Index Expurgatorius, impressed John Toland, the English Deist, as being the forerunner of free thinkers, and he translated the Introductory Letter of the Infinito and wrote an account of the book.
Coll. of sev. pieces of T., 1726, v. I.
GIORDANO BRUNO
148
V The Expulsion Of The Triumphant Beast, Proposed By Jove, Effected By The Council, Revealed By Mercury, Related By Sophia, Heard By Saulino, And Set Down By The Nolan; Divided Into Three Dialogues, Each Of Three Parts. In an " Explanatory Letter " to Sidney, Bruno that this treatise
work
is
on moral philosophy according
which the divine
intellectual
He
nates in me."
tells
him
introductory to another, which shall be " a to the inner light,
sun has illuminated and
illumi-
wishes the present work to be read in
a broad, generous, uncarping
spirit
:
the author
must not
be taken "too assertively"; he introduces interlocutors who " speak for themselves and report the judgements of
many
others, equally full of their
own
convictions,
and
expressing them with fervour and zeal, and, emphatically, in their
own
character."
The book
recalls Lucian's " Parliament of the
convened to expel
and probably as by a
^
work
it
deities
of Niccolo Franco.*
strength of his
Dante.
He
memory.
Tasso and Tansillo, and
The Dialogue
is
^
introduced by the barbarians;
was suggested by
this It
it
is
as
classic
is
fragments from Bruno's vast reading and the
Gods,"
well
crammed with is
a proof of
quotes from Ariosto,
clear
that
he knew his
mainly between Sophia (wisdom)
and Saulino, some kinsman on his mother's side but appearance makes an also. Mercury The general form ;
'
'
" OeSiy 'EicKXijo-^a. Spaccio, Epist. Esplic. Dial, nel quale sannio con la suida della virtH va in cielo
1539.
The author was hanged
Cfr. Fiorentino
;
op.
cit.,
p. 44.
for a
pasquinade by Pius
V
etc.,
in 1563.
'
WORKS PRINTED is allegorical
It is
:
related
LONDON
IN
49
1
how " repentant Jove " ^ " after many years, gave himself up
having enjoyed youth for so
and took up
to wild ramblings
of arms
and
all
his time in the affairs
But now, being tamed, he begins
love.
decline in his wantonness
and vices and
He
and entertainments of youth and manhood."
sions
to
to lose the diver-
" begins to advance in years and admits none unto his but such
council
brows
"
;
have
as
who have
those
snowy heads and furrowed
learned to be thoughtful, prudent,
continent, forgetful of affronts,
every
for
living
man
and have acquired general,
" Jove stands for each one of us
practical wisdom.^ is
ultimate
reality
individualised
as
:
"
a
which rules over a microcosm; and man
spirit,
passes through a period of sensual enjoyment and passion years
into
that
bring the philosophic mind.
But Jove
also represents the changes that take place in collective
humanity: he
is
the Zeitgeist.
He
swears a great oath
The goddess of love victory of the Gods over
that virtue shall reign in heaven.
proposes a ball to celebrate the the Titans
;
but Jove resolves to hold a grand Council
Gods instead. These Olympian deities are our good and evil qualities personified, Jupiter seats himself on his throne and announces his determination to purge The Constellations, the sky of its beastly impurities. of the
such as the Bear, the Dragon, the Lion, the Hydra, represent brutal
vices
all
and must be replaced by those
virtues which are their contraries.
It
should not be for-
gotten that the revolving heavens were universally believed to co-operate in
men
;
*
determining the character and lives of
nor that Bruno had achieved an enlarged conception
1
Spaccio, Epist. Esplic.
'
Ibid., Epist. Esplic.
•
The
extinct.
"
Ibid., Dial. I,
i.
belief survived so long as the present century, even if
The
late learned
Richard Garnett wrote
in its support.
now
;
GIORDANO BRUNO
15b
of the inhabitants of space and believed them, with
men of his time, to be a The assembled Gods is
forthwith purged of
by one.
Each
society of spirits.
and the sky " beasts " and ancient signs, one
ratify Jove's decision,
its
much
replaced, after
is
symbol of some quality conducive
to
an adroit stroke, Momus, the god of
discussion,
by the
By
good behaviour.
made
ridicule, is
the Olympian Court, and Bruno
act as jester to
the
is
to
thus
able to get out a good deal not to be taken " too assertively."
Sometimes,
he attracts attention to novel
too,
Momus
thought by Momus' over-emphasis or exaggeration. is for
ever jesting
he
:
the spirit that denies
is
earnest spirit speaking through there
is
the
mask
;
the critical,
of
mockery;
something in him of Lucian and Voltaire, of Ibsen
and Shaw, even
what progress
is
he
;
of dissatisfaction
is
he
;
at once the spirit of
humour and
an inner illumination, observing
is
being made in reform and finding relief in
bitter jest.^
A
tumultuous throng of ideas surges to and fro to find
expression
;
hence the allegory
well sustained.
is
not systematic or always
Bruno's real conviction has to be extracted
from a hundred odd, fantastic and dispersed imaginations.
For his ideas rush forth cave of iEolus.
like the
winds escaped from the
were interesting could we know how
It
Sidney, whose " wit was the measure of congruitie," took the
work dedicated
to him.
Allied vices are grouped together in the tion to
same
and are replaced by virtues also more or
constella-
less related
each other and the contraries of the vices to be expelled
for " the beginning, middle
and end of the birth, growth and perfection of whatever we behold is from contraries, by contraries and to contraries; and wheresoever contrariety
is,
there
is *
action
and reaction
Spaccio, Epist. Esplic.
;
there
is
motion,
;
WORKS PRINTED and order
diversity, multitude
and
sion
activity
vicissitude."
may
Man,
^
;
opposed
its
Bruno formulates no
there are degrees, succes-
in his social relationship
in social
system
life.
plative
life
Bruno had for later
;
;
he
Truth, the divine object,
studied.^
is
The Renaissance turned hell to this life
the
first
Man.
on earth
men
tradition
is
satiric
humour,* much of the
means
copied, from Rabelais.
and age.
is
:
it
He was
and discuss moral it
for its useful-
Gods
in reconstructing
and
"
of
rollicking, reckless
latter being derived, but
The style is
by no
characteristically
many contemporary readers of our own restless, impatient
did not captivate
not likely to hold those
Those who are by nature Borrowites alone appreciate
the flavour of 1
away
a " grotesque and overpowering farrago
learning, allegory, metaphor, rhetoric
Brunian
eye
concentrated
together in a social whole.
relation of the debates of the
the heavens
the it
to be ethically valueless.^
to ignore Christian
conduct as a natural phenomenon, valuing
The
;
strictly
But, in Bruno's time, natural reason
were deemed
ness in binding
reserved
by no means
from heaven and attention on
is
though the distinction between con-
;
observed here.
feeling
as he
view of the needs of society and
templative and active qualities
its
man just
The distinction between active and contemwas emphasized by the theologians whom
treatment
and
dependent on
is
he takes
and, in the main, he deals with moral
life,
qualities from the point of
active
and
virtue.
ethical
no theologic command or sanction
him
151
pass from the practice of this or that vice to
the pursuit of
finds
LONDON
IN
Spaccio, Dial.
Borrow ; I,
chiefly
Shavians that of
Shaw
i.
Aquinas, Tj Summa Th., ij, 2; Q. clxxix, A, 2. C/n Dante; Purg. xxvij ; Conv.,iv, 17. ' Spaventa, B: Saggi di Cntica, Napoli, 1867, vol. I, p. 143. ' See the excellent remarks in Skeptics of the It. J. Owen's ^
E.g.,
Renaiss., 1893, under G. B.
GIORDANO BRUNO
152
Rabelais would bore most readers but for his indecorum, and no man could ever batter himself into the enjoyment of those peculiar turns of thought and treatment which Bruno takes tial
:
The
he must be born a Brunian.
thinker's torren-
rush of ideas and words swerves hither and thither
;
his
metaphors are often fantastic, whimsical, extravagant; he scorns moderation
;
he knows not the meaning of reserve.
Not merely does he play on a thought with variations, but he splashes
ment of an urchin all
in a bath.
of similar meaning,
sometimes because he
by every
fact,
meaning.
He
is
and desires
possible
That he
words on words,
piles
sometimes a trick of emphasis,
aware of the many
is
all
words about with the rich enjoy-
facets presented
to deliver himself of a complete
never learned the lesson of simple directness
taught by Boccaccio, or tried to imitate the limpid flow of Tasso's prose.
Worse
still,
he
into a fashionable vice
fell
Translating the classics directed men's atten-
of his time.
power lying
tion to the
word; they
latent in every
dis-
covered the richness of modern speech, and some of them fell
into the vulgar view that a
sonorous and pompous
when they are of Bruno marshalled whole battalions of ineffective synonyms and was happy when he had decorated an idea with " verbal ruffles and frills." He display of words
is
impressive, even
almost identical meaning.
would seem
to
have known that
was apt
his style
to sprawl.^
much humorous debate concerning each holder of a constellation, who typifies certain human vices, The eject him and seat corresponding virtues in his place. The Gods,
Little Bear,
after
occupying the fixed centre of the revolving sky,
has stood for Falsity, Hypocrisy and
allied vices
which follows Reality, take his place act of the Divine
of
all
Knowledge
is
let
and preside.
Truth,
"The
the substance of the being
things, and, therefore, all things 1
;
Spaccio, III,
ij.
.
.
.
not like ours,
WORKS PRINTED which follows things thing."
;
but
before
is
Since our Knowledge
^
be careful
how we
LONDON
IN
all
1
things and
is
every-
we must
imperfect, then,
is
53
give liberty to the vulgar to read what
own conclusion therefrom. Certain " books, any more than theological books, should not they please and form their
be allowed to be read by ignorant men,
become wicked, and receive All shams,
that
all
is
dogmas and whatever
who would thereby
evil instruction
from them."
pernicious to society, fetters
mind
the
enslaving
all
" altar of
the
;
^
superstition," ignorance, violence, conspiracy, cruelty etc.,
are in turn banished, and prudence, courage, law, diligence,
humanity are
The proper
to reign in their stead.
organiza-
and conduct of society being the object of morals, no laws which have not the perfecting of human intercourse tion
The
as their object should be acknowledged.'
supposed virtue
is
how
He would
works.
it
for example, into a " gallant,
humane,
able continence ; " " of herself she
is
affable;
any urgent reason, she
and hospit-
neither virtue nor vice,
nor contains any goodness, dignity or merit yields to
test of a
turn chastity,
.
.
when she
.
called continence,
is
and
has the being of virtue, as partaking of such a fortitude and
contempt of pleasure, which
is
not vain and useless, but
improves human society and the honest satisfaction of others."
Filled with the spirit of the Renaissance,
*
though
possessed by a moral earnestness which scarcely belonged to
a " citizen and intimate of the world
it,
Sol and
mother
Tasso, he was
He fixed
Earth "
all for
as
^
he
:
it is
son of father quoting
himself,
quaffing the deepest draughts of Life.
perceived that moral practice
law
calls
;
relative.
is
not under unalterably
Like Plato he did not think social
sexual arrangements perfect
:
perchance Jove
may
" restore
1
Spaccio, I, Hi.
^
Ibid., II,
"
Ibid., II,
'
Ibid., Ill,
'
Ibid., Epist. Esplic.
i.
ij. ij.
!
GIORDANO BRUNO
154 that natural law
many wives
by which every man
is
allowed to have as
as he can maintain and impregnate
"
and he
;
supports this bold suggestion by the fallacious argument of "
increasing population.^
We
those virtues which by
call
a certain trick and custom are so called and believed,
though their
and
effects
and natural reason
;
condemned by
fruits are
such as open knavery and
all
sense the
folly,
malignity of usurping laws and of possessors of tneuin and
tuum; the strongest being the most and he being the most worthy who most industrious, and the
rightful
possessor,
most
solicitous,
is
occupant of those
first
gifts
and
parts of the earth which Nature, and consequently God, gives to all indifferently."
^
We
almost might be reading
modern propaganda Here and there he drops in a Philosophical sentence. " There is an eternal Principle or Substance which is truly
man and no
the is
accident derived from Composition.
This
the deity, the hero, the particular God, the intelligence
from and through
whom
different
formed and form themselves, so that appears
The souls,
in different species,
Soul, which
dissolution
do with
the
than Nature
the
he
World,
cannot become subject to
itself;
the
is
he
is
>
Spaccio, Dial.
»
Ibid., Epist. Esplic.
6
Ibid., Ill,
ij.
is
nothing
he communicates himself by
Nature, to which he
if
*
fortunes."
" God, considered absolutely, has nothing
so
I, i.
that
is
he
if
is
more nearly
allied
not Nature
itself,
Nature of Nature and the Soul of not the very soul itself."*
he does not go so
if
continually re-
the eternal basis and meaning of
is
us, but only as
effects of
certainly
it
but in body and experience there
:
but vicissitude.* to
names and
not change and
does
in,
Complexes and bodies are
far as
a
certain
Bruno,
modern
^
Ibid., Dial. Ill,
«
Ibid., Epist.
philo-
j.
Esplic
; I, i. jj
WORKS PRINTED
LONDON
IN
155
sopher, seeks reality not in the Idea, not in static abstractions, but in the ever
changing fulness of
Life.^
Presently Bruno shall "build the soaring spires That
now "of
sing his soul"; her,
earth he draws
by spelling of her laws His purest
to
Nature and
is
in
Nature,
sense.
man
reveal
will find
He would
morals.
may
she
all
Though
he thinks
;
trusts
that, if
home
himself at
blind to
He
fires."
in
God
natural
have us guide our conduct by common
But the world "cannot subsist without law and
religion."
^
" All
those
who
are
capable of judging will
agree that the laws are good inasmuch as they have practice for their
scope
;
and those are always the best that
give the best encouragement to the best actions.
For
all
laws have been given to us, or invented by men, chiefly for the convenience of
human
life
:
and because some do
not see the fruit of their merits in this
rewards and punishments
in
another
life,
life
good and
evil,
are promised and
^ laid before their eyes according to their deeds."
Unhappily, the success of Theodosius in uniting Chris-
and the State resulted in a general conviction that order was bound up with religious government. This belief, not inoperant even now, although more than fifteen centuries have elapsed, was deeply rooted in the tianity social
mind of the Middle Ages, was little affected by the Revival It of Learning, and strongly influenced Bruno's thought. " " was an important factor in those wars of religion which he had witnessed; for days when the state had need of strength, unification and organised direction, favoured the
very
human tendency
of pope, protestant prophet or secular
monarch towards absolutism, and supported other well-defined '
Cfr. Bergson.
this or the
form of Christianity within
Introduction to Metaphysic,
ir.
Hulme,
p. 64. '
Spaccio, II,
j.
'
the
Ibtd., I, iii.
area 1913,
GIORDANO BRUNO
156
of rule, to the forcible suppression of
all
competing forms
Bruno valued Christianity above
of faith.
systems, because
religious
all
proclaimed the doctrine of love
it
was
it
:
a " religion, which began, increased and maintained itself
with the raising of the dead, the healing of the sick and Yet, in
self-sacrifice for others."
Paganism
superior.
Nature and he thought "
basis.
and divine Nature
respects, he found
nearer
tolerant,
that
God was
in things
and
"From whence,
itself."^
dis-
and made
differently in different subjects,
rites,
to
had a profounder metaphysical
divinity lay hid in Nature, shining
itself
them partakers of
to the
it
some
more
Those wise men knew
and that the covering
was
It
with magical
they mounted by the same ladder of
very height of the Divinity which descended
to the
meanest and lowest things by the communication of
But what
itself.
I
some senseless and
think most deplorable foolish idolaters,
is
that
who no more
the excellency of the Egyptian worship than the
partakes of the nobility of the body,
who
see
I
imitate
shadow
look for Divinity,
without any manner of reason, in the excrements of dead
and inanimate this,
things.
.
.
.
And what
is
they triumph for joy to see their
in so
much
annulled." divers
reputation,
worse than
own
all
foolish rites
and those of others vanished and is, and will be present in
" Divinity hath,
^
subjects,
however mortal they may
be,"
and
it
is
a mistake to suppose that the wise Egyptians worshipped " crocodiles, cocks, onions and turnips " ; they only adored " the Divinity evil, for
" therein
;
"you ought not
which Nature, you must know, things."
to
count this an
animals and plants are the living effects of Nature,
The
1
Spaccio, III,
'
Sometimes Bruno
Probably there
is
is
no other than God
in
Greeks,^ too, "did not worship Jupiter as 2
ij.
refers to Christians
ij^^^^ jjj^ ^y
when he speaks of Greeks.
a veiled allusion to the nature of the Divinity of
Christ in this passage.
WORKS PRINTED if
LONDON
IN
1
57
he had been the Divinity, but they worshipped the
Divinity as
were once
had been
if it
and magnanimity
justice
was a magnanimous or
such
a
religion
just
for all the
;
Gods
majesty,
a man, they presumed there
in
and bountiful God within him which communicated
Divinity
the
least
at
in Jupiter "
men, and " seeing excellent
really
.
itself
sympathy with
kinds of faith
all
when
Neo-Platonising theologians in the to the systematizing of
the schoolmen,
was
and habit
been recognised
;
formal faith;
to
and sixth centuries
Alexandrian speculations by
further endeared to
him by early edu-
Rome
had, until lately,
the political constitution and laws of
in
the great Western peoples sort of union
fifth
the authority of
;
in
philosophically inter-
But Catholic Christianity, which owed so much
preted.
cation
.
in
manner, by the name of Jupiter." * Bruno's was metaphysical and mystical ; he was so strongly
imbued with Neo-Platonic thought that he found himself
and
.
whom
had welded
it
into
some
had a strong claim on him as a he was always willing to hand over to so
it
theology the contemplation of the Divinity as transcending the infinite universe,^
if
he might make an independent
study of Nature, and freedom were allowed him to form his
own
ledge
conclusions therefrom.
But, as the
field
enlarged, the demesne of Theology
is
encroached on.
The
ledge with dogma
is
is
know-
of
apt to be
know-
incompatibility of systematic
progressively discernible in Bruno's
Yet he thought adjustment within the Church was possible, if it would give a twist to its doctrines and
writings.
accept synthetic development.
As
a Catholic, he pours
scorn on irreconcilable Reformers with their new-fangled
dogmas and hide-bound forms. probate
those
works, and '
who
think " doing good
Spaccio, III, a.
Especially does he re-
hold to salvation by
faith,
despise
and abstaining from evil '
Causa, Dial. IV.
:;
GIORDANO BRUNO
158
God
does not render them acceptable to
and believing according
ten kinds of such teachers there
who has
but only hoping
;
"Among
catechism."^
their
to
is
not to be found one
not formed to himself a Catechism ready to be
published to the world,
if
not published already, approv-
ing no other institution but his own, finding in
something
all
others
be considered, disapproved or doubted of;
to
besides that the greater part of them disagree with themselves, blotting out to-day
day."
Bruno was
^
menace
to society
in
what they had written yester-
for tolerance, but he perceived a
all
every man, however
ill-qualified
he
might be, setting himself up as the sole possessor of truth
and endeavouring
mission to his
But
if
own
coerce
to
he despises Protestant sectaries, he
authority
ecclesiastical
dogmas which
it
setting
up
and
into
The
practical
is
sub-
no
less
objects to
enforcing
either does not in the least
misinterprets.
it
He
own Church.
severe on the defects of his
which
fellows
his
opinion.
rigid
understand or
end of Religion should
not be burdened with subtle and valueless theological speculations.
Bruno
to the pole
;
is
always as
faithful to truth as the needle
heedless of personal advantage and even of
personal safety.
He was
expecting to go back at once
with Castelnau to a country which was suppressing
all
freedom in religious thought and speech when he put into the mouth of
Momus
a scoff which
the fate of the centaur Chiron
is
says, " in which one Person is
and two substances concur '
Momus, Momus,' answered
thing
is
in
not hard to unriddle
made up
—a being, he
of two Natures,
one hypostatical
Jupiter,
'
union.
the mystery of this
great and occult and you cannot comprehend
and therefore you ought only high and great for you 1
is
under debate
Spaccio,
I, iij.
to believe
.... you
it
it
as a thing too
should not desire to '
Ibid., II,
i.
;
WORKS PRINTED know more than
is
necessary to be known
not necessary to
'tis
man ....
just
mount up
LONDON
IN
know
this
;
and believe me,
Chiron being a most
.
.
.
healing the sick, teaching the
to the stars.
I
59
1
way how
to
judge him' (says Jove) 'most
worthy, because in this heavenly Temple, at the altar where
he
assists, there is
no other
priest but himself,
whom you
see with a beast in his hand ready to be offered up and a libation-bottle
hanging
at his girdle
:
and because an
a chapel and an oratory are necessary
him eternally continue,
let
Bruno held
decreed.'"^
how he its
has
Fate
if
not
and never
to Hfe,
altar,
therefore
otherwise
fails
to
show
disliked the morbid, pessimistic side of Christianity
and
asceticism, self-depreciation
exaggeration, however
cry That
glorification of death
and
Saulino exclaims, chiefly hitting at Protestant
suffering.
we ought
:
" our professors of a
to glory in
I
don't
sham religion know what Cabalistic
Bruno had already spoken
tragedy."^
in the Sigillus of
crude sacramental doctrines, and he returns to the subject
New
here. flesh
"found
evangelists have
better bread, better
and wine than that of the Saone, Candy or Nola."
A few years
he could not discover the
later he. declared that
Divine splendour in " If the Catholic
I
know
Church ceased
not what kind of material." to insist
and
They
effort.^
contention
in
are hateful
ment."
before an ignorant world.
But
it
must be purged
Spaccio, III, lUd., Ill, i.
iij.
*
De Immenso,
I,
1902.
bosom
Probably, too, he
" the best and soundest
:
which maintains the ancient religion and govern-
2
'
in its
common human aspiration persons who cast bones of
shared the prejudice of Montaigne side is that
*
on incomprehensible
and self-contradictory dogma, the law of love might yet unite the world
^
i.
Ibid., II,
^
— Cfr.
of superstition
Tocco, °
F
j.
;
and " those
— Cfr. De Monade, cap.
N. Antologia,
vj.
S. iv, Sept.,
Artie, adv. Math., Dedicatio.
;
GIORDANO BRUNO
l6o priests of
Diana
and mysterious
" should
be less ready
to exalt their office
Bruno was a " Modernist
function.^
"
of
the i6th century; he thought the Catholic position needed revision
and re-statement; those
should be free to do
He
believes
neither in a universal deluge nor in the
He
recent creation of man.^
races of
men
qualified to think freely
so.
cannot credit that the various
should have descended from a single pair ;
if
must have been by some miracle like that by which Jonah had a marvellous voyage " a handsome way of so,
it
—
men by some
transporting
blast of
wind or some passage
of whales, that have swallowed persons in one country and
gone
to
spue them alive
Such
continents."*
those
of
the
in
other parts and upon other
biblical
miracles are absurd, as are
and much doctrine taught by the
saints,
Momus declares that Orion, " who can walk upon waves of the sea without sinking or wetting his feet
Church. the
and consequently can likewise do a great many other pretty
thinks
it
appears to
is
white and that
and
let
us order him
human understanding, when
mere blindness, and that what Reason good, excellent and choice is base sees best,
wicked and
extremely
baggage, that Natural
is
evil
that
;
Law
is
one
is
Nature
whorish
that the
not subordinate to the justice of the
one another as hght
darkness; that the entire Divinity is like
a
same good end ;
other, but are things as contrary to
Greeks, and
is
knavery, that Nature and
the Divinity cannot concur to the justice of the
to
"
them everything which he pleases, making them
believe black it
among men,
be sent
tricks," shall
to teach
is
a hard stepmother to
is
Mother of the
all
other genera-
whence none can be acceptable to the Gods but by becoming Greeks. For the greatest Russian or Poltroon
tions,
who 1
lived in Greece, as being allied to the generation of Spaccio, III,
iij.
^
Ibid., Ill,
ij.
a
jjj^^
WORKS PRINTED the Gods,
IN
LONDON
l6l
incomparably better than the most just and
is
magnanimous who could come from Rome
.
however
.
.
preferable in manners, sciences, valour, judgment, beauty
and authority; because these are natural
by the Gods, and
fore despised
left to
capable of greater privileges; that
is,
gifts,
and there-
who
those
are not
those supernatural
ones which the Divinity gives, such as dancing on the waters, making lobsters sing ballads, cripples cut capers,
and moles see without spectacles, and such other that all philosophy,
may make them
all
contemplation and
heroic acts are nothing but knight-errantry
that all
;
that ignorance
;
the finest science in the world, because
is
magic, which
all
nothing but bagatelle
like us, is
fine
Let them persuade withal,
gallantries without number.^
it
is
acquired
without labour and pains, and keeps the mind free from
melancholy." that
One can hardly wonder,
^
Bruno should request not
to
after reading this, be taken " too assertively "
his reader that the personages in the
and inform
sincerely, but in their
own proper character.*
he exhibits considerable courage
in
book speak
None
the less,
such free criticism of what
was generally held sacrosanct in all Christian countries. That he could do so in England, and especially attack Protestantism in a land which had at least broken away from Rome,
Bruno
testifies to
the liberty she enjoyed.
satirizes the belief in particular interventions of
Providence
;
*
and holds
it
" foolish, unworthy, profane and
injurious to imagine that the
Gods seek reverence, fear, love, for any other good advan-
worship and respect from men tage or end than that of
men
themselves, being most glorious
1 All these wonders may be found paralleled in those of the Acta The Greeks Sanctorum, quas coll. J. Bollandus, cont. 1734-1894. are, of course, narrow Christians, while the Romans stand for the enlightened nations of antiquity and for enlightenment generally.
«
Spaccio, III,
'
Ibid., Epist. Esplic.
iij. •
Ibid., I,
L
iij.
I
GIORDANO BRUNO
62
themselves and not capable of receiving any glory from
in
without."
1
" Give a blow," says Jupiter, " to
all
fortune-tellers
and prognosticators, and
and run about
to spoil
tempt for " altars
whom
I
my
and
am ashamed
to
progress."
such as traverse
He
^
expresses con-
statues erected to certain persons
name, because they are worse than
our satyrs, fauns and other half-beasts the crocodiles of Egypt."
—
Bruno has a
^
viler
than even
fling, in turn, at
some reason or other he
current Christianity, Judaism (for
Mohammedanism
detested Jews),* and
prophets, diviners,
all
:
are useful and
all
valid, but contain distortions of philosophic truth.
He
has no beHef in a Garden of Eden or " sweet Age of
Gold."
He
foreshadows our modern knowledge of the " in the Golden Age men were not
evolution of humanity
:
more virtuous than the beasts
at present are virtuous
perhaps they were more stupid than
But he derived
Nor was poet.
He
this
this
many
;
and
of the beasts."
*
view from Lucretius.
his sole indebtedness to the great Latin
adopted the theory of " atoms
physical identities
"
— imperishable
— which Lucretius drew through Epicurus And
from Leucippus and Democritus.
of physical individuals must have led
the consideration
him on
to ponder,
if
he had not done so before, on the problem of individual souls.
Is there
to his last,
he
the
his first
itself.
But, in and for
Divine mind, there are centres of experience.
every man, in each gards
itself." ^
Is
Spaccio, II,
2
Ibid., I,
6
Ibid., Ill,
i. i.
i.
" In
a world, a universe re-
individual
each centre of experience a permanent,
inexhaustible energy 1
works
on the One Soul of the World, which
the unfolding of the Absolute to
is
From
atomic personality ?
insists
?
Are souls immortal, even as n,
2
ii){d_^
4
lUd., Ill,
'
Ibid., Epist. Esplic,
is
iij. ij,
iij:
Cabala, Dial.
I.
WORKS PRINTED
IN
LONDON
Absolute, for which they are and
that
1
which
63
includes
them? not always easy or even possible to get at Bruno's
It is
meaning and
:
he often designedly masks
And it
veiled allusion.
in " blazing
paradox
He
thought.
crooked allegory
in
manner
" to excite reflection,
own
suggestion of his
it
quite in his
is
to indulge
or even as cryptic
writes to Sidney about
the possibility of Transmigration, as held by Pythagoras.^
may
It
be that he found
in
that teaching merely a close
approximation towards the deepest principle of his own
— the
permanence of the One
philosophy
Essence animating
its different
stood clearly that Bruno
is
in vicissitude, the
Be
receptacles.
it
under-
never wearied of proclaiming, in
various ways, the one-ness of the Divine Energy as Sustainer and Embracer of the infinite " communications " of itself to itself,
and the one-ness of
all
experience in the Divine Intui-
But did he also accept the separate immortality of
tion.
individual souls ?
Seven years told his judges
and
later, :
"
I
when asked about Transmigration, he
have held and hold souls
to be immortal
that they are substantiae subsistentiae, that
souls."
He
sort of existence taken
ment
is
is
intellective
uses a scholastic term which means any special
on by substance.
But the
state-
vague; he had not said whether he understood
substance in
its earlier
or in
its later
meaning
;
the phrase
might cover the immortality of one single substance which is
found differentiated, or
it
might be taken as an acceptance
of the immortality of individual souls.
He goes
on
:
" Speak-
ing as a Catholic, they do not pass from body to body, but
go
to Paradise,
Purgatory or Hell.
But
I
have reasoned
deeply, and, speaking as a philosopher, since the soul
is
not
found without body and yet is not body, it may be in one body or in another, and pass from body to body. This, if *
Spaccio, Epist. Esplic.
1
GIORDANO BRUNO
64
it
be not true, seems at least
of Pythagoras."
^
likely,
The answer
is
according to the opinion
may
a riddle, which
be
Here, in the " Expul-
unravelled in more than one way.
he suggests that " If not to be believed, it is gravely to be pondered " whether a vile life " be not disposed of by sion,"
a prison-house suited to
its
organs and instruments suitable
for
interwoven
fatal justice,
failure or crime, with
in
such a workman or craftsman."
And
again
:
our transfusion, passage or metempsychosis ever inexorable he be,
" Let us sup-
bestow happy geniuses upon us
plicate the Divinity to
we must
;
since,
in
how-
attend him with wishes, to be
either preserved in our present state or to enter into a better,
or a like, or one but a
little
by the Gods must obtain good
actions."
We may be
worse ... he that
sure that Bruno did not accept Pythagorean
and vulgar form.
as he employs Catholic dogma, not by
He way
employs
be adapted to vari®us grades of illumination.
goreanism
is
inner meaning far
is
it,
just
of dodge, but in
the sincere belief that various adumbrations of
own
favoured
^
doctrine in a crude
that his
is
by means of good wishes and
this
Truth must
The
lost in obscurity.
result
is
Pytha-
from removing that " dread of Orcus and
greedy Charon " which he had promised to take away.' But, co-operating with
his
Neo-Platonism and
hidden " sympathies " in Nature,
appearance of ancestral differing species,
him on ' ' '
to
such facts as the re-
qualities, vital similarities in widely
and innate tendencies would naturally lead
vague speculation
in order to explain them.*
Ovid; Metam., I. xv. Spaccio, Epist. Esplic. Compare page Causa, Proem. Epist. As pointed out by Bergson, the present
Doc.
xij.
belief in
Cfr.
179.
* is pregnant, as it were, with the past ; is its momentum. Some scientific men accept Butler's and Hering's suggestions and talk about that contradiction in terms " unconscious memory." Even to-day we have not quite set ourselves free from vague " explanations " and metaphors.
WORKS PRINTED
IN
LONDON
1
65
But so shrewd a thinker as Bruno must have perceived that, if in
some way individual centres of experience persist World, they can hardly be said to do so
in the Soul of the for themselves.
If
they endure as centres of energy they
do not retain a true memory-synthesis life
recurrent habits in
:
are not equivalent to self-conscious recollection.
dividual immortality loses
its
value
In-
the soul has to pass
if
through the waters of forgetfulness.^ But that " to be " is " to experience " was not explicitly recognised by Bruno or
anyone before Berkeley wrote
and
;
it is
quite possible that
he entertained the idea of centres of energy persisting within the Absolute, and
these
that
bear
effects,
The
precise memories, of past incarnations.
immortal souls
will recur in
though not question of
connection with the great Latin
poems.
The fire, the intemperate vigour of his Southern nature made him rejoice in the " Bacchic rout " of life and nature.
He
on the universality and value of
for ever insisting
is
The
vicissitude.
change
in bodies,
Spaccio commences
no variety
in
" If there were no
:
matter and no vicissitude in
beings, there would be nothing agreeable, nothing good or
nothing pleasant.
.
.
.
We
see that pleasure and satisfac-
tion consist in nothing else but a certain passage, progress
or motion from one state to another. state of hunger is irksome state of sadness
these
is
'Tis certain that the
and unpleasant
and dulness but what :
a change from one to another.
is .
and
;
satiety is a
pleasing in any of
•
us only a short time after the state of rest
.
Labour pleases
:
and we
find
no
pleasure in rest, but only a few minutes after the state of
weariness."
*
was a prevailing vice in the i6th Bruno as an Ambassador's " gentleman " must
Political dissimulation
century.
Dante
Pmg.
'
Cjr.
'
Spaccio, Dial.
;
I.
xxvj, 106-8
;
xxxi.
I
GIORDANO BRUNO
66
have had ample opportunity "
He
for observing it at work.
what a pass the world is reduced to by a custom which is become a proverb That Governors are not obliged to keep faith." ^ Nevertheless, " even the Gods are forced to use it at times. For some-
attacks
it
with vigour
:
You
see
times Prudence hides the truth with her skirts in order to
escape blame and outrage."^
He
thinks the hunting of
only of butchers
;
game
cruel: a sport worthy
" the hunting-dog should be
sent to
The Cup must be given
Corsica or England."'
" chief tippler in Germany, where gluttony
is
the
to
regarded as
and drunkenness as a quality of heaven." dignity of potentates in their dress and baubles
heroic virtue
The
affected
of rank
is
satirized,
but with a weaker hand than
usual
is
with our author.*
This work, although addressed to Sidney, would, others published in England, seem to have fallen
like the
In
flat.
1633, however, a masque, the general idea and details of
which were Charles
I
based
on
the
Spaccio,
and Henrietta Maria ;
*
influenced Spenser in writing the " bihtie."*
Interest
was played
before
and the Spaccio may have
Two
Cantoes of Muta-
Bruno was manifested by a
in
little
group of English deists at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and one of these, supposed to be
W.
Morehead,
translated the Dialogues but not the Dedicatory Letter of the Spaccio. original
This translation
and renders
its
language so exactly that
*
Spaccio, III,
'
Ibid., Ill, iij.
ij.
'
I
keeps so closely to the
involved
and
style
Ibid., II, iij.
»
;
in the
it
Ibid., Ill,
Coelum BriUanicum. Cff. Elton, Carew, Thos : G. B. in England, 1907, p. 34. * Whittaker, T Essays and Notices, 1895 Elton, England, Quarterly R., Oct. 1902. '
redundant
have availed myself of
O
ij,
;
Modern
;
G. B. in
Studies
;
;
O
WORKS PRINTED quotations given.
It
LONDON
IN
was a general
1
belief that the
the expelled Beast,^ an opinion shared
by Leibnitz
67
Pope was ^ !
VI
The Cabala Of The Steed Like Unto Pegasus, With The Addition Of The Ass Of Cyllene This work
is
really a
supplement
Both
to the Spaccio.
books show what liberty of thought and speech had already established itself in England. ist,
Lucian, the inimitable satir-
gave the ancient world the adventures of an
and
ass,^
Apuleius wrote that strange romance, " The Golden Ass."
*
After the revival of learning, Machiavelli called one of his
poems by the same
title,
and we have seen that
a distinguished position in a Spaccio, the space left
pied
the ass held
work of Bruno's youth.
In the
by the Great Bear, hard by that occu-
by Truth, and also the space left by Eridanus remain Bruno proceeds to fill the one with Donkeydom
vacant.
the abstract
in
and the other with Donkeydom
the
in
concrete.
The
classical scholar will recall
how
the winged steed,
Pegasus, flew up to heaven,^ served Zeus with his thunderbolts,^
and struck
forth a fountain with his hoofs.'
Thereby
the Italian poet, Boiardo, connects Pegasus with the of the Muses.
Bruno probably had
this,
all
Balaam's ass, in his mind when he wrote '
P., '
Cfr.
Schoppius ad Ritterhaus in
Letter to Lacroze, quoted by Mclntyre, op. just
*
Aoiixios
^
ApoUodorus ed. Heyne, Hesiod; Theogonia, 281.
•
appendix
;
;
^
as
also
Bayle,
^
6vis. ;
cit.,
p. 346.
Bacon,
mention Bruno.
'
'
cit.,
as well
work
Dictionnaire, sub Bruno.
Burton and Budgell
'
Berti, op.
this
home
//,
Done
into English, 1566.
iij.
Pausanias, GrcBcia descript., II, 31 Cfr. Cabala, Dial. II, i.
;
IX,
31.
:
I
GIORDANO BRUNO
68
Cusanus' "Learned Ignorance," which commends ardent search for truth while encouraging a critical spirit and
demonstrating the impossibility of reaching truth as Cornelius Agrippa's work
is.
vanity of
"On
the
The
knowledge " was very popular.^
all
it
really
uncertainty and lighter
owe
touches in the Cabala Del Cavallo Pegaseo probably
something to the perusal of Erasmus' "Praise of Folly";
and part of
its
title
ftiedley, in part, of
taken from the Jewish Cabala, a
is
Jewish, Neo-Platonic and Pythagorean
The work
mysticism.
gravely dedicated to a mythical
is
personage, the Bishop of Casamarciano, an obscure
little
and commences with a
This
place in Italy, is
satiric letter.
followed by a sonnet in praise of the ass:
donkeydom, holy ignorance, devotion,
who
holy foolishness
"Oh, holy and pious
alone can so perfect the heart that
capacity and study
may
not improve
employ the weary painstaking of any
it!
Thou
art or discovery, or of
study of the skies, where thou has built thy home.
worth the
is
study to us, o prying
works of Nature, or
if
human
dost not
folk, to desire
Of what
knowledge of
the stars are indeed earth,
fire
Holy donkeydom does not concern itself with such matters, but with folded hand and on bended knee, and sea?
awaits what
God
!
buried "
An
Nothing endures, save the
shall send.
fruit of eternal repose,
which God only gives when we are
address to the reader comes next, in the
form of a pulpit exhortation might to become asses,
if
:
we
we must
strive with all our
are not yet in that state of
grace, and persevere in our asinity
if
we have reached
it
" so shall ye find yourselves written in the Book of Life, obtain grace in the Church Militant and glory in that Church Triumphant wherein God dwells and reigns for
So be it " the Ass and its foal."
ever and ever.
on "
'
It
was translated
!
"A
into English
very pious sonnet " follows
by James Sanford
in 1569.
WORKS PRINTED
LONDON
IN
1
Bruno has now given the motif of the work. dialogues which
follow are
69
The
with bitter irony and
filled
merciless satire, interspersed with very serious thought.
No
one wielded a more incisive lash or knew better how
to apply
often,
Sometimes he becomes unduly violent; but
it.
when he
girding with sardonic grin,
is
changes
it
a laughing smile or takes on noble severity.
into
object
is to
His
destroy the notion that ignorance and super-
and
stitious belief
fear are requisite in true religion
would away with the pretentious simplicity of and the empty mysticism,
stupidity,
he
;
pietists
and obstinacy which
He shows
render religion synonymous with obscurantism.
that Scripture has been misused to glorify ignorance
as
;
if
world, that wonderful open book, were not also the
the
He
work of God.
by no means confined
among
philosophers,
Aristotelians, faith
in
the
Church. they
In fact, the
church,
schools: Asinity
World.
to the
whether
It is to
be
is
the
Ass
is
or
blind
their
to be found every-
the law-courts,
cloister,
is
be found
Pyrrhonists
and also among such as pin
on authority.
where;
But ignorance
lashes the hypocrite.
as widespread as
is
the
the Soul of the
But true religion and true philosophy, must not
be confounded with foolish superstition or supine ignorance.
There are three short dialogues.
In the
Saulino
first
reappears and holds lively talk with Sebasto and Coribante, a pedant. a
fresh
In the second dialogue, which
interlocutor is
introduced, one
is in
three parts,
Onorio,
who
like
the heroes of Lucian and Apuleius, has been an ass and
endured much throughout many transformations.
was
in the service
of a gardener
loaded with vegetables for Thebes' market; charcoal after this
;
Once he
and was wont
to
then he became a steed of the Pegasus
type and served the gods in that happy region where the
be
he dragged
fountain which gushed
forth
when
the
is
hoof of the
GIORDANO BRUNO
170 steed struck earth
Muses.
and which Apollo consecrated to the his metempsychoses he has
In the course of
occupied the body of Aristotle himself! fooling
and
;
knowledge
all
is
that
may impede
treated with
It
human The third
withering scorn.
dialogue has only a few lines.
A
splendid
is
the progress of
messenger from Sebasto
informs Saulino that his master's wife
dead; he must
is
as her executor, and, therefore, further discussion
act
is
postponed; moreover, Coribante has the gout and
to be
Onorio has gone away
to take the waters.
Bruno recurs again and again to Pythagoreanism. " See. Do you hold that the soul of man is substantially the same as that of beasts and that the only difference is one
Onor. That
of form ?
of
man
is
and generic essence with that of everything which
which
it
lives, or
has a soul
by
spirit in itself.
in its specific
and
not matter,
is
it
:
—there
way
Now, the
is
a
aforesaid
fate or providence, order or chance, unites itself
to this or that kind of body, and, in
same
oysters, plants,
possesses in a more or less lively
thorough permeation of Spirit,
the
flies,
by reason of
difference
structure or of members, reaches different grades and
perfections of faculty
and
act.
Hence, that
which was in the spider, and possessed
and members of a with
human
certain number,
spirit or soul,
industry, claws
mass and shape, united
seed, acquires another intelligence, instruments,
postures and deeds." ^ that,
its
Just before, Onorio has declared
from experience and memory, he knows the doctrine
of Pythagoras and the Druids as to metempsychosis to be
most assuredly It will
true.
be noticed that, in the quotation given above,
Bruno has observed the importance of organs
to function.
In another interesting digression he points out
portant part played by the hand in giving
man
ginning.
the im-
his position
'
WORKS PRINTED
LONDON
IN
171
among animals
; his domination is due less to intelligence than to that " organ of organs." * He is quite confident
that mental functioning
dependent on physical structure
is
and physical operations. "Could the form of a snake change; could its head mould itself into human form, its and grow
belly swell
into the shape of the
human
breast,
tongue enlarge, shoulders spread out and arms and
its
hands shoot forth from
and
it,
its
bud
tail
into
legs,
it
would understand, breathe, speak, work and walk about
man, and seem to be so because become no other than a man."
like a
The Cabala
would have
repeats the central philosophical theory to
be found in nearly
all
universal intelligence
and makes
it
is
intelligence
;
his
works
one
in all;
but there
"
:
is,
is
say the
I
efficient
moves
that which
moreover, a particular
by which they are moved, illuminated and com-
intelligence
prehend, and this
multiplied according to the
is
Even as the number
power of seeing
number
of individuals.
the
according to
of eyes,
all
stimulated and illumi-
or a sun, so
is
the intellectual power
nated by
fire, light
number of
multiplied according to the
is
multiplied
subjects participating
by a supreme intellectual sun." * First and foremost Bruno is an idealist ; but he is hampered by the notion of spirit operating on something that is
in soul, illuminated
not quite
spirit.
an
out, that he is
great merit, as Hoffding points
It is his
idealist
who
is
determined to unite his
idealism with a scientific conception of the world process.*
Cyllene the
title
Cyllene." 1 '
*
is
a mountain in simple-minded Arcadia
of the
little
adjunct to the Cabala
An ass, wishing to enter a Pythagorean
Cabala, Dial. II, i, at the beginning, Ibid., Dial. I, near end. Hoffding,
H
;
Hist.
Mod,
Phil.,
tr.
:
hence
—the " Ass
Meyer, 1900,
"
vol.
01
academy, Ibid.
i,
p. 139.
GIORDANO BRUNO
172
he has to observe the
finds that
maining pity
silent for the
difficult regulation
of re-
Mercury takes
space of two years.
on the unhappy beast, bestows on him the
gift of elo-
" Be
quence and transforms him into a dogmatic pedant.
home with
at
all,
scamper about with
all,
be the brother of
identify yourself with them, rule them, be themselves."
all,
The innocent beast
is
no such ass as not
to
want
me
to
know
a
little.
something.
" Tell me, sir," he asks, " and help
Which
man who has become donkey transmogrified into a man ? "
holds the
donkey or a
rank, a
first
^
a
Six years later Bruno informed his readers that he had
suppressed the Ass of Cyllene, " for and, on account of wise."
its
it
annoyed the vulgar,
sinister flavour, did not please the
Probably the Cabala was withdrawn as well as the
*
supplement.
VII
The Transports Of Intrepid Souls The
full
significance
and subtle associations of the
title
Gli Eroici Furori cannot be adequately rendered.^ Plato discovered in the passion of Greek friendship an imperfect image of divine, ideal beauty and goodness, and
taught that
it
may
be converted into a spur to our highest
Through the Alexandrian
desire.
thinkers,
who mingled
Platonic doctrines with Oriental mysticism, this
reached the Middle Ages.
thought
United with the Provengal senti-
ment of chivalrous devotion to a chosen lady, it influenced Dante, and transfigured love occupied the great poet in his two most important works.* Taking a more fleshly form in
1
•
A sin.
•
G.
B
Cellen. ;
Z)e
imaginum, Signorum
et
idearum composiiione,
Frcf.,
591 '
Patrizzi,
poetici."
Bruno's contemporary, wrote " Delia diversitk de' furori * Divina Commedia ; Vita Nuova.
WORKS PRINTED
LONDON
IN
1
73
Petrarch, the sentiment found a lower level, and by the sixteenth century
and
had furnished a vast crowd of poetasters
it
dilettanti with
fashionable affectations.
and
fifteenth century, Benivieni, Pico
Yet, in the
others, and, at the
beginning of the sixteenth, Castiglioni, soared almost as high as Plato on wing hardly less confident.^
Bruno as
hateful to
He makes
new and
by strenuous which
feeling,
effort,
The
sure way.
nay the presence of God, though
not reach that sense of direct union, which
one long
is
One
prose and verse.
pure
is
and other mystics.
^
granted to Plotinus
The work
may,
intellectual lover
reach a comprehensive vision of Nature,^
the very image,
is
may
less foolishly dull.
Tansillo, the Petrarchist, his chief interlocutor,
point out a
he
and not
the pedant,
But the usual
and absurd, was as
Petrarchistic sonneteer, forced, artificial
hymn
to intellectual beauty, in
feels the influence of the
Timaus
vision of the Platonic soul "
moving about the same unchanging thought of the same." Bruno tells us that
and the in
he followed
lines laid
down
Symposium and Phcedrus.'^ when writing con-
in the
In the introductory letter to Sidney, the constant
cerning
transformation
of
all
things,
he
digresses to distinguish between " those
ing to reason and their
by
faith
and a higher
own
as to his
"
As
to
my
to declare
light "
He
light."
follows with a frank
word
attitude towards current Christian doctrine.
he says, "
faith,"
and
own
who declare accordand " those who declare
I
hold
it
a most proper thing
affirm with theologians
and those who are
concerned with the laws and institutions of the people in their interpretation
" Cjf., Benivieni, divina. Fir., 1500.
:
just as
dello amore et della bellezza G Commento M; Sopra lo amore o ver' convito di .
;
Hoby, 1 561). ' Porph V, Plot. ;
not slack to affirm and
.
.
— Ficino,
Platone, Fir., 1543.— Castiglione, J.
am
I
23.
B;
II libra del Cortigiano
'
Eroici, P. II, Dial. II.
*
Spaventa
;
op.
cit., I,
{tr.
p. 141,
Sir
;
GIORDANO BRUNO
174
accept the sense of those,
among
the good and wise,
That
The
speak according to reason."
^
of a people, being part of
poHtical constitution
must be followed
when
This
its
say.
may
rehgion
and laws,
subject
to
it
a most important passage,
is
by the
tried
willing to accept the affirm
is to
but the competent
;
judicious criticism.
because,
its
who
we
Inquisition,
Church as a
find
Bruno and
practical institution
dogmas as adumbrations of
truth, but resolutely
maintaining the freedom of philosophy to interpret them
and
to
He
pursue an independent course. did not write for the crowd however;* nor about ; he will redeem the promise work was but an introduction to disposed will discover no abiding
social ethics as in the Spaccio
he made therein this.
home
The
*
;
that
intellectually
world of sense or in ordinary piety
in the transitory
only by the exercise of
intellect,
which
a divine passion,
is
anchorage for the soul. sprout " wings to the soul
Such as would
shall these find
purify the will
"
;
*
they already
possess the divine spirit they seek after, and so are at once the lover and the loved
undaunted heroes
;
and
their love shall enable these
pass through suffering (which
to
is
no
other than a golden spur), become spectators of Infinite
Power and Act, and be
at one, not indeed with the inner-
most being of God, but with God
in the highest manifesta-
The innermost being
tions of his mind.^
of
God
is
not
reached, even by the mystic.
Bruno itself
on
the
is
first
thinker
own nature
its
He
inner light.®
Argomento
Eroici, P. I, Dial. II
'
Spaccio, Epist. Esplic.
=
Ibid.,
•
Spaventa,
del
;
;lop.
cit.,
and
is
not here
P. II, Dial. II. •
Eroici, P. II, Dial. II.
Dial. II, III: P. II, Dial. IV.
B
the soul's duty to
Nolano.
Eroici,
"
I,
who based
not on external authority, but on
leaves theology to itself
'
P.
:
p. 143.
WORKS PRINTED concerned with social duty;
LONDON
IN
175
less with vulgar aims, but
still
only with the unwearied ardours of noble desire, and with that hero conflict
who
shall rise
above the tumult of sense and the
No work
of contraries.
of Bruno's
fuller
is
of
strange imaginings, or better expresses his inmost soul.^ It is
two
in
parts, each of five dialogues.
part, Tansillo, the poet, reads his
own
is
set before
first
cryptic stanzas or
those of the Nolan or of some other poet
a symbolic picture
In the
;
and, sometimes,
Cicada and
is
described
;
manner of Dante's Vita Nuova, poem or poem and picture are explained. The same plan is conthen, after the
tinued in the
first
two dialogues of the second part between
Cesarino and Maricondo
;
the third dialogue between Liberio
and Laodonio contains eight sonnets (two propositions and two
and the same number
replies of the heart to the eyes,
of propositions and replies of the eyes to the heart). the fourth dialogue Severino
nine Wind
men
dened his soul
two
ladies,
describes
are spoken in a sonnet.
Laodomia and
how all
of,
each of
In
and
discuss,
whom
has disbur-
Finally, in the fifth dialogue,
Laodomia
Giulia, are introduced.
the nine blind men, " having overpassed
the seas, crossed
traversed
and Minutolo
all
the rivers, surmounted
all
all
the hills and
the plains, during a space of ten years, at the
end of that time found themselves under the temperate sky of Britain and in the presence of the beauteous and gracious
nymphs
of Father Thames."
sealed vase to one of their sprinkles
its
The nymphs have passed
number
it
;
opens of
itself
a
and
contents over the blind wanderers, who, to the
amazement of everybody, themselves
included, recover their
sight.
The
allegory
is
discontinuous,
the
symbols
are
far-
fetched; there are dubious side-lights of mystic meaning, ^
Happily, the body of the work
Enthusiasts" by L. Williams.
is
translated
:
"
The Heroic
London, Redway, 1887-89.
GIORDANO BRUNO
176 and
all is
intermingled with observations alien to the pur-
pose in hand and even with personal reminiscences. the " intellectuals "
obscurity charmed
of the era
But they
;
found no entertainment more agreeable or more mentally stimulating than moral conundrums
Bruno
singular the better.
— the
more quaint and
certainly succeeds in reviving
any flagging of attention by change of
interlocutors, brisk
and natural dialogue, surprise and unexpected digression.
He
would have the service of the soul directed
fountain of the Ideas, the ocean of
all
to
" the
and goodness."
truth
"
The Infinite, being infinite, must be infinitely pursued." * The pursuit of Natural Knowledge is a most exquisite means of endowing the human soul with an heroic temper. For there are stages in the contemplation of the Divine
and Wisdom.
the body, the soul
arouse
itself
filled
is
not always in progress.''
and make a new intrepid attempt
we can
share in
Bruno makes
its
must traverse
to
pro vita sua.
charm
is
an impulse of
upward ascent which
Tansillo utter an Apologia
"That which hath no splendour beyond worthy only of that form of love which hath its object.
piggish to enquire or bother about
was never more
it.
Methinks
For mine own
Eroici, P. I, Dial. IV, Tansillo I, Dial.
it
loq.,
after canz. 20
IV, Tansillo
»
Ibid.,
»
Ibid., P. I, Dial. V, vij.
loq.,
after
cam.
23.
;
cfr.
is
part,
infatuate about such matters than I
III, a.
P.
intellectual
the intellect
comprehension of God
right
He makes
the perpetuation of the race for
'
by
blessedness.
reach a
manifest in Nature.
I
through
lastly
And though we can of Power, Love and Know-
his start then with
passion, and treats of the
bodily
first
with loving enthusiasm.*
never attain the divine infinitude ledge,
must then
It ;
by attention; then by study, and
desire; next,
being
Love
But, cast back into the body and bound by
am
Spaccio,
WORKS PRINTED now about any
"The
ent."^
is
the reason
mutable things as
would aim effort,
live
causes
it
for that
comprehend
desire to
flesh
which
is
the
must
:
who
he
*
by heroic
rise,
must be united with a
The
both love and truth.
is
soul's
to soar aloft for true
avoid, nay,
is
all
and the transitory things of
fulness of knowledge
burning passion
opposite
according to sensible things,
at the imperishable object
The
indiffer-
the wise hold
but there are other laws
;
above matter and
earth.^
be
they were not, and affirm them to be
if
Sense would
own manner
after its
I may why its
"But
^
77
1
picture or statue to which
contrary
hankered after and enjoyed." vanity."*
LONDON
IN
home-sickness which
wisdom and joy ;
it
does not
voluntarily seeks the path of suffering, the
it
" Gethsemane of the soul," which shall lead
—the ultimate harmony and conformity of
it
all
to true beauty
things.*
There are two kinds of ecstasy which may be reached by the divinely transported
there
:
is
the abstraction of passive
mystics, who, usually, are ignorant folk, " into divine sense enters as
who
there are those
it
are
whom
were into an empty room
filled
"
;
the
and
with intellectual ardour, which
spurs them to constructive activity, "so that, by rational process, the spirit becomes godlike in contact with object."
"
The
first
efficacy in themselves
;
worthy as
the ass
divine
the second kind are worthier,
powerful and efficacious and are divine. is
its
kind possess more dignity, power and
who
are as a sacred thing."
'
The
bears the sacraments
The experience
;
more
first
are
the second
of the mystic has
empirical value, but philosophy deals with the rational.*
To Bruno,
philosophy and science were "musical as
'
Eroici, P. I, Dial. II, at end.
'
Ibid., after
*
Eroici, P. I, Dial. IV, after sonnet 22. ' Ibid., P. II, Dial. Ill, foil. xiij. Ibid., P. II, Dial. II. Ibid., P. I, Dial. Ill, at beginning.
» ' '
cam. 9
Cfr. Sensini,
T
;
;
cfr.
Spaccio,
I,
i.
^
Loc.
op. cit, p. 19.
M
cit.
is
GIORDANO BRUNO
178 Apollo's
He
lover.
He
lute."
pursued them with the passion of a
holds that
nothing else
when once
intellectual love is
We
will really satisfy.^
the body, and restricted by our vegetative
proper activity divine object,
whereby we
shall bear
of hfe's evils with unshaken mind.^
and fades perish
;
but there
Love
:
of the soul
is
is
an
even the most
beauty which cannot
intelligible
and
infinite one,
terrible
Sensible beauty alters
inspires us with love to pursue
an
but our
life;
ceaseless strife, to contemplate the
in
is,
aroused
are indeed bound to
it.
The
this is of itself
ance of
its
own unending
touched
its
shining goal holds eternity in a moment.
The
fulfilment.
" becomes a god through intellectual
desire
an assur-
soul which has
Man
contact with that
transcendent object, and has no thought but of divine things
and shows himself insensible and unmoved by that which men feel most of all but, through love of the divine,
ordinary
;
he disdains life." ^
all
other enjoyments and takes no thought of
These are no mere words.
were sincere throughout
and
life
Bruno proved in death.
"
that they
neither
It is
natural nor expedient that the infinite should be grasped,
nor can
be
it
infinite
render ;
but
itself
it is
as
finite, for
then
would cease
seeking, not by physical desire, but
deemed the
;
perfect, but, circling
upwards
through the grades of imperfection, strains after that centre which
is
neither formed nor forms."
Of Bruno, as
•f
of Spinoza,
" God-intoxicated." its
He
felt
may
it
to
infinite,
in which mode of by thought, the im-
being such, should be infinitely pursued
perfect is not to be
it
expedient and natural that the
infinite
*
be said that he was
that the Divine Excellence
had
abode in the very heart of Nature and within his own
body and
spirit.
Indwelling in every dewdrop as in the
>
Eroici, P. II, Dial. I, ix.
^
Ibid., P. I , Dial. Ill, beginning.
•
Ibid., P. I, Dial.
IV,
after
"
cam.
20.
Ibid., P. I, Dial.
IV, V.
:
WORKS PRINTED innumerable host of heaven,
in the
mind of man, he found the
the
IN
LONDON
1
inspiring with the Divine love.
79
humblest flower and in
God, setting
living spirit of
making the Divine
forth the Divine glory,
;;
;
;
The
and
perfection
Eroici
full
is
of the
pantings of his soul for intellectual enfranchisement and contact with Truth, the divine object.
many
into
Not
upsoaring soul. the finest poetic
worst, his
He
breaks out
a canzone to express the heroic rapture of the
a sonnet by
is
may
Tansillo.
fashionable at the
conceits, so
Bruno has the
best he
own perhaps There is much of the
the verses are his
all
;
time, and, at
translated to give, however poorly,
manner
in this
some
at
A
may
be
idea of his poetic
work
" Circles the sun and seeks whence he hath
And
;
be compared with Michel Angelo.
example, not of his worst or best verse,
single
his
fatal facility of the improvisatore
wandering
make
lights
come
ever for their source
The child of earth returns to earthly home From sea to sea again, the waters course Divine desire, wherever it may roam, Soars ever upward, of
its
'Tis thus the soul,
Turns back
Bruno repeats that learned
the
of
native force.
born of
my
lady
fair,
to find that goddess past compare."
his teaching is for the few
the
Universities
knowing nothing of the strenuous
are life
;
soul-less
for
^
even
pedants
and caring
less,^
and, as for the wholly uninstructed, "the multitude can,
with great
by
difficulty,
This passage suggests permanence of the individual " soul " through the
belief in eternal
that the
vicissitudes justice
be kept from vice and urged to virtue
punishments." *
of the forms
which follows
it,
it
assumes and the retributive
so pronouncedly brought before
»
Eroici, P. II, I, viij, Ottava del Nolano.
»
Ibid.,
P. II, II.
'
Argomento.
GIORDANO BRUNO
l8o
Sidney in the dedicatory
The heroic The time had
soul,
by
Expulsion, must
letter of the
no means be taken au pied de la
lettre?-
says Bruno, shall seek truth and find
it.
not then come for Pilate's question to be put Bruno was happily unvexed by the problem of No germ is to be discovered in any of his writings
again. truth.
of any one of the three popular solutions which philosophy
has since provided
—that
constitutes Reality
itself,
life.
He
there
is
Truth or
is
a copy of Reality, or
is
a mere sign for practical
a view implicit in the Eroici and
and
earliest of his philosophical writings,
truth
is
whole
But
takes Truth quite simply and uncritically. in all
but the
our
this is that
a progressive, ideal approximation towards that
Truth which
with the inmost nature of
one
is
Being.
Hoffding justly remarks that, of feeling
is
work, complexity
this
in
taken as a criterion for
its
As
development.^
the eternal striving of the Infinite, Bruno anticipates
to
Kant and
Fichte.
The
interest he took in physics
out even in this ethical rhapsody
peeps
he points to the expan-
:
sive force of steam.*
" Poetry
There are excellent remarks on poetry. born in rules," says Tansillo poetry;
;
" rules
and there are as many
there are of true poets." poets to be recognized ? " ^
See pages 163
*
Hoffding,
»
Eroici, P. I, Dial. V.
H
;
sq. of this
Hist, oj
are derived
is
not
from
sorts of true rules
as
" But how are true Tansillo " By their song." * Cicada
:
:
work.
Mod.
Phil.,
if.
Meyer, 1900, *
vol. I, p. 147.
Ibid., Dial. I.
CHAPTER
SOME NEW WORKS
IN PARIS AGAIN.
Behold Bruno or worse
XII
landed in France in as bad plight as ever,
robbed, homeless, his whilom patron no longer
;
able to help or protect him and with no prospect of better things.
and
like
Like Dante he was " a wanderer, almost a beggar," Dante he might have exclaimed " Verily have I :
been as a ship without
on
thither
blast, the
"
or rudder, drifted hither
sail
and shores by the
different refuges, straits
breath of which
is
wretched poverty."
accompanied the Ambassador
I
to Paris,
and
bitter
^
where
I
stayed
another year" (more exactly seven months) "boarding and lodging with the gentlemen of the time at
my own
he was given food and
How
knew
there, the greater part
We
^
may suppose
little
money about him
have read
proofs.
may
be, as
He
;
that
he found employment.
shelter until
he supported himself we do not know
had a It
I
expense."
he
;
probably he taught
may have he may ;
dwelt near the College of Cambrai.*
Tocco suggests,*
that he
was weary
of
persecution and wished to pursue his studies under the
some great
protection of
to teach unmolested.
him
But, to this end
to reconcile himself with the
never abandoned at heart. reprobate, * ' *
Dante
;
Convito, I,
L Tocco J F
;
;
op.
cit.,
it
was necessary
an outlaw, a
So he went boldly *
3.
sub 6th Dec.
Conferenza, Fir., 1888. 181
for
Church, which he had
He had become
a child of darkness.
Auvray,
So, he would be able
dignitary.
Doc.
ix.
to
I
GIORDANO BRUNO
82
Mendoza, who was now Spanish Ambassador
and
at Paris,
who
therefore represented the ruler of his native province.
He
judged
of Mendoza's character:
ill
identified himself
and country, was mostly
Ambassador
indifferent to all else,
entirely unscrupulous in the
Bruno
before him.
the
wholly with the interests of his Church
and was
pursuit of the ends he set
said to his judges
"
:
approached the
I
French Nuncio, Monsignor the Bishop of Bergamo,
to
whom
was introduced by Don Bernardino de Mendoza, whom I "Whilst I strove by had known at the English Court." ^ I
[of these gentlemen] to return to the Church,
means
sulted another Jesuit
absolve
me
;
and they
of apostasy
divine offices."
^
me
told
and that
I
I
con-
that they could not
could not attend the
"I prayed the Nuncio and sought again
earnestly that he would write to His Beatitude, Sixtus V, at
Rome,
and be received
to obtain his grace
of the Catholic Church, but that
monkdom.
to return to
He
nuolo.
I
into the
bosom
should not be compelled
Wherefore the Nuncio had no hope
and would not write unless order.
I
I
were willing
to return to
referred
me
to the Jesuit father,
discussed
my
case with him, and he shewed
my
Alonzo Spag-
me
was necessary to procure absolution from censure from the Pope, and that nothing could be done unless I went back to my order. I was further warned by him that,
that
it
being excommunicate,
I
could not attend the divine offices,
but might very well listen to sermons and say in
my
prayers
Church."* Like Erasmus,
new
like
More, he hoped that in the ferment of
thought, in the clash of ancient
passion
for
would prove sagacious and for the
dogma with
the
genuine thinker; as
institute if
some modus vivendi
the principle of authority
could ever be harmonized with intellectual freedom! ^
new
reason, the real government of the Church
Boc. xvij.
'
Doc.
xi,
'
Doc, xvij.
He
;;;
SOME NEW WORKS
IN PARIS AGAIN.
hoped
was
83
no way of mutual
to reconcile the irreconcilable:
toleration
1
possible.
Bruno got himself talked about on
his return to France.
Arnold van Buchel, a Dutchman, names him among the eminent folk he spoke to or saw during his visit to Paris, Dec. 1585.
"a
Buchel describes him as
more subtle than
is
good
is
who
philosopher
for his safety,
who has
pseudonym of 'Lover of God' (Philotheus). written a little book De Arte Reminiscendi and,
taken
He
the
has
in Italian,
Gli Heroici and // Candelajo, a comedy." *
A
precious document, already quoted from, gives us a
glimpse of Bruno as he appeared
an ingenuous con-
to
Monsieur Auvray discovered
temporary.
in the Bibliotheque
Nationale a manuscript diary which he supposes to be that
Abbey
of Guillaume Cotin, Librarian to the
of St. Victor.
It
contains an account of several visits paid to him
he
is
by Bruno between Dec. 6th 1585 and Feby. 2nd 1586. The Author discloses himself as very erudite and very sterile immensely interested
oratory
;
in foreign
missions and pulpit
his statements are bare matters of fact
;
but matter-
of-fact diaries are usually the best revealers of character.
He
is
meticulously precise; so careful that
properly caught a in
if
doubt as
written,
name
to the perfect
he erases
We
it.
must have been when we saint the cathedral of
accuracy of anything he has
Nola was dedicated if,
as
own
is
by
his
books behind him.
At
this time Cotin
»
Auvray,
L
;
op.
cit.,
;
p.
288 sqq.
He
is
scrupulosity that he
was
over-
was
left
no
in failing health
To
M.S.Jol. 189 vide Vidier, M. Paris etc., t. xxvj, 1899, /». 146.
Lib.,
I'histoire de
to.
pretty certain, he
indeed he died not very long afterwards.^ Utrecht Univ.
man he
him enquiring what particular
Cotin, so paralysed
1
he has not
recognize the kind of
find
weighted with learning, and,
SocieUde
if
or a statement he leaves a hiatus
this pertina-
A MM. de ;
la
;
GIORDANO BRUNO
184 cious, painstaking
and somewhat
dull person,
comes Bruno
bursting with self-confidence, naturally vain, conscious of not having received his due, and, therefore, a
and even
assertive
marked the Nolan's he has to say with
trifle
self-
carelessness, too, which
was present in his speech. What much importance that he must out
style
of so
is
The
boastful.
whether the occasion be opportune and the hearer
it,
prepared to receive
Moreover, he
or no.
it
is loftily
con-
all who have not reached his own large The man "subdued to what he worked in" is
temptuous of purview.
obviously interested at
in
first
Bruno, but soon the
idio-
There
syncrasies of his visitor begin to irritate him.
is
not a word of comment, but a diary always has selected
and the
facts,
facts recounted here are their
we can read between men discover
the lines
diverse cool
relations are a
;
At the lectured
first
at
for little
little ;
^
he
inclination
two so
they become a
little
strained, and, finally, cease.
meeting we find Bruno
Oxford;
Philosophers,"
how
one another
own comment
is
telling that
he has
about to print a "Tree
of
a work which certainly never appeared
from the Press during the author's lifetime, but may be the " Animadversiones " ^ of which the manuscript is at
We
Erlangen.
Nola
;
he
is
learn
that Bruno's father
is
still
alive at
himself lodging near the College of Cambrai.
Further conversation turns on an edition of Lucretius.
Bruno comes again the very next day (Dec. 7th), perhaps and recounts some passages in his history, " He says he understands and of which I have made use. to consult books,
could explain in an hour forth in the first
artificial
memory,
like
book ad Herenniuni^ which
its
that set
readers
do not comprehend, nor Muret,* who admires him as a ' * '
Arbor Philosophorum. Animadversiones circa Lampadem Lullianam. The work is spoken of on p. 8, n. 2. ' Muret died a
little
before.
SOME NEW WORKS
IN PARIS AGAIN.
The
Corsican nobleman." for the doctorate,
diarist is told
and enters
1
about the theses
in Latin that
Bruno
told
he might skip parts of S. Augustine's disputations} is
85
him This
a remark very characteristic of the hero of our theme.
The few
Latin words
that
rity,
may
indicate, so precise is our autho-
Bruno dropped from French
into
Latin.
chance, like most Italians, he did not speak
and
this
may
There
in
follows the usual intrepid expres-
most intimate opinion, and
second day of their intercourse ties
Per-
too well,
account for certain erasures and hiatuses
the manuscript. sion of
it
!
this to
He
a stranger on the
" contemns the subtle-
of the schoolmen and doctrines concerning the sacra-
ments, even that of the Eucharist, which he says St. Peter
and '
St.
this is
Paul were unacquainted with, only knowing that
my
He
body.'
says that with the removal of these
questions religious turmoil would disappear, and hopes that will
soon be the end of
But above
it.
works and preach the assurance of tion
he detests the
their faith
wholly towards
for Christianity tends
;
He
all
and England because they despise good
heretics of France
and
life
justifica-
well spent.
scorns Cajetanus and Pico della Mirandola and the
whole philosophy of the Jesuits outside the subject-matter
and
intelligence of Aristotle."
(Perhaps his unsatisfactory
interview with Father Alonzo Spagnuolo fied his intellectual
contempt
may have
for the Jesuits.)
intensi-
Next comes
a side-light on the interest he took in Natural Science. "
He
told
me much
concerning the geography and cold of
Tartary and Scotland and of the temperature of Ireland."
Concerning this last, he may have "learned the same" from " consultacions " with some of Elizabeth's " verye wise
Governours and Counsellors
whom
he had sometimes hearde
treate thereof." ' I think the reader will detect an ironical flavour in this and the other entries which I have italicized.
GIORDANO BRUNO
86
I
On
Thursday, Dec.
"Jordanus brought me
12th,
his
books on Mnemonic Art; he scorns the whole doctorate,
and Passerat,
notably Cujas
eloquence and delivery; says
praises
Bossulus for
the teachers of
as private tutors to the children of nobles.
got 30CXD scudi, out of an income of 5000 scudi in its
humane make
nobodies and unprofitable, but they
letters in Italy are
money
but all
value, for teaching the
Muret
money
or
nephew of Cardinal Colonna.^
2000 or 3000 would be bestowed freely on the education Cotin must have led the conversation on
of children."
Bruno praises some and dispraises without insight and futile Fiamma has gone off in his old age " he should have given up " three years ago. He strongly disparages Toledo ^ and Jesuit preachers in Italy, for they commence with an overdose of gravity and say that great mysteries are contained preachers again.
to
" Panigarola
others,
is
;
:
in the text, but, at the end,
Tarcagnota of Gaeta
is
Pope, Sixtus V.
Bruno
calls
commended
;
to his turbulent nobles
He
But
" he has written
Bruno talked about the recent severe
a Universal History."
measures meted out
nothing has come out."
highly
by the
New
took the side of the nobles.
again on the 21st and
tells
about his early
memory to the Pope. another visit. The diarist is told
success in demonstrating artificial
On
the 27th there
is
"
about the robbery.
He
to order.
sophorum
He cannot get the proofs
2° the entire Physics of Aristotle,
;
under a few
figures,
which he will teach in
an exposition of the Art of Lully,* more
3°
with ^
its
use,
He was
which
tutor at
its
drawn up half an hour; ^
full
than before,
author (Lully) did not know."
Rome
Marc Antonio Colonna. '
of his works
has three works in view, 1° the Arbor Philo-
to
Martin Colonna, nephew of Cardinal ^ Preacher in ordinary to the Pope.
Figuratio Aristotelici Physici, printed by Pierre Chevillot the
following year. *
De Lampade Cowbinatoria
Lulliana, VitebergcB, 1587.
:
SOME NEW WORKS
IN PARIS AGAIN.
Bruno
is
not mentioned again until 2nd Feby, 1586,
he informed the
87
when
"that Fabricius Saliternus is more anon. Saliternus " is 60 years
diarist
Of whom
Paris."
1
in of
age, stands high as a geometer, surpassing in that all pre-
and
decessors
knows no Latin.
contemporaries,
Jordanus
will
the Physics,
Jordanus
" Also, the aforesaid
will print his researches in Latin." ^
read his sentences on Aristotle, containing
and he
is
all
He was
going to print them."
already arranging for the famous tournament at the Cambrai.
At the end of the entry comes another, dated Feb. 4th. Monsieur Auvray believes it to be an afterthought and refers told
it
me
Duke
to
that he
" Also, Jordanus
preceding interview.
the
knows nothing where Latin
of Florence
of the town built by the to
is
be spoken;
but he
has heard the said Duke wishes to build a City of the Sun, so as to be sure of where the sun
brated in this is
shining every
that there are
most audacious " pulling
a
is
many cities celeway, Rome and Rhodes among them." This
day of the year, seeing
Rhodes was famous
for the
"
of the diarist's " leg "
sunshine
enjoyed, but
it
Rome
and doubtless Bruno delighted
is
a misty place for Italy
in
a concealed ironic glance at the intellectual resplendence
of the Apostolic See.
;
With
this parting shot, intercourse
between the two men ended.
busy preparing out to too,
for the disputation
visit libraries or
both
To
Perhaps Bruno was too
men had
and getting
waste his time in chatter
his ;
books
perhaps,
got weary of one another.
prepare the
way
for the
public
discussion
Bruno
wrote that short preliminary exposition of the peripatetic philosophy which the diarist sardonically records, " was to teach
it
in half
an hour."
"A Relation
In Imagery
Of The
' C/n Dialogi duo de Fabbricii Mordentis Salernitani J. B. N. prope divina adinventione ad perfectam CosmimeiricB praxim.
Parisiis 1586, Peir. Chevillot.
:
1
GIORDANO BRUNO
88
Of Aristotle "i was printed by Pierre Chevillot, who dwelt under the sign of the Red Rose, in 1586, and was dedicated to Pierre d'Albigny, Abbot of Belleville. He
Physics
compliments the Abbot on being specially well acquainted with Aristotle and knowing what he talks about, while professed peripatetics do not understand their master. possible arguments in
The work
presented before they are censured. parts
;
the
first
All
favour of his views ought to be in
is
two
of these contains a synopsis of the main
mnemonic images, the second part is a sumof the teaching of the same
conceptions of the Physics under 15
such as Apollo, Minerva
etc.
mary, not invariably correct,
;
work and of minor treatises, either by Aristotle or attributed to him at that time. We saw in the Diary how full Bruno was of Mordente, who came from a place not so far distant from his own beloved Nola. He must have rejoiced at meeting one who was, like himself, a " servant and interpreter of Nature," with a
common
interest in applied
mathematics and possess-
Mor-
ing the additional attraction of being a Neapolitan. dente's mathematics were of no lasting importance
invented a
would seem
new form to
of
;
he had
compass of no great value, and
have had some worthless ideas on incom-
mensurable quantities at a time when men were feeling
way blindly towards
the discovery of new calculi.
Chevillot to print "
Two
Of
Dialogues
Of
their
Bruno got
Fabrizio Mordente
was united a " Dream."* In this work Bruno, to whom moderation was little better than a vice, loads Mordente with extravagant, if generous, praise "
Salerno,"^ with which
The geometers of the
and give 1 *
to his
future shall raise
him
/. B. Nolani Fig. Arisi. Phys. etc., 1586. Dial, duo de F.M.S. propre divina adinvent.
praxim. 1586.
to the
house and the Salernian sky, with
'
/.
heavens
its
limpid
ad perfect, cosimet. Bruni Insomnium.
SOME NEW WORKS
IN PARIS AGAIN.
and majestic horizon, greater renown than
befel
1
89
remarkable
Egypt, laborious Persia or subtle Arabia." Let us believe that the " god among geometers " ^ had some wider empire of thought than
ready enough
is
to
antiquity to the admiration of
modern men, and
seem that he got impressed, through Mordente,^ by two facts
:
mum
is
it
would
his intercourse with
that no quantity,
however
small,
and that the concept of a minisuch wise that an instrument used for
negligible in calculation
is
Bruno was always
by oblivion.^
indicated
break away from the current worship of
relative in
;
taking the altitude of the stars
may involve a minimum greater
than the whole diameter of the earth.
He
also learned
from Mordente that the same kind of reasoning
is appli-
cable to fractions as to whole numbers, and that in physical investigations the indefinite regress
—propositions
must halt
which he was to develop
at a
later
minimum The
on.
dialogues between Mordente and Bottero turn on the Physics
of Aristotle and are condensed, dispersed and dry. In the " Dream " there is obscurely revealed to Bruno a triangular instrument for determining degrees of latitude.
He
would seem
have had some dim foresight of instru-
to
ments which were not then invented. " A Hundred And Twenty Theses Concerning Nature
And The
Universe, Directed Against The Peripatetics " was
also printed at the
Author."*
It
^
Auvray
Cjr. Berti
op.
;
cit.,
op.
;
" at the solicitation of the
was apparently issued before the
wrangle took place
«
Red Rose in
public
order that the audience might have a
sub 2nd Feb. Cap. X.
cit.,
renews his eulogies of Mordente in later works. Discovered by Miss Frith in the British Museum, catalogued under Hennequin, J Centum et viginti articuU de natura et mundo adv. peripat. per J. H. Lutetie prop, sub clipeo et moderamine ad authoris instantiam, 1 586. J. B. N. infra oct. Pentec. Imp. Par. '
He
"
;
—
Cfr. Frith,
I
;
Life ofG. B., 1887, pp. 324-5.
;
GIORDANO BRUNO
190
summary
twenty pages. III
First
and then an
sity, in
comes a dedicatory address
to
Henry
Rector of the Univer-
epistle to Filesac, the
which Bruno expresses, in warm terms, his sense of
the hospitality
He
sity.
There are only
of the arguments before them.
and kindness he had received
informs Filesac that he
is
at the Univer-
about to leave Paris.
Theses attacking the Aristotelian Physics and Cosmogony follow.
Cotin's diary furnishes us with
concerning the debate.
He
much needed
information
heard a somewhat coloured
account of Bruno's misadventure at Geneva from one John
Vincent on March 20th, which he carefully sets down, and Bruno is as follows : " 28th and 29th
the next reference to
May, which were the Wednesday and Thursday of Pentecost,
Jordanus invited the Royal Lecturers and everyone to
hear him inveigh against seven
At
Cambrai.
(sic)
errors of Aristotle at
the end of the lesson or oration he bade
defiance, urging
anyone who might wish
to
do so to defend
Aristotle or attack Brunus, and, no one having
ward, he shouted
Then
a
still
come
for-
louder, as having gained the victory.
young advocate, Rodolphus
Calerius, rose and, in
a lengthy speech, defended Aristotle against the aspersions of Brunus, beginning by saying that the professors were silent
because they did not deem Brunus worthy of a reply
finally,
he called on Brunus to reply and defend himself,
who was
silent
and
left.
The students caught hold
Brunus, saying that they would not replied
Nevertheless, ultimately, he escaped from their hands,
know
of
him go unless he or withdrew the calumnies he had cast on Aristotle. let
not
if
on condition that he should return next day
reply to the advocate.
assembly
for the
The
advocate, having
I
to
summoned an
next day by placards, got into the pulpit
and followed up the defence of Aristotle and the jugglings of Brunus in fine style,
still
calling
on him to answer.
But
IN PARIS AGAIN.
Brunus did not appear be dwelling in
this
Jordanus was
in
in the big pulpit sat
I9I
and, since then, he would seem to
;
town no a
SOME NEW WORKS
longer.
little pulpit,
near the garden-door, and
John Hennequin,
his disciple, sustain-
ing the theses of Jordanus, of which Jordanus claimed to
be judge, as first
were.
it
The disciple could only reply to the Then Brunus was asked to reply
argument of Calerius.
himself,
which he would not do, saying that the proper time
had gone by
and next day he would not appear, saying that already they had struck him yesterday. Also note ;
that Calerius
a freshman, a Gascon they think, young,
is
who was an advocate but
is
so no longer, having withdrawn
with Monsieur du Perron, the king's orator and chronicler." It is
news
evident that someone has brought the
to will-
ing ears.
Bruno,
in his letter to Filesac,^ said that
fessors had attended his lectures
;
many of the
pro-
he did not think the
University would always hold by the Peripatetic philosophy, for Aristotle
He
owed more
to Paris than Paris to Aristotle.
counted on a favourable hearing, since philosophers
should be willing to reason philosophically, that
He
hoped, in his
new
philosophy, to accomplish
is,
freely.
work worthy
of the University. It
was bold
to
approach Filesac
Rector had just been elected to his priest,
and renowned
for his
in
office
this
matter.
(Mar. 24)
;
knowledge of theology and the
history of the theological faculty of the Sorbonne. Filesac's contemporaries
position
gave him no
and character than
The
he was a
But
less praise for his dis-
for his attainments.^
We
can
well believe, from the tittle-tattle concerning the affair at
Geneva which John Vincent brought '
Centum
^
Du
Filesac,
et viginti articuli
Boulay
;
to Cotin, that
—Ad Filesac.
Hist, de la Univ. de Paris.
— Biog.
Bruno's
Universelle, art.
GIORDANO BRUNO
192 unfriends had
not been
idle, either
among
professors or
Liberty to philosophize freely was insecure at
students.
and the eighth war of religion was at hand. Indeed Bruno was on the point of leaving Paris " on account of
Paris,
disorders "
^
when the
We may suppose
disputation took place.
was
that there
tension in the air when,
according to custom, the pupil, John Hennequin, took the big chair to read Bruno's theses, while their author, as
Hennequin must have been
moderator, took a lower seat.
a lad of courage to take up a cudgel for his master's and for truth's
sake against every astronomer and mathema-
He
tician of his age.
" the big-pots."
who
belonged to a great family, nicknamed
The
^
glib
young Gascon, Raoal
Callier,
started the fray, might have been just the kind of
im-
pertinent youth to
make a
abandoned the law
for the better prospects of courtly office.
successful advocate
had he not
He was related to Rapin, the poet-scholar. Man is a combative animal, and the students were as keenly interested were the ancients fight,
in
an
in the palaestrum,
or the youth of our
own day
can imagine the crowded hall restless, full
of Paris
intellectual fencing-bout as
;
only half-attending to the
our Georgians in a cock-
in the athletic field.
We
the seniors sardonically
new
doctrine
;
the youths
of the ebullient prejudice which always accompanies
ignorance and
is
The behaviour
ready to demonstrate
its
force
by
noise.
of the Professors, so different from their
former en treatment of Bruno, disgusts him, and
it
have been below his dignity, as a former professor,
to reply
to Callier.
The
" rag," and carry the > '
would
students have an opportunity to begin a it
out to their entire satisfaction.
manner sanctioned by
its
antiquity, they
Ad Filesac and
Cfr. Cent, et vig. art. ; " La grande maignde."
th^que Nat. MS.fr. 31,411,
Doc.
After
were wont
to
ix.
Auvray op. cit., p. 301, wofe.— Bibliodossier Hennequin, fol. 117. ;
IN PARIS AGAIN.
SOME NEW WORKS
193
express their contempt for any novelty by " turning up their noses, gibing, blowing out their cheeks and banging at the
desks
"
but on this occasion they surpassed themselves.
^
;
For Aristotle's science had been attacked; and therefore they were insulted as Christians. " I have not taught in direct opposition to the Catholic Religion,"
Inquisitors, " but
where title
was judged to do was permitted to engage in a
I
of '120 articles
Bruno
told the
so indirectly at Paris,
I
disputation under the
against the Peripatetics' and other
popular philosophers, printed by permission of the Heads."
England had proved
Latitudinarian the
new
science
and now Catholic France
apostle,
He had
show
of physical
resolved to leave disturbed France and
try his fortunes elsewhere before that
he
Shall
disputation.*
its
definitely rejected his
theses before considering them, not without violence.
indifferent to
itself
Geneva had persecuted
Calvinistic
;
*
unhappy end
to the
some generous asylum
seek
in
Germany, Catholic or Protestant?
The
intrepidity of the traveller in the sixteenth century
was indeed admirable. He hardly noticed discomfort and he despised danger. Everywhere he had to run the risk of plague, ague, smallpox, treacherous landlords and wayside
murder. his
In
bed with
Germany he was
common
together at the the
common bowl
Courtiers and scholars,
^
De Lampade Centum
G
;
wanderers
and
Comb., Dedicatio.
;
classes sat
all
Vermin were
monks and merchants, serving-men all over Western Europe and jostled
et vig. articuli ;
G De
;
filthy fingers fished in
Yet there was no lack of company.
and mendicants trooped
'
table,
for the choicest pieces.
a matter of course.*
1587. * Gratarolus,
usually called upon to share
dirty, disagreeable
^
Ep. ad Filesac ; repeated
Doc. XI, in
A crotismus,
—
regimine iter agentium, 1561, p. 19. Florio, ; A dialogue, ed. J. E. L. p. 95.— Spelman,
Second Frutes, 1591,
W
Pickering, 1896, p. 42.
N
GIORDANO BRUNO
194
each other in every considerable town.^ age.
Bruno was
far
too
zealous
a
It
was an
heroic
missionary to
be
squeamish ; German bandits could hardly prove worse than British boors. ' Even in Erasmus' time many people spent their lives in perpetual pilgrimage, not from piety, but from love of change. De utilitate colloquiorum, ad lectorem.
CHAPTER
WORKS PRINTED OR WRITTEN THERE
AT WITTENBERG.
The
" In the
:
Magonza, a
of the Empire."
and
down Bruno's
Clerk to the Inquisitorial Court, taking
words, writes alias
XIII
five
first
city of the
He
^
instance
me
betook
I
Archbishop who
to
is first
Mez,
Elector
undertook a journey of between four
hundred miles along roads neither very easy nor
very safe to Mainz (Magonza being a corruption of Moguntiacum, the Latin
Mogons, the
local
"
that district).
name
the city, itself derived from
for
god of the Kelts when they held sway
Here
I
stayed twelve days
ing such means of subsistence as
I
required either here or
at Vispure (Wiesbaden),^ which is not far
Wittenberg philosophic situated
in
in
Bruno omits
Saxony."
mission
first
led
his
to
steps
I
off",
went on
spirit, to
a university
to
the picturesque town of Marburg.
some
extent, in Protestant
fare better there than
to
mention that his
lightened mind of Melancthon had liberated the
will
in
but not find-
;
Germany.
The enhuman
Perhaps he
he did at either Geneva or
Oxford,
Marburg
lies
on a
hill
crowned by a
ing the Lahn, which flows below.
fine castle overlook-
Bruno would observe the
beautiful church erected in the thirteenth century to contain
the bones of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, a 1
*
Doc. IX. Brunnhofer
;
town-hall and
und Verhdngniss, Leipzig, round about Wiesbaden call it Wisbare.
G. B's Weltanschauung
1882, says that the peasants
new
I9S
GIORDANO BRUNO
196 renaissance palaces
but his interest lay in the university,
;
founded 59 years before (1527) by Philip the Landgrave. Here surely he would be welcomed ; for not only was it the first
German
by a prince and it was under and patronage of William the Wise, Land-
university to be established
independently of papal privileges, but at this time the protection
German
grave of Hesse-Cassel.
moderation or policy of the reigning
flected the fanaticism,
man of independent mind and Much might be hoped for. How
William was a
prince.''
interested in Astronomy.^
much
of that hope
rolls of
Marburg
was
fulfilled
Roman
:
remains recorded in the
Petrus Nigidius, Rector of the
students.
University, wrote therein
Doctor in
universities usually re-
" Jordanus Nolanus Neapolitanus,
Theology, 25 July, year 86.
-The right
of teaching philosophy in public having, for weighty reasons,
been refused to him by
me
with the consent of the rest of
the Philosophic Faculty, he blazed forth and insulted
my
house, as though
I
had acted
me
German
the law of nations, the usages of
every exercise of the Humanities.
Universities and
And, on that account,
he refused to remain a member of the University. desire
was
readily granted
university-roll."
^
and
in
in this matter contrary to
his
His
name erased from
the
In a letter to the University of Witten-
berg Bruno complains of having been restrained from lecturing publicly: a right recognised and used by
Marburg was
all
nations.*
too fiercely Protestant to likten to one
inscribed himself " doctor in
Roman
theology."
It
who
had been
the scene of the famous "Colloquy" or contest between
Luther, Zwingli, Melancthon and other theological experts
concerning transubstantiation.^ •
Kolbe; Marburgh in Mittelalter, Marb., 1879.
G. B ; Orat. Valedict. ^X. Vide Berti, op. cit., cap. XI, II document is reproduced. "
'
De Lamp. Combin.
Bruno in Marburgo, where ^
Kolbe
;
op.
cit.
the
AT WITTENBERG At some his pen,
I
97
name, through which Nigidius ran and the words " with the consent of
later time the
was
restored,
the rest of the Philosophic Faculty " were crossed out.
Probably the unfortunate wanderer was induced better fortune at
Wittenberg by the
whom
—no other —was now lecturing
he had known in England
Gentile, the jurist
there.
his support," says Bruno,
the
'
fact that a
Organon of '
to lecture
Bruno had arrived
^
of learning which, at this time, gave
sophical discussion than any other parts of Europe, including
than Alberico " He gave me
" and introduced me
Aristotle."
to try for
Neapolitan
many
more
liberty to philo-
and students from
;
on
at a seat
Catholics, especially
all
young
Austrian noblemen and Poles, were to be found studying
The
there.^
professors received
him
cordially,
and he was
allowed to take private pupils on account of his poverty.
Such a welcome, following on the one he got at Marburg, him with gratitude, which, after he had resided about
filled
a year in the
city,
he expressed with dignity, yet not with-
out an undertone of pathos.'
and improved
In
edition of his
1
587 he printed an enlarged
"Compendious Architecture,"
issued to the world five years before. Lullian Combination-Lamp," and of the University,
"
You have
is
This
was a
France,
entitled
"The
received and maintained me,"
he writes, " you have dealt kindly with I
is
dedicated to the senate
me up
to this day.
stranger to you, a fugitive from the tumults in
undistinguished
by any royal recommendation,
and unquestioned me no hostility (for my desire is
bearing no ensigns of honour, unproved as to your faith.
Finding
to follow the peaceful
claim
the
1
Doc. IX.
^
Meynert
in
path of good will to
all
men),
my
sole
profession of philosophy and pupildom in the
;
Geschicht. d. Stadt Wittenberg, Dessau, 1845.
with us ; go not to Wittenberg." " What berg, Horatio." Hamlet, Act I, sc. ii. » De Lampade Combinatoria, Dedicatio.
"Stay
make you from Witten-
:
GIORDANO BRUNO
198
temple of the Muses, you took descried
my name
worthy
to
university and myself to be
most learned among you. great
this
University, this
me
heartily as a guest,
numbered with the Wherefore
I
He names who
Grijn,
loftiest
and
must acknowledge
German Athens,
private school or ordinary guild of scholars,
own."
and
be written in the book of your
as
no mere
and as
my
very
among them
professor after professor,
held that theology cannot stand apart
from
metaphysic,^ with accompanying remarks of respect and
even of admiration.
The
University, which later on
was incorporated with Halle, was founded in 1502, and had been the abode of Luther, who spent half his days there and who, like Bruno now, lectured on the Organon as well as on Dialectic, and later, on theology. Bruno never before breathed so free an atmosphere as Wittenberg had generally enjoyed since Luther's days up to those when he first came there there was no small measure of such religious toleration and '
philosophic liberty as
'
the
sixteenth
century understood.
" For a brief space," sang Pindar, " hath opportunity for
men
but of him
;
it is
known
surely
when
waiteth thereon, a servant but no slave."
it ^
cometh and he In his
ofificial
new professor would seem to have lectured on Rhetoric among other subjects for what is supposed tp be the notes of his teaching a summary of the Ad Alexandritm, capacity the
;
—
falsely ascribed to Aristotle, together with outlines of argu-
ments and synonyms
—
to be used by speakers was printed by John Henry Alsted, who acquired them in 1610.^ The
work is nothing but a digest the second The Art Of Making A Speech," is a kind of memoria technica, with arguments and synonyms ready for use. But first
part of the
;
part, "
1 '
^ Pindar, Ode IV. Mclntyre ; op. cii., p. 54. Artificium perorandi traditum a J. B. Nolani Italo. Franco/.
1612.
AT WITTENBERG he also employed himself very
and important work. berg in
The
I
more congenial
fully in
volume printed
first
99
at Witten-
The
1587 has been already mentioned.
art of
LuUy was in high favour with Germans at that time.^ " The Combined LuUian Lamp " had the double purpose of helping the thinker to find out
all
that
was discoverable by
sheer thought and of enabling the speaker to be ready in a
The
discussion on any subject.
subtle distinctions
made by much
the schoolmen had not advanced knowledge, however
they had provided a training ground for the mind, and
Bruno and
men
the
of his age, while they were discon-
tented with ancient methods, had not yet learned the exact limitations of formal logic.
Lullian method that at general causes
much knowledge in his
it
Bruno loudly claimed
for his
would be found a means of arriving
and of enabling the reader
to
acquire
of different kinds as well as to retain
all
memory.
There followed the "Advance And Hunter's Logical Matters,"
^
Lamp Of
a work of a similar character, dedicated
to the Chancellor of the University.
It
has two parts,
intended to be of logical and mnemonic value, and, like the
works
dealt with above,
teaching at Wittenberg.
it
embodies a portion of Bruno's
It is
worthy of note that he main-
tains that the Divinity does not impart
its
" In universal propositions, no one but a
end of
all
his study,
own fool,
real nature.
even at the
would maintain that he had achieved Aristotle himself, who, of
perfect knowledge.
sophers, ascribed power to the
all
philo-
human mind, observed
that
the ultimate nature and differences of things transcend our faculties
and are not
to be rendered in our language; for
the organ of our understanding >
Brucker,
^
De
1587.
J.
J
;
Progressu
is
as impotent to discern
Hist. Crit. Phil., V, p. 24. et
Lampade Venatona Logicorum,
Vitehergcs,
GIORDANO BRUNO
200 them as
the eye of a
is
nocturnal
bird turned towards
the sun."
same year appeared a much more important work
In the
B. Nolani Camceracensis Acrotismus seu rationes
entitled /.
articuloruin physicorum adversus Aristotelicos.
possible to render into English the Aristotle's
title.
little
it
:
headed ^ ^. an attack on his cosmo-
shows that Bruno possessed in the "
Greek indicated and
^K/joTTj? first
uKpoaTrj';
not
is
But Acrotismus conveys a double, perhaps a
signification
the
is
It is
implications of this
on cosmology
and the Acrotismus
aKp6acn<;,
logy.
the
treatise
full
far
triple
more than
Ash Wednesday Supper."
are also words used by Aristotle;
means an extremity, a height or summit ; the who comes to hear a discourse.'^ In fact the
second, one
Acrotismus
is
a reprint of the
" Hundred
Articles," with the addition of the defence of
And Twenty them intended
have been made at the College of Cambrai.
to
censis is a tion
Camcera-
doubly barbarous Latinization, the interpreta-
of which has been given already.^
The
title
of the
work might be freely translated as " The Cosmology of Giordano Bruno the Nolan, of the Cambrai or the ;
arguments of
articles
on
physics
against
the
Peripa-
tetics." ^
The work opens with a
letter
" to the Parisians and other
philosophers of the most generous
Kingdom of France and and defenders of the philosophy of direct perception." Probably Bruno had not learned that Henry announced on January ist that he did not intend to observe to friends
the Edict of Beaulieu which granted the toleration of Protestants
;
but he would know that the French King was in
Plant, 2, 9, 12 Pol, 2, 12, 9. ^ See page 61, n. ; 3. read " e regione gymnasii Cameracensis " and " prope col-
1
Aristot.
'
We
;
legium Cameracense " in the De Umbris and De compendiosa Architectura respectively both works being printed by Gorbin. ;
AT WITTENBERG universal odium.
Yet
201
his gratitude to the Valois
great that the next item in the book
was so
a reprint of his letter
is
to Henry which had been prefixed to the " Hundred And Twenty Articles," the only change being the substitution of " most powerful King " for " greatest among Kings." The epistle to Filesac follows, with " The Awakener." Then come the important theses. The defence of these is very
soberly put
Nature
in
;
there must be unalterable, universal meanings
:
the " matter " of Aristotle
^
a mere logical
is
body limits space and not space body space movement and must be infinite;* he agrees with Aristotle that space is filled * movement in space is abstraction
room
is
;
^
;
for
;
the measure of time and not time the measure of motion
we know
duration through change
®
;
division
cannot be accepted, for a mathematical line only
may be
it
must stop
indefinitely
produced and
minimal bodies
at
in physics,
too small to be apparent to sense
change
in the inert to cause
;
is
is
to
infinity
not
infinite,
no sum, and we
although they are
there must be an internal
'
movement,® and the First Mover
not outside but within the entire universe, which
is
closer to a clear conception of the laws
man it
which govern motion
Bruno speaks of the ether and immeasurable.^^ So far
of his time.^"
as ungenerated, incorruptible as he regards
is for
Tocco thinks he came
ever moving, vegetating and living.*
than did any
^ ;
physically, his conception of this enigmatic
substance pretty closely resembles that which was accepted
But he may have sup-
in the later half of the last century.
posed
it
to be
a sort of sublimated, spiritual body of the
Soul of the World.
Art. xxix-xxxi.
^
Art.
i.
^
Art.
*
Art. xxxiij.
'
Compare the modern view
^
Art. xxxix.
'
Art. xlviij.
" Tocco, F
;
''
^
ij.
Art. xlij.
'
" Op.
lat.
di G. B. esposte
of Bergson.
Art. xlvi.
Art. Ixv.
etc.,
Fir, 1889, p. 118.
GIORDANO BRUNO
202 It
was Bruno's habit
Augustan Library
the
employ a pupil as
to
of " Aristotle's Physics explained."
unknown handwriting; Besler, of
whom more
One
^
other
the
two codices
of these
was written
This work, with
anon.
In
copyist.
at Erlangen there exist
is in
later all
an
by
other
manuscript treatises by Bruno, has been published recently at the charge of the Italian people.^
Vitelli thinks it is the
substance of lectures given at Wittenberg, but Stoltzle and
Tocco believe
to belong to the period
it
when he
lectured at
Bruno introduces a good deal of his own teaching this tractate, which deals with Aristotle's " Physics,"
Paris.'
into
" Generation
And
Corruption
"
and a part of
his " Meteor-
ology."
He
also dictated a
berg, "
more important work
still
The Lamp Of Thirty
Statues,"
*
at Witten-
of which there
is
at
Erlangen both an earlier and a later and less correct copy, the latter done by Besler at Padua. This " Lamp " is
work which was published at Prague in 1588* as the " Lampas Caballisttca," "The Caballistic
referred to in a
Lamp,"
"a work
what on Lullian lation.
It
It is
lines
thought
in
;
it
has only been
a logical and mnemonic work, some-
and not barren of Neo-Platonic specu-
was intended
discovery of truth
reader, but
appear shortly"; but
to
printed recently.
to provide
an instrument
for the
arrangement and much of the
the
appears mechanical and artificial to the modern its fantastic " types," " images " etc. were calcu-
it
lated to popularise
it
at the time.
of Aristotelian conceptions; but
The author it
is
avails himself
obvious that he
is
1 Libri Physicorum Anstotelis, a clariss. Dr. D. J. B. N. explanati. Codices 1215 and 1279. ^ Stats edition, Op. lat., cura Tocco &-» Vitelli, vol. iij. ' Vide Vitelli, G. B. op. lat., vol. iij ; Stoltzle ; Archiv fUr Gesch. d.
Phil., 1890, p. 387 sqq.; *
'
Tocco
;
Op. ined. di G. B.,
Lampas Triginta Statuarum ; De Specierum Scrutinis.
State ed., vol,
p. 99.
iij.
;
AT WITTENBERG developing his
own
203
thought and devising a theory of
line of
the atomic constitution of the material world.
he uses " language of accommodation purpose, clothing his
own views
is
The
the Father Spirit, the
things proceed and wherein
all
Trinity becomes a philosophic concept
Substance
is
;
the Son, Universal Intellect
Soul of the World
;
or the Father
Immediate Universal Intuition
to be
the Spirit,
Love with Power
guishable aspects of the not past, nor
is
;
^
One
the Son, Intellect
;
whom past is whom eternity is and complete.^ He
Absolute,^ to
things together
Of
the loftiest knowledge
:
the
;
be said
but these are merely distin-
repeats what he wrote in the " Seal "
may
the future to come, but to
entirely present, all
" Transports
vestments of current
" essence of essences, soul of souls,
nature of nature," from which they coincide.
Sometimes
with philosophic
All things " are accidents of one
orthodox Christianity. substance," which
in the
"
Seals " and in the
advances progres-
and
sively from sense upwards, but admits of philosophic
theologic illumination in ecstasy.
joined
Soul and Body are con-
but they are not therefore indissolubly requisite to
;
one another, as
a citharist to his cither.
is
Soul
is
of a
nature distinct from matter; but both are immortal substances.
Even stones and the most imperfect things partiAs to the problem of personality, some
cipate in intellect.*
people think that particular things are manifestations of the
Soul of the World divided into parts
:
to the first opinion.^
plication falls
;
others, that the Soul of the
" truly,
A little
C/n Boo.
XI : De Imm.,
"
Op.
iij,
*
Ibid.,
p.
53.
World
is
remains in doubt, but I incline farther on, he says that multi-
on the side of brute matter, but the soul
1
Lat.,
it
VIII, X,
Compare
v.
59
;
De Monade, IV, '
pp. 44-57. the
v. 21.
Ibid., p. 45.
modern philosophers Ro3'ce and
Taylor, especially the latter thinker's article, Int. Journ. Ethics, Oct. 1902.
"
Ibid., p. 58.
GIORDANO BRUNO
204 remains one.*
we read
Still farther on,
that the individual
as a spark of the Universal Spirit, from which he issues
is
and
But while God, as absolute,
which he returns.*
to
works
and through
in
us.
He
does not impart Himself to
us in His most innermost nature.' function of animal organs.*
There are grades of
of.
may
spiritual varieties
Incidentally, Will
volition
is
treated
material, composite
be.'
The
of
parts in relation to
perfection of the
Evil
intelligible.
being the complement of good
its
;
mere
and
be distinguished,^ the latter being
from matter and wholly
free
Intellect is not a
:
without
it,
Whole depends on
itself,
and
it is
is
necessary,
good could not the perfection
greater than they.'
noteworthy that he accepts the divine mission of Christ,
It is
Son of God, sent "
the
up from brutality and
to raise us
He
barbarism to the practice of love."*
way
to
which no orthodox
take exception, but
Church
to
doctrines
it is
Roman
often writes in a
Catholic could possibly
clear that he sincerely believed the
need purgation from superstitions and that
may
its
legitimately receive metaphysical interpreta-
Here, as whenever he treats of religion means of preserving social order and stability,
from the wise.
tion
as more than a
he would substitute the milk of reverence and the bread of philosophy for the fiery distillations of dogma, whether
He
Catholic or Protestant.
accepts
much
that
is
" miracu-
and superstitious people are impressed chiefly by that which is not yet understood. But the Essence of Christianity lies in Love or in nothing, and lous "
;
for all is miracle,
has been forgotten.
this
The work
closes with the quaint observation
^
Cfr. Causa, Dial.
"
Op.
'
Ibid., p. 59.
«
'
Ibid., pp. 21, 23.
'
•
Ibid., p. 158.
lat.,
:
" Thanks
I ; Spaccio, Epist. Esplic.
Hi, p. 182.
Cfr. pp. 46, 47, 50. Ibid., p. 48. Ibid., p. 108.
Cfr. Docs, xi, xif, xitj.
'
Ibid., p. 160.
;
AT WITTENBERG
205
we have finished the Art Of Discovery By Means Of Thirty Statues." To this period also belongs a dictated manuscript, pre-
be to God,
served at Erlangen, which bears the date Mar. 13th, 1587. is entitled "Observations Concerning The LuUian Lamp,"^ and is a tractate on the method of "getting at genera and species by deiinition, at predicates by judg-
It
ments, and at middle terms by demonstration," not without
mnemonic dodges. Albums would seem reverential
young
scholars
to
have been as fashionable among
the
in
to a certain
among
century as
sixteenth
One, which belonged
ladies in the Victorian era.
Hans von Warnsdorf,
is
preserved in the
Public Library at Stuttgart, and contains a characteristic
entry in Bruno's firm, bold hand.
Pythagoras
which
it
nothing
:
was.
runs
It
:
" Solomon and
What is it that anything in reality What was it ? That which it is.
new under
the sun.
is
?
That
There
is
Jordanus Brunus Nolanus,
Witebrg, 18 Sept."^ Before reaching Germany, in the work which was not to
be taken "too assertively," the Nolan had written about that "
drunken
" land
where "
;
their helmets are pipkins
and
shields
their
kettles
;
are plates
their swords, the
thigh-bones of salt beef; their trumpets, drinking glasses, pitchers field,
and flagons
;
a table to drink
fortresses,
their (I
drums, barrels and tuns ; their
would say,
eat) at;
bulwarks and bastions are
where
their
cellars, ale-houses
and brandy-shops, which are more numerous than their houses " ; 3 " where Gluttony is exalted, magnified, celebrated 1
Animadversiones Circa
Lampadem
Lullianam.
State
ed.,
vol. iij. '
vol.
Sigwart gives a reproduction of the handwriting, Kleine Schriften, ' Spaccio, III, ij. i, Freiburg, 1889, p. 293.
GIORDANO BRUNO
206
among the heroic virtues, and drunkenness is numbered among the divine attributes," ^ and so on, interminably. He now enjoyed, for the first time, the hospitality of a German University which, in spite of its beer and groaning tables, was really alive, and he might exercise and
glorified
true " philosophic liberty "
^
his judgment,^ recognised
achievement and declared
there.
that,
Like Pius
he revised
German
when Germans should cease
waste their energies on theologic
to
II,
merit of existing
the
futilities,
directing
themselves to saner thinking, they "would become, not
Indeed extraordinary latitude was extended
men, but Gods." to Bruno, for, as
he says, he proclaimed certain doctrines
which uprooted the received teaching of centuries, and
by no means kept
to
science as accepted
by theology.
But a storm was gathering, although the University
still
continued an unusual toleration of opinions opposed
to
those considered to be "right." In 1580 the Lutherans of Germany issued the famous " Formula of Concord," popularly known as that of Discord.
For there was a subtle undercurrent of Calvinistic opposiand Philippists maintained the broader-minded prin-
tion,
ciples of Philip
any
other.
Melancthon with customary intolerance of
The
Elector Augustus of
Saxony died
in
February of the year of Bruno's arrival and was succeeded by his son. Christian in a short time, like so
to drink.
I,
a prince
many German
Christian's brother-in-law,
who succumbed
rulers of his time,
John Casimir, regent own wife and
of the Palatine Lines, was busy coercing his his people into Calvinism,
and this naturally aroused the Saxon Lutherans.* It is difficult to get at
indignation of >
Spaccio, III,
iij.
«
Oratio
V aledictoria.
JEn. Silv ; op. omn. Basel, 1571, Ep. ad Gug. de Stein; Ep. ad Greg. Heimburg. '
*
Bezold, F. v; Brieje d. Pfalzg. J. Casimir, Miinchen, 1882.
;
AT WITTENBERG
207
the real motive forces of these religious quarrels, though,
masked
usually, religion
nobles and
and
common and
social
adviser,
with
resentment.
racial
between
ruler,
from economical pressure Christian
and
his
Nicholas Krell, were credited by the Lutherans
being
worked
political struggles
folk, reaction
under
steadily
Lutherans
;
sway
the
the
for
John
of
Philippists
Krell
Casimir.'^
and
against
the
he was resolved to overthrow the " Formula
of Discord"; for the good reason that Melancthon had exalted the State and denied the right of ecclesiastical authority to dominion over the conscience. of Protestant sects
left
Bruno
The squabbles
But, strangely enough,
cold.
and supporters were of the narrower, Lutheran body, and were daily losing ground. Recounting his life, he told his judges " At Wittenberg, in Saxony, I found
his friends
:
two
factions
—the philosophic
the theologic were
Lutheran, but the son,
was a
Calvinist
faculty were Calvinists
The
Lutherans.
who succeeded him
at that
and favoured the opposite party
one which favoured
me
;
wherefore
he seems to have departed philosophic pin-prick
in fair
was enough
I left." ^
and
Duke was a
old
None
time, to the
the less,
amity with everybody to
;
a
arouse him at least to
philosophic fury; his restless spirit needed
little
provoca-
was ever urging him onward perhaps, change had become a habit with him he would set forth to champion the truth and attack some new academic tion
;
his missionary zeal, too,
;
world.
Before he in praise of
particular.
•
left
Wittenberg, he gave a farewell address
wisdom in general and of wise Germans in It was delivered at the University on Mar. 8th,
Lehen, Schicksal u.
—
Ende
ments reproduced). Brandes, doximus, Leipzig, 1873. " Doc. IX.
d.
F
;
D. N. Krell, Leipzig, 1798 (docuKanzler Krell ein Opfer des Oriho-
—
.
GIORDANO BRUNO
208
He
1588.^
such Germans as Albertus Magnus,
exalted
Paracelsus and the Landegrave William of Hesse, patron
Of Cusanus, he
of Copernicus.
would have
said that he
equalled Pythagoras had not his genius been stifled under priestly garments.
In the city of Luther some eulogy of
the great Reformer
was expected.
While the dogmas of
the warring sects repelled Bruno, he admired Luther for protesting
against
fetters for
the soul forged
whom,"
who
said he, " have
rejecting
"But The mighty hero smithies.
at priestly
we passed by ?
resisted the voracious monster, half-fox, half-lion
HeU who
vicar of the princes of craft
tyranny and
ecclesiastical
that
;
by
polluted the world
and force and cajoled men
and
superstitious
into
uncouth worship under the disguise of divine knowledge
and the simplicity which
is
acceptable to God.
From Germany, from
comes he ?
.
.
.
Whence
the banks of the Elbe.
Out of the darkness of Orcus your Hercules dragged
.
.
forth
the monster with the triple crown, bursting open the steely
gates of Hell, triumphing over the city guarded by triple
Thou
walls and the nine-fold stream of Styx.
O
the light,
Luther ; thou hast regarded
the awakening spirit of the
it
;
hast seen
thou hast heard
Lord and hast obeyed
it
;
thou
hast confronted and overcome the adversary girt about
with power, and thou hast despoiled him."^
now
said,
added
to
was probably the that
what appeared
What he
later in a Latin
poem,'
chief cause of the curious impression
by the " beast
" of the Spaccio
Bruno referred
to the
Pope.*
Also a tradition seems to have arisen from
oration
that
1
Oratio
he had
V aledictoria,
written
Vitebergae
a " paneygric
habita,
1588,
upon
this
the
apud Zach
' Ibid. Cratonem. » De Imtnenso, VIII, j, v. 67 sqq. • Cfr. Brunnhofer op. cit., p. 245. Cfr. Conrado Ritterhusio suo G. Schoppius, FJi.S., given by Berti, Frith and others. ;
AT WITTENBERG Devil."
2O9
Probably the farewell declamation
^
affected his
treatment at the hands of the Inquisition. It
would have been churlish
in
one who had been allowed
to teach strange doctrine in the cradle of
out any enquiry being
made
into his
Lutheranism, with-
own
religious faith,
had
he abstained from some recognition of Luther as a liberating force and the
enemy of ecclesiastical
abuse.
But Bruno
confined himself to no conventional homage; he
mean he expressed his gratitude man with whose opinions he had
less of
sympathy than of
While he regarded Luther as
disagreement.
knew no
in passionate praise of a
;
right in break-
He
ing up abuses, he was far from admiring Lutheranism. considered the reformers to be self.2
Yet perchance
men more
ignorant than him-
had been well
it
for
him had he
merely repeated the compliments he had already paid the University.^
With
the praises of the
mouth, he
Arch
foe of
set forth confidently for
Rome
still
hot in his
Prague, the capital of a
Catholic monarch and the seat of a Catholic University.
But he was no Lutheran; he deemed himself a Catholic, justly
asserting the right
trines into the ^
Cfr.
dogmas of
Keckern
;
to read profound esoteric doc-
his Church.
Syst. Rhet,
opera, Edit. Genev.,
Spec,
lib. I, cxviij,
1614 ; quoted by Bayle, English ed.), 1738, p. 158 and n. 22. ' Doc. xij. ^
De Lamp. Comb.,
dedicatio.
P
;
p. 1647
;
/.
ij,
Dictionary {in
CHAPTER XIV AT PRAGUE AND HELMSTEDT.
The
THE WORKS OF 1588-9O
University at Prague, however, had maintained more
or less Hberal traditions during
two centuries of
its
exist-
and, ahhough reaction was afoot, by far the greater number of the people of Bohemia were Protestants of one
ence
;
kind or another; nor had the Jesuits yet got the upper
hand.
But the
and was just
city
had
lost
much
of
sufficiently a place of
privileged liberty,
its
compromise
a residence for the Emperor Rudolf
He
II.
to serve as
had achieved
Bohemian crown in iS75 by merely pledging his kingly word to introduce a comprehensive Confession which should prove satisfactory to the whole Bohemian people a superhuman undertaking which was never fulfilled. Yet, although the Catholics in power were gradually forcing the the
—
Protestants back into the visional peace,
Roman
and therefore the
Church, there was pro-
Bruno to Prague There was, indeed,
visit of
was less dangerous than might appear. more than one reason why he directed
his steps
thither,
Rudolf might, perhaps, have been considered a widely cultivated
He as
man had he
its
patron.
magnificent.
His
scientific
and
of knowledge and posed artistic collections
The melancholy which oppressed
years manifested
itself at
singular behaviour.
and the search
not chanced to be born a prince.
known branch
affected every
He
this
were
his later
time only in shyness and
wasted much time over horoscopes
for the philosopher's stone
in the perversions of science,
;
but his interest
which attracted Dr. Dee and
AT PRAGUE AND HELMSTEDT his seer Kelly to his court,
by an easy
Rudolf's praises at Wittenberg
and
whom
favour.
*
he hoped that his LuUian
would be recommendations
Moreover, Fabrizio Mordente,
he had admired and extolled at Paris, was now
Prague, where he held
at
;
his astronomical views
Imperial
the
was also Tycho Brahe and
Bruno had already sounded
Kepler sought his patronage.^
to
I I
transition
directed to astronomy, and, later on, both
art
2
the
appointment of Imperial
was William of St. Clement, whom he had known as Spanish Ambassador in France, and who was now accredited to the Court of Rudolf. The Ambassador was interested in the works of his countryman, Lully,* and was persona grata to Rudolf, who had been Here
Astronomer.
also
Much, then, might be hoped
educated in Spain.
Prague:
He
little
arrived
dedicated two
These he
for
in
but disappointment awaited Bruno there.
On June
about Eastertide, 1588. little
loth he
works, bound together, to St. Clemente.
The Examination Of Forms And The
entitled "
Combined Lamp Of Raymond Lully, Doctor Of All Know-
And Almost De Lampade
The work
ledge
Divine."
the
Combihatoria,^ which
Bruno seems
Wittenberg.
to
is
little
was
more than printed
at
have brought unsold copies
with him, removed the dedication to the Wittenberg Uni-
one to St. Clemente, and inserted the on " Forms." But he promised that a profounder
versity, substituted tractlet
"Cabalistic
Lamp"
should follow, which,
it
would seem,
never appeared.
Soon afterwards there appeared from the printing press 1
M Geschichte der Bdhmen, Prague and Vienna, 1782 Die Wahl Rudolf's II etc., Marburg, 1895 Maurice, ^ Oratio V aledictoria. Bohemia, London, 1896, chap. xv.
Pelzl, F.
Moritz,
E
C. '
*
;
H
;
;
;
;
De specierum Scruiinio, dedicatio. De specierum Scrutinio et Lampade Combinatoria
doctoris
omniscii,
Georgius Nigrinus.
propemodumque
divini.
R. Lulli ; Pragae. Excudebat
GIORDANO BRUNO
212
of Georgius Daczenus a
work dedicated
to the
Emperor, and
One Hundred And Sixty Articles Directed Against The Mathematicians And Philosophers Of The Day." ^ The entitled "
dedication
is lofty
and
He
bold.
tells
Rudolf that he looks
forward to " a religion of love which shall be no cause of controversy and above dispute, being the desire of the soul and required by the reasonable covenants of the nation and of
He
society."
who,
to
But he did not
fire
limit
intolerto those
use the words of a modern seer, are " wont to
the sun because still
and
opprobrium
protests against conflicting sects
ance of every kind.
it
more those who "enforce
their
own
vilify
he detested
will not light their cigar," for
prejudices with
Bruno's ideal was the transformation of
and sword."
Catholic Christianity, purged of parasitic absurdities, into
He
a true progressive religion.
interest to criticize Christianity
had not the knowledge or but he saw
;
usually binds and deceives in countless
how
ways "
;
" authority
and that the
thinker must set himself free from " subjection to
mind."
^
"
It is
consideration
it is
;
an
evil
deed to follow obsequiously the
man corrupt, slavish and traitorous men to consent and surrender wholly
lead of another
dignity of free
any other
sheer prejudice to settle a matter with small
;
;
to the
stupid
because of wont and usage; and imbecile to " the opinion of the mob." wish this law to
to believe
assent to
We
be vigorously observed, that reason
is
as true
as
it
is
necessary, and the authority of no men, howsoever true and
may "Thus do we go
excellent persons they
ment."
splendour of
light,
be, is admissible as
forth
to
an argu-
the most delightful
understand Nature (which
is
crying aloud
and follow wisdom (which we hold supreme with singleness of spirit and an honest heart." He
to be heard)
above
all)
^ AHiculi centum et sexaginta adversus huius temporis J. B. N. mathemaiicos atque philosophos. Ad divum Rodulphum II ^ Articuli centum et sexaginta, dedicatio. imperatorem. .
.
.
a
AT PRAGUE AND HELMSTEDT speaks of a new
spirit
himself he says
:
shelter
me from
mind
of
we
;
all
Of
animate the future.
shall
field
of philosophy
shall
I
the ever-moving flood and seek the society
of them that open
Kantists that
which
" In the free
213
and we seem
He
eyelids."
their
measure
is
asserts with the
determined by the prior measure
when men may deem it
to be listening to Descartes
are told that " everything, however
assured and evident, proves, when
it
is
brought under dis-
cussion, to be no less doubtful than are extravagant and
absurd
A
beliefs."
1
brief introduction follows the dedication,
and then come
160 articles and 180 constructions which are but bare out-
much which Bruno dealt with Minima and De Monade. One object of
lines of
show
to
later
in
De
the
was
the articles
that the propositions of Euclid can be intuited in
Bruno's mathematics are crude and fallacious,
three figures.
but they have never received the attention of a capable
some germs of valuable ideas amid much inaccuracy and misconstruction. Very important is his statement that we must mathematician
who,
;
it is
quite possible, might detect
assume a physical unit which sense any more than
is
is
not to be appreciated by
a true sphere.
He
holds
that
mathematical science starts from multiple units according to ,
the
kind
of
mathematical
consideration
involved
—
doctrine which he tried to develop later.
The Emperor rewarded him with ability,
he expected
would have- procured him a six I
months
less than, in all
at Prague,
far richer
and whilst
I
reward.
Emperor, who gave I left
me
"
I
stayed
maintained myself there
got a book on Geometry printed, which
sessed of these,
prob-
a treatise on alchemy or astrology
;
I
presented to the
three hundred dollars;
and, pos-
Prague." ^
In 1576, Helmstedtin the duchy of Brunswick suddenly *
Articuli centum
et
sexaginta, dedicatio.
'
Doc.
ix.
GIORDANO BRUNO
214 found
itself
many
years.
in
a position
which
failed
it
In that year a university
keep very
to
was opened
which became one of the chief seats of learning many.^
Duke
Its founder,
there
in
Ger-
Julius of that ancient house of
Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, which traced descent from Ason,
marquis of Este, was a somewhat
who
potentate
His policy by dynastic and personal
took the fancy of his people.
was conservative and
directed
motives, although his motto declared
A
succouring others."
Henry
successor,
stimulating
effusive,
:
"
I
spend myself
Protestant, he allowed his son
Julius, to
become the nominally Catholic
Bishop of Halberstadt at the age of fourteen to his credit that
when he
new
;
but
it
is
abolished monastic houses he
The
abstained from enriching himself thereby.^ of this
in
and
university aimed
articles
angry con-
at controlling
The establishment was adorned by fifty Whether the constitution of the Academy Bruno we do not know. All that he tells us
troversialists.
professors.
attracted is
:
He
" Providence, not Chance, conducted matriculated Jan. 13th, 1589.
his arrival,
and Bruno was so
after the funeral
funeral oration. truth's
of the
to this place." *
Julius died shortly after
far successful that
he was allowed In
me
to
deliver
some time
and print a
he spoke of being an exile for
it,
sake; he "had suffered from the hungry tooth
Roman
now
wolf, but is
Bruno
freedom."*
in the
enjoyment of complete
not stop with the word "wolf":
did
uncalculating, unguarded, headlong as ever, he casts the
1
Ludewig
;
Geschichte u. Beschreibung d. Stadt Helmstedt, Helm.
1821. ' Heinemann, O. von Gesch.v. Braunschweg u. Hannover, Gotha, 1886 s?.— Bodermann, E ; Herzog Julius, Zeitschr. d. hist. Ver. /. ;
—
Niedersachen, No. 932, Hannover, 1887. Beste, J; Gesch. d. b. Landekirche, Wolfenbuttel, 1889. Oratio Consolatoria. Prima mens. Jul. 1589. Helmstadii « ibid. apud Joh. Lucium. .
.
.
AT PRAGUE AND HELMSTEDT
215
Papal tyranny among the constellations, which here as
There
the Spaccio, are allegorically treated.
is
it
in
"the
Gorgon's head, nourishing snakes for hair and infecting
venom of ignorance and vice." Such words were not calculated to make any easier his desired reconciliation with Mother Church, nor would they add to the safety of that return to Italy which he soon had the temerity to effect.
the world with the rank
He
told the Inquisitors that he
on the death of
Julius.
the ominous record
is
speech," adds Bruno, Julius) "
gave
me 80
:
had delivered an oration
In the margin of the document
" he was a heretic."
scudi."
" For this
son and successor" (Henry
"his ^
The new duke was a highly educated and many-sided man, who adopted Lutheran Imperialistic not concern himself
such
Henry 1
591,
year,
Ws_do
like matters.
relations with III,
him
not
know
aftefv^the gift.
appeared dedicated
in Frstekfurt,
if
and
in
Italy,
two of
to
Henry
Julius,
and Bishop of Halberstadt.^
Bruno had any
The
in
mind
;
and
later in the
his
greatest
marriage with Elizabeth, the sister of Denmark.
in
same works
duke of Brunswick
first
contains a highly
ornamented eulogium of the duke on the occasion of
Anne
did
But, as in the case of
he bore the prince's generosity
when he was when he was
policy, but
overmuch with the University and
of'
James
I's
his
consort,
His eulogies of such heretic princes
were remembered against him.^ It
may have been
because he found so much attention
paid to occult and astrological subjects at Prague that
Bruno's interest was directed to the obscure operations '
T)oc. ix.
De triplici minima ei mensura. Item de innumerabilis, immenso et mundis. 2
— De monade,
numero
ei
figura.
infigurabili, seu de universo et '
Docs,
ix, xiii.
GIORDANO BRUNO
2l6
of the mind in mathematics and those subtle sympathies in
Nature concerning which the age was ready
Magic meant
almost anything.
eventually,
to believe
Bruno natural opera-
are obscure and surprising but of
which
tions
to
we may hope
which,
to learn the real character
and
His mnemonic systeni was regarded as a species of
laws.
occult science, for, quite apart from the Black Art, magical
sciences were recognised as properly occupied with mathematics, physical
sympathies, obscure causes and
effects,
such divine subjects as inspiration and prophecy, judicial astrology, metaphysical speculation etc.,
exhibited interest in
Bruno had already
what the Church held
to
be a dangerous
borderland between the lawful and unlawful
:
had written concerning the extraordinary
effects
by the One
Magia
He
Spirit in all things.^
in
England he wrought
dedicated his
De
a pupil named Besler, a youth from Niirnberg,
to
whose father had studied under Luther and whose brother gained distinction as a botanist.
Besler continued to act
as Bruno's copyist, and either accompanied or followed him
In 1866 the manuscripts of nine treatises and a
to Padua.^
work
larger
and are now
of Bruno's were put on the market at Paris in the
Moscow
Library.
These, known as
the NorofF MSS., are for the most part in Besler's hand;
but a
little
Magia
is
was written by Bruno himself. Moscow, dated 1590, and a
same copyist
is
preserved in
A copy of the De
MS. by the Augustan Library at
at
the
later
Erlangen, together with the two codices of "Aristotle's
Physics expounded by the illustrious Jordanus Bruno the Nolan," of which one
is
from the same hand.
All these
Causa, Dial. II, III. For Besler, see Stolzle, Remigius; Die Erlanger G. B. MS, Archiv JUr Geschichfe der Phil, iv, p. 573 sqq. Tocco, F ; Opere inedite di G. B, Napoli, 1891.— Frith, I ; Life of G. B, pp. 343 sqq.— '
'
—
Mclntyre; G. B, Doc.
xi.
p.
114 s??.— Berti,
D
;
Vita di G. B, Processo,
AT PRAGUE AND HELMSTEDT hitherto
unpublished writings are
now
2 17
available
in
the
State Edition.
De Magia
" Concerning Magic " treats of mathematics
as hidden or occult operations to be found both in Mind
and
Action and reaction at a distance are
Nature.
in
accounted for on Neo-Platonic principles of universal ani-
mism and mutual
influences.
Many
marvels of a miracu-
lous nature are accepted as due to natural operations, the precise nature of which remains undiscovered.'^
may
ciples of love
and
hate, or attraction
one Soul of the World, of which
is
Everything
be reduced to the antagonistic yet co-operative prin-
phases, and
all
and repulsion.
finite
There
souls are passing
things are derived from the Divine, but exist
in successively decreasing degrees of reality
and
truth.
There are also MS. excerpts from Agrippa and other authors with annotations
by Bruno
belong to this
all
:
period.
" The Principles, Elements dated Mar. i6th, 1590, is a
And Causes Of
work showing great respect
The magician
and acceptance of tradition.
with his soul, and belief helps the effect
Son
of
God
*
for
is
said to operate
;
wherefore the
could not work miracles where there was incre-
dulity.*
Light
things.*
Air,
is
a spiritual substance which exists in
the
principle
which causes movement,
within the body of the world.^
little
He
all is
expresses belief in
He intended to study judicial astrology;
planetary influences.
but he had
Things,"
respect for the usual pretenders to that
science and had nothing but contempt for conjuration, in-
cantation etc.*
The importance
of this
work
lies in its full
1 It is worthy of note that, while Bruno placed little value on the testimony of miracles, he accepted those of Christ without question, as well as His birth from a Virgin-mother. Docs, xij, xiij. ^ De Rerum Principiis et Elementis et Causis. ' *
Op. Latin., Op. Latin.,
p.
455
;
Cfr. Matth. xiii, 58; xvij, 20.
p. S^isq.
=
Ibid., p. 522.
*
Doc,
xiij.
GIORDANO BRUNO
2l8
acceptance of physical minimal particles or atoms, a view derived from antiquity and elaborated in the great Latin
The whole book
poem.
known
:
an adventure into the un-
is
everywhere he crosses the borderland of exact
knowledge.
Pursuing a similar theme, comes the " LuUian Medicine,
Drawn
From Mathematical,
Partly
Partly
From Physical
was dictated at Helmstedt immediately after the " Principles." There are two codices, one being an incomplete emendation of the other. Most of the work is derived from the rare medical works of Lully.^ Principles."
One
^
It
of the conditions under which professors might teach
Helmstedt was an obligation to set forth the "true
at
ancient philosophy without disguise, display or innovation."
Bruno was nothing
if
*
not an innovator, especially in cosmo-
logy, and the subversion of ancient geocentric theory reflected
severely on the Christian scheme. to find a letter
So one
is
not surprised
which exhibits him in trouble again.
preserved in the Archives of the University,
own hand and Hofmann, who was at
Bruno's
and leader of a
is
is
It is
written in
addressed to a certain pro-rector
that time Professor of Philosophy
religious party.
and Reverend Pro-rector
It
runs
:
"
Very
Illustrious
Jordanus Bruno, the Nolan,
:
being excommunicated by the chief pastor and supervisor of the
Church
at
Helmstedt
"
(one Boethius), " (who, without
any public defence allowed, made himself both judge and executor in his own cause) humbly protests to your Magnificence and the very potent dignities of the Senate against the public execution of a personal and highly iniquitous .
decree.
1
He demands
De Medicina
to
be heard, so that he
Lulliana, partim ex mathematicis, partim
physicis principiis educta.
V
*
Lutoslaski,
'
Bartholomfess,
;
may know
Archiv f. G.
C
;
op.
d.
cit., I,
Ph., II, p. 566.
p. 170, n.
2.
if
ex
!
AT PRAGUE AND HELMSTEDT
219
and reputation be
just; for, as
the attack on his position
Seneca
saith,
'
He who
judgeth, hearing one side only,
not just, even should his judgment be
is
Wherefore he
so.'
summon the worthy pastor, in order he may show cause and prove his fulmi-
begs your excellence to
God
that, if
please,
nation to be that of a good shepherd and not the effect of private malice."
We must not take this document any more than that of Geneva as implying that Bruno was a member of the ProChurch; but such formal excommunication would
testant
carry serious disabilities with
it
;
for
what student would be
bold enough to pursue his studies under the direction of a
denounced heretic which,
?
we have reason
There
exists
to believe,
no notice of the appeal,
was
rejected.
indignation would seem to be recorded in the
For Bruno's
De
Mininio
and De Immenso, on which he was probably engaged at the time. The " priest and grammarian " is embalmed therein like a fly in amber.^ of
Hofmann has
not the
shadow
an idea concerning the philosophy he professes ; he poses
as the Rhadamanthus of boys; why, the very crumbled dust of ancient philosophers
is
worth more than his
living
soul.
The prospect peared.
him
to
namely
He
Bruno
duke enabled proceed to Frankfurt " to get two books printed,
De Minima and De
left
Nuniero,
Monade Et Figura."
A
Helmstedt towards the middle of 1590.
enemy, Hofmann, after being ejected from
later his chair,
of making a living at Helmstedt disapindicates that the gift of the
had
also to
pack his goods and depart.
Boethius was also overthrown.
So
Later
fiercely did
De minimo,
"
Doc.
ix.
lib.
V ; De
immenso,
lib
IV,
c.
year his still,
academic
passions rage in the sixteenth century 1
^
x.
CHAPTER XV AT FRANKFURT AND ZURICH
The
Free City of Frankfurt-on-the-Main was one of the
most important places 1356 constituted
it
Germany.
in
The Golden
the seat of Imperial Election.
Bull of It
was a
renowned centre of trade, and twice a year, at Eastertide
and
at Michaelmas,
be found at
its
merchants from every country were
famous
It
fair.
and printing trade of Germany. party,
its
city-fathers found
tolerate
Roman
against
Rome, even
tion
first in
Catholics and
A member of the Protestant all
the factions of the revolt
the Socinian faction.
Book of
to
the bookselling
commercially advantageous to
indeed must have preceded Bruno,
recorded in the that
it
stood
An
evil reputa-
for
we
find
it
the Burgomaster, July 2nd, 1590,^
when he begged permission to dwell in the house of printer, it was " Resolved that his petition be
Wechel, the
refused and that he be told to take his penny elsewhere." Printers were erudite
men
and statesmen foregathered
in those days,
at their shops,
and scholars
which were true
where the latest books were seen and news and ideas came in from abroad and courtiers could meet and gossip. The printers
intellectual centres
discussed, where dilettante
were
only of lodging travelling scholars
in the habit, not
while they were printing their books, but of taking travelling
nobles as boarders
;
for the great scholars usually preferred
seclusion to the honour
were
and
profit of receiving guests
likely to disturb their studies 1
No.
who
and households, even
160, p. 48. 220
if
—
AT FRANKFURT AND ZURICH they should be well-paid for the service.^ the guest of the Wechels, and
221
Sidney had been
possible that
it is
Bruno was
enabled to get a footing with them by reason of the two
books he had dedicated
on the
field
made him
tion, to
one whose chivalrous behaviour
of Warnsfeld, followed
by
his death, not only
the idol of his countrymen but added additional
glory to a
Europe.
to
name which was already famous throughout
John Wechel contrived, in spite of the prohibiget Bruno received at the Carmelite monastery, and
provided him with means of support.* a middle-aged
man who was born
at
Jacobus Brictanus,*
Antwerp, but who had
settled as a bookseller at Venice, told the Inquisitors that
he had met and talked with Bruno at Frankfurt and at divers other places.
Bruno had never spoken
to
him about
Christianity or Catholicism, but the Prior of this Carmelite
monastery
told
him that " he was
chiefly occupied in writ-
ing and in the vain and chimerical imagining of novelties.
Heretic doctors read with him
mostly heretical." not
to
fail
good
The
;
for in
that city they are
innovator and " awakener
"
could
produce misgivings and discomfort among the
fathers,
and one
is
might be, he was told that " he was a
and erudition
when man Bruno
not surprised to learn that
Brictanus asked the Prior what manner of
—a universal man —but
man he
of fine intellect
" (the Prior) " did
not believe him to possess a trace of religion
;
adding that
he professed to know more than did the Apostles and could, if
he wished, make the whole world of one
who were any.
religion." *
his intimate friends, Brictanus could not
So Bruno would seem
mental isolation which
is
to
Asked mention
have experienced that
the usual lot of the original, or
Erpenii Thomae, De Perigrinatione Gallica, 1631, pp. 6, 12. ^ Doc. ix. Bourne, H. R. Fox, op. cit., p. 91. ' The Italians called him Giacomo Bertano {Doc. /.). How they spelled his name in his native Flanders, I do not know. ^
*
Doc.
vi.
GIORDANO BRUNO
222
even of the merely independent, thinker!
young Sienese of
Ciotto, a
27,
who
Giambattista
kept a bookshop in the
Merceria, the chief street of Venice, under the
much
Minerva, and through whose agency
saw a good
follow, too,
deal of
Bruno during the
evil
fairs.
though later on Bruno frequented his shop
sign of
was But
to
he,
in Venice,
never heard him say anything which could arouse suspicion as to his not being a good Catholic.^
At the all
Fairs,
Bruno would
find himself face to face with
and conditions of men, and
sorts
in intellectual touch with
was most vigorous in European thought and life. The first work of Bruno's printed by Wechel and Fischer, De triplici Minima et Mensura, was dedicated to Duke Henry Julius of Brunswick. The dedication was not by the author but by the printers. It is dated Feb. 13th, 1591, and states that Bruno was " forced by an unexpected event to leave the city when only the last leaf remained for him all
that
to finish, and, being
unable to correct this as he had done to
the rest of the work, he wrote asking us to complete in his
name
We
the labour forbidden to him by fate." It
the City Fathers were about to follow
up
or
*
may have been
that
are in
may have been
darkness as to what had happened.
an
that
their resolution
by
invitation from the
ejection
;
lord of
Elgg necessitated a hurried (and, perhaps, prudent)
departure. family,
it
John Henry Hainzell, of a
literate
Augsburg
had just acquired the estate of Elgg, near Zurich.
Hainzell studied alchemy,
was greatly
inclined to the un-
canny and mysterious, and exercised a noble hospitality to thinkers and especially to those who claimed acquaintance with the border-land of exact knowledge.^ •
Doc.
V.
'
This
is
'
Sigwart, C. von
passion for
Bruno now
Cfr. Kleine Schriften I. Kleine Schriften, 1889, I, p. 123. Hainzell's alchemy and alchemists proved his ruin.
Sigwart's suggestion. ;
AT FRANKFURT AND ZURICH
223
wrote for Hainzell a last book on LuUianism and Mnemonics, which appeared at the Michaelmas Frankfurt Fair.^
He
also taught at Zurich, a great trading-centre, the wealth
of which had been
much
increased since 1555 by the in-
dustry of Protestant Italians
was
who had been
Although Zurich had no university,
exiled from Locarno. it
—silk-weavers
the intellectual capital of Switzerland and the heart
of the Swiss Confederation.
freeman of the
city,
Bruno's pupils.
Here resided
at the time a
one Raphael Eglin, who became one of
Eglin had been expelled from the Grisons,
whither he had gone to organize schools, and Bruno handed
over to him the substance of his lectures, which remained unprinted until 1595, when Eglin had them issued from the press of John Wolff of Zurich.*
But the
tained only a portion of the lectures.
was Professor
con-
first edition
Later, in 1609,
when
Marburg (the University which had refused Bruno permission to teach) he had the Eglin
Summa
of Theology at
reprinted with additions.^
Bruno spent three or four months with Hainzell, but we find him back again at Frankfurt on Mar. 7th, 1591, when he received permission to print the already printed work
De
Triplici
He
Minima Et Mensura.*
stayed at his old
quarters, the Carmelite monastery, about six months.®
the brief account of his
passed over the
life
which Bruno gave at his
first visit to
trial,
was a very
short although eventful one
been the willing guest of one 1
De imaginum
'
Summa
he
Frankfurt and his sojourn with
the lord of Elgg and recorded his second visit only. first visit
In
who
;
to
The have
indulged in dubious arts
compositione.
terminorum metaphysicorum.
Bruno was
prison of the Roman Inquisition at the time. ^ Accessit ejusdem Praxis Descensus etc.
Hundtwelkeri. For Eglin, see Brunnhofer, G. und Verhdngniss, Leipzig, 1882, ^.81.
Censur Register.
Ex B ^
;
lying in the
officina
Rud.
Weltanschauung
Doc.
ix.
GIORDANO BRUNO
224
"
might have prejudiced his case with the judges.^
Some-
times Prudence hides the truth with her skirts in order to
escape blame and outrage." ^
There
no record of permission having been given
is
for
De Monade, with its far more important adjunct, De Immenso, or of De Co^npositione,
the publication of
and larger
we
but both volumes bear the date 1591, and
learn from
Bassaus' Catalogue of Frankfurt books that they were
The
ready for the Michaelmas Fair.
was
dedicated, like the
illustrious
De
Triplici
and reverend prince
first
of these volumes
Minimo,
Henry
" to the very
duke of
Julius,
Brunswick and Luneberg, bishop of Halberstadt," and were printed
all
by the partners John Wechel and Peter
Fischer.
In the Golden
the oligarchy
Book of Venice, wherein
were
the families of
stood the noble house of
inscribed,
Mocenighi, so distinguished that
it
gave three doges to
the State in the 15th century and one in the i6th.
"One
day," deposed Giambattista Giotto, the bookseller, " Signor
Giovanni Mocenigo, a patrician of Venice, when he was
me
buying a recent work of Giordano's,* asked him, and that I
there
;
I
knew where he was
had seen him to
memory and
come
knew
told
I
to
Sig.
'
Venice to teach
me
the secrets of
the other things which he professes, as one
see in this book.' that, if besought,
Sig.
if I
him and believed he was still Mocenigo added, I should staying.
at Frankfurt
whereupon the said
him
like
if
To he
this I
will come.'
Mocenigo brought me a
'
Cfr. G. B.
'
Spaccio, II,
answered,
Op. Lot. {State
'
It
Some days
letter
may
believable
is
afterwards,
addressed to the said
edition), vol. Ill, p. xxix.
iij.
' From the MS. it would seem that Ciotto first said the work was the Eroici Furori this name is erased and De Minimo, Magna et mensura (sic) substituted for it. Evidently Ciotto had no clear memory of what work it was.
—
AT FRANKFURT AND ZURICH Giordano,
me
beseeching
he wrote to ask him
if
and saying that
it
^
he would come to Venice."
Bruno's account runs I
deliver
to
225
" Being in Frankfurt last year,
:
received two letters from Sig. Giovanni Mocenigo, inviting
me
to
Venice
to teach
him the
with promises to treat
with him."
fied
Now might
me
art of
well,
memory and
and that
I
discovery,
should be satis-
^
Bruno had not always misjudged concerning what In England he wrote of " the procession
befall him.
of 50 or 100 torches in broad mid-day that would not be
lacking
But he had a Roman Catholic country."* Roman Catholic countries and been less subject
in
dwelt in
and oppression which he experienced at
to the molestation
Geneva, Marburg and Helmstedt.
was a centre
God
over the love of
asylum
and
force
artistic
city
renowned
fairly safe
for her intellectual
and the beautiful productions of her
whom much
to
Frankfurt
like
found a
that heretics
She was a
there.
printers,
Venice
of trade, and the love of lucre so prevailed
the books published in
was allowed. Many of Venice were condemned by Rome, liberty
though, indeed, this was largely due to the efforts of a rival
press
to
secure monopoly.
Venice alone among
had preserved her independence of foreign Catholic Powers; she alone had resisted resolutely and, in the main, successfully the encroachments of the Papacy Italian States
LuUism was at the time a fashionable young dilettanti of Venice so there was prospect of lucrative occupation.* Bruno had received a renewed invitation from a member of a renowned and on
civil liberty.
craze
among
powerful
the rich
house,
have known
;
and was
life
(he
was 34 ^),
1
Doc.
*
Sigwart, op.
cit.,
p. 302.
on middle
offered
protection.
that Giovanni Mocenigo, a
*
V.
Doc.
man now
He may entering
had been one of the Assessors
vij.
° °
Cena, Dial. V. Doc. iij.
P
GIORDANO BRUNO
2 26
of the State to the Inquisition
;
if so,
himself as other than a
Roman
surely an invitation
Bruno never regarded
from such a source ensured safety.
Catholic.
So secure
did he
even when he found himself trapped he felt no " I shall tell the truth," he said to the serious misgivings. " Inquisitors. Often I have been threatened with being
feel that
brought before the Holy Office and ever did joke
He
wherefore
;
I
am
I
deem
it
a
ready to give an account of myself."
entertained the extraordinary delusion that he could
induce the Church to receive him again and allow him to dwell unmolested and outside his order in his
Not
province.-^
all
his bitter experience
own beloved
had taught him
the invincible, terrific power which is achieved over the minds and actions of most men by doctrines early instilled and fortified by habit, tradition, general consent and authoritative
pressure
how
;
feeble is the
mere
intellect to
overthrow
passionate bigotry or push aside passionate ignorance or
calm the resentment of menaced power.
He had
written of himself as " citizen and servant of the
world, child of the sun and mother earth";* he was, he said,
no mere stranger and out of place
but, as a life
in
member
any
place.
throbbed for home.
in foreign lands,
of the Divine Universe, could share
He
said this with his
its
head ; his heart
Venice might prove a stepping stone
towards his never forgotten and dearly loved Campagna. Once in Venice, might he not, by discreet conduct and
working through men of influence, return soil?
In a fatal
moment he
resolved
honour of a Venetian patrician and
to
to
his native
trust
to the historic
to
pendence of the Venetian State. 1
Docs,
ix, X.
»
the
inde-
Spaccio, Epist. Esplic.
CHAPTER XVI THE GREAT LATIN POEM AND LAST BOOKS I.
The
earlier
The Threefold Least
Greek philosophers wrote
Lucretius, impressed
by the
conception,
their
followed
in hexameters,
intrinsic dignity of a
example.
and
cosmic
Bruno, essentially
poet as well as thinker, regarded with deep emotion the
and stupendous intelligence displayed in an Universe. Science was to him Revelation, and, in
glowing Infinite
life
the fulness of his heart, he renewed the attempt to combine
poetry with science.
It
would be a great achievement, were
possible to unfold the secrets of the Universe in music re-invest
with the
what we have painfully disinterred from Nature warm beauty of her life. But who shall endow the
cold conclusions of logic with the passion of poetry ?
the essence of poetry
is
emotion caught at
moment; while metaphysical and stract
it
and
scientific
its
For
intensest
enquiry
is
ab-
and impassive.
Three closely related Latin poems appeared in 1591 in two volumes. These contain much of their author's ripest volume, which was for sale at the Frankfurt Spring Fair, was entitled " The Threefold Least thought.
The
first
And Measure Of The Three Speculative Sciences And The Principle Of Many Practical Arts." ^ The work is in five books divided into chapters, each of which begin with verses followed
by explanatory annotations
in prose.
The two
^ De triplici minima et mensura ad trium speculaiivarum arum et multarum activarum artium principia.
227
scienti-
GIORDANO BRUNO
228 first
books contain a restatement of the teachings of the
The remainThe main argument is
Causa, somewhat improved and more detailed. ing three are chiefly mathematical.
concerned with the threefold unity of three speculative sciences, which are of God, who is " both the greatest and
may be "
the least that of the material
Bruno appear one
of
of the unitary individual soul, and
;
atom or physical finds in
As
unit.^
successive works
them a gradual disappearance
of mere Neo-Platonism and theory of emanation, less mere
God and deeper
admiration of the transcendency of
immanence
of His
templation
poems are
Nature.^
in
con-
These Latin
chiefly concerned with the operations of a Living
Universe. Five years before Descartes was born,
we
find declared
here that " whoso itcheth to Philosophy must set to work
by putting
The
all
things to the doubt."
*
thinker seeks the Universal
;
he would have know-
ledge of some underlying principle, some supporting sub-
Such a substance if it had
stance underlying the flux of things.
must be simple, that
to say,
is
without parts, for
parts these would again require a single, simple principle
Thought necessitates the unchanging amid
or substrate.
change, ever at one with opposition of good and
itself.
evil, all
be at one, as Cusanus taught. with the least is it
;
with God.
the
Differences of number, the contraries, in a word,
The
must
greatest must be at one
maximum coincide with the minimum. So is "a unit, the source of all numbers,
He
wholly simple, the substance of magnitude and composition, a dignity above every phase, not to be computed, infinitely great."
'
« 3 '
*
"
He
is
the unit of units."
Tocco, F ; Op. lat. di G. B. exposte Tocco, F; Conferenza, Fir., 1886.
De minima, I, i. " Deus est monadum monas,"
etc.,
But we must not
^
Fir., 1889, p. 138. *
ibid., I, iv.
Ibid., I,
i,
schol.
THE GREAT LATIN POEM AND LAST BOOKS
229
regard the Absolute
One
just before this one
was published our author writes
as bare unity.
In a
work written " In
:
themselves things change, and, in the material world, are
They
and imperfect.
effects
are rather not-beings than
beings, for they issue from the void and, so far from truly
Their true existence must
being, they depart into the void.
be where they cannot but be, in that principle wherein lies the will
Wherefore
duction at pleasure.
Monad
itself,
in simplicity
first
cause and perfect
and the power
for their pro-
their true being is in the
wherein, consequently, they are truly known,
and concurrence
for there all things are one,
;
without distinction or dispersion or number ; but this in an ineffable way."
^
Bruno regards the soul
is
the
to treat fully of
should please
if it
loss,
and
Metaphysically considered,
He
an eternal minimum, the possibility of change.
was resolved "
unit from metaphysical, physical
points of view.^
critical
God
to
To our
bestow on him time."
was not permitted.
it
metaphysics and of the soul
There are minima of
spirit,
which are not further reducible and wherein absolute manifests spirit is
itself.
The
relation of these
not shown, nor could
minima
be, since
it
spirit
to absolute
one term of the
Bruno would seem
relation at least remains quite ineffable.
another work to incline to the opinion that they cannot
in
be regarded as mere parts or divisions of the one " truly it remains in doubt." '
No
less than
perience,
Bruno ^
minima of
Summa
terminorum.
the physical world.
in
an atomic theory. Cfr.
but
souls or centres of ex-
spirit,
must we posit minima
definitely adopts
spirit,
Bradley, F.
H
;
The op.
cit.
material chapters
xiij-xv. ^
Lasswitz
;
G. B.
und
die Atomistik, Vierteljahrschriftfiir Wissen-
schaft. Philosophie, 1884. '
Lampas
p.ss.
— Mclntyre
triginta staiuarum, op.
;
Op. lat.,
p. 246 sqq. cura Tocco and
cit.,
Vitelli,
230
GIORDANO BRUNO
universe, he says, is
composed of
which enter
do the
into composition as
into the formation of words.^
cannot be
infinite divisibility
irreducible units or atoms,
It
minimum which has no
And
parts.
since there
so,
we go on
for could
;
would be no substance
for ever there
alphabet
letters of the
must be
subdividing
there must be
:
if it
were not
some
so, every-
thing would be penetrable: there would be no resistance of body to body.
Composition changes, but the absolute
minimum or substance
is
immortal:
is
it
the possibility
Physical differences depend on this possibility
of change.
being realized in the composition of these simple, homo-
Each minimum
geneous atoms.
which
is
tended. it
the centre of is
an energy
endlessly ex-
endlessly in motion, and this
It is indestructible,
activity
is
an external quality and which
derives from the operation of final causes which
issue from the individual soul or from the Soul of the World.
Each minimum or least thing is also the possibility of its own maximum, drawing all the other minima it may into connexion with itself.^ And most of all must this be said of the Unit of Units, wherein the maximum and minimum and is
coincide and are at one.^
all qualities
self-conscious Spirit, containing
within
Bruno's Absolute
and knowing
all
that
is
itself.*
An atom
is
Atoms come
spherical.*
into contact at points
on their superficies, leaving curved triangular spaces between them.® only, limit,
Since they touch with a limited
we must be careful and not
words,
De minimo,
'
Ibid., I, iv, V. 10 sqq.
M
Carrifere,
De minimo,
•
Ibid., I, xj.
*
I, ij, v. 26.
;
In other
not confound mathematical intuitions with
1
*
surface
between body and
to confuse these as Aristotle does.''
we must
'
to distinguish
Weltanschauung I, xij ;
xiv
;
II,
d.
Ibid., I,
iij, v.
23-29, 50-55.
Reformationzeii, p. 470.
ij. '
Ibid., I, vij, v. 19-25
;
40-43.
1
THE GREAT LATIN POEM AND LAST BOOKS The
physical being.
physical atom
23
a constant centre of
is
God's operation; that by means of which the complexity of nature becomes possible.
minimum may be such abso-
Critically considered, the
An
or relatively.
lutely
mathematical point,
is
irreducible,
it;
cartilage etc.
reducible.^
information, but
it
minimum, such as a in
whatever way the
but a relative minimum, such as bone,
mind approaches is
absolute
Sense
is
the source
of our
Without
needs correction by reason.^
a unit or minimum, there can be no measurement
;
and
it is
by the exercise of reason that we arrive at the conception of a unit but we must not forget that indiscernibles possess ;
differences
in
varies according
physics
is
The minimal standard
actual existence.^ that which
to
is
measured; the unit of
very different from that of the surgery, and the
mathema-
unit of the physician lies far from that of the tician.*
mum
;
For each division of knowledge there there
arithmetic,
the
is
atoms
point
for physics
is
—the
themselves and without difference.^
latter
a mini-
unity
mathematics,
for
for
being simple in
These minima depend
on the mind and purpose of the thinker.* In Nature numbers do not exist: "ten horses are not equal to ten men."
Everywhere we
find
a minimum but not a
maximum
:
the
a relative concept leading us on towards the last
unit
is
and
greatest.
Everything
unique, and change of
is
any
kind never absolutely repeats itself; there are no perfect geometrical forms in Nature
;
'
for
there
is
a
constant
exodus and immigration of the particles of every material body.* It is definitely
I ''
De minimo, Ibid., II,
stated that the
I, x.
ij, V, i.
sqq.
minimum, whether
spirit
'
Ibid., I, xiv, schol.
'
Ibid., I, x, schol.
6
Ibid., I, ix.
^
Ibid., I, ix.
'
Ibid., II, iv, V. 36 sqq.
°
Ibid., II, v
;
V,
ij.
or
GIORDANO BRUNO
232 physical atom,
that
immortal.*
is
From
this
and one or two
remarks elsewhere, some writers have supposed
similar
Bruno came
Causa and
at last to
throw over the teaching of the Here, he
to believe in personal immortality.
speaks of the transformations of the soul as not following
one another in haphazard fashion, but as depending on the kind of this is
which has been
life
an
one often has to read the lines, and,
led.
Taken au pied de
la lettre,
But
explicit assertion of personal immortality.
above
to
all,
real
Bruno between the written
compare every one of his utterances
on a subject before one can form a conclusive judgment as to his real
He
meaning.
repeats in this
work
one Soul of the World, manifesting
itself in
and the passage may be merely
way
" secret sympathies
" of
his
that there
of expressing the
nature which produce such facts as
heredity, the transmission of ideas through space definite tendencies in
is
manifold forms,
matter and mind
etc. etc.
and
time,
Professor
Mclntyre thinks Bruno came to accept personal immortality.^
Tocco, the completest and minutest of Brunian
scholars, once thought so too,' but, since he
the manuscript
had access
to
works which have now been published,
partly under his care, he has completely changed his opinion.
He
maintains that, in Bruno's philosophy, while Matter
resolved into insensible, irreducible atoms. Spirit fractionized, but
remains always one with
and substance.*
It
may
is
is
not thus
itself in quality
be questioned whether Bruno ever
regarded the atomic theory as other than a relative one for
human knowledge.
But Tocco charges him with incon-
sistency and dualism in applying one principle to brute1
De minima,
I, iv, 10 sqq.
Mclntyre; op. cit., pp. 307, 313 sqq. ' Tocco, F Conferema., Fir, i886. * Tocco, F Op. ined. di G. B, Napoli, 1891. CJr. the last few pages of his study of the Lampas triginti statuarum, and the Intro^
;
;
duction, p.
7.
THE GREAT LATIN POEM AND LAST BOOKS
233
In the Lampas,
matter and another principle to mind.
Bruno
written at Wittenberg, in the Spaccio and elsewhere,
writes that neither body nor soul need fear death, since
But the reduction
both are eternal and constant principles. of the Universe to two distinct principles
—matter and
spirit,
some measure anticipatory of Descartes, is not made absolute. There remains the all-inclusive, all-comprehensive Unity which is at once Divine Intuition and Divine Power and all things else. No category is really ultimate for the Nolan. If he divides matter and spirit, he does not finally divorce them. And he were a bold thinker to day who in
if
should be so assured of the certainties of science and of his
own
metaphysical power as to interpret electrons in terms
Bruno's atoms
of spirit or spirit in terms of electrons.
would seem
to be virtually active spirit
under the direction
Thus, animal centres of experience
of individual souls.
direct the atomic evolution of the
body from the heart as
a centre.^
With regard
to
Bruno's assertions, often so obscure,
we must remember
concerning immortality,
that
it
was
his
wont, as indeed was necessary, even for an unguarded person,
speak
to
guarded
in
language.
He
employs
current conceptions to rise above them; he makes use of
any aspect of
which approximates towards his
any other philosophy own and which will give
the Pythagorean or
own view some measure
his
of authoritative support
;
he
is
fond of suggestive mythology, and lures the learner onward
with "language of accommodation things
The
some
trace of truth,
reflective student
mask, which
is
at once
"
more or
;
for is there not in all
less clearly discernible ?
can usually penetrate through the
an incitement and a
there are considerable difficulties in the tion. >
We
have seen
De minimo,
I, if,
that, in the
schol;
iij, v.
clue.
way
Just here
of interpreta-
Wittenberg " Lamp," he
22-29, 50-55
;
Causa, Dial. II.
GIORDANO BRUNO
234 wrote of
how some
think particular beings to be particular
World
manifestations of the Soul of the
Soul of the World
we
doubt, but
is
divided into parts
;
incline to the first opinion."
on he writes that multiplication
others, that the
;
" truly ^
A
it
remains in further
little
on the side of brute-
falls
Of an underlying
matter, the soul remaining one.*
identi-
of the individual centre of experience with the
fication
Universal Experience, Bruno
a higher,
fuller immortality
felt
And
sure.
that implies
than mere personal continuance
with memory-synthesis, or mere continued being-in-flux without memory.
Yet neither of these
is
inconsistent with
Probably he formed no
Bruno's central conception.
definite
conclusion about matters which he would regard as of minor
importance and unsupported by conclusive evidence. Tocco writes " The individualisation of the soul is for Bruno a :
fleeting event
which
bosom
of time has but
the
and duration of a flash."*
But assuredly
stability
in the infinite
Bruno meant much more than he
identifies the
human
spirit
As has been shown,
this.
with the Absolute Spirit in
the last resort, and of the Absolute Spirit he writes in a
work of approximately the same date that " past present to
it
present to
wholly, at once and complete."
time
is
die,"
he says elsewhere, "
the great
it
poem published
pieces
of
horse
may
not
is
as past, or future as future, but the whole of
Pythagorean
to spring into life."
is
at the
metaphor
await those of a
autumn as,
man and
in regular or irregular progression "
fair,
"
To
And
in
*
after
such
" the organs of a all
other creatures
he immediately adds,
" present organic death has nothing to do with the countless
forms of enduring
life.
Were
the Spirit but
'
Op.
^
Causa, Dial. II ; Cabala, II, Tocco, F op. ined. di G. B. p. vij. Summa ierminorum meiaphysicorum.
'
'
lat.,
ed.
Ibid., p. 59. ;
Tocco and Cfr.
aware of
Vitelli, iij, p. 58. ij.
;
THE GREAT LATIN POEM AND LAST BOOKS this
it
would not
not death, but
Every substance
shall
desire
and
set out to
embrace
it.
endure throughout eternity, have
and
infinity for its dwelling place
zation."
For the wise fear
suffer apprehension.
may even
235
forms for
all
reali-
its
^
Bruno's phrase "
God
the
is
monad
monads
of
or " unit
"
was afterwards employed by
of units, ''^-)which
Leibnitz,
together with the similarity of their views concerning every living
being
beings,'
containing a
number
vast
of other living
and many other resemblances or pseudo-resem-
blances led to the belief that Leibnitz
was indebted
Bruno.
Leibnitz derived
But
this
is
quite a blunder:*
The Monadology, com-
nothing from the earlier thinker.
pared with Bruno's more comprehensive philosophy,
merely one-sided, but, in
harmony,
The
is
far
its
to
theory
of
is
not
pre-established
more patently and extravagantly unsound.
earlier thinker did not indulge in the construction of a
J
Pluralistic Universe.
All
the latter part of
v
'
-/
^,
'1
De Minimo
is
~ >.
occupied with a
hopeless attempt to remodel Mathematics on the concept
monads or the various mathematical minima which he to be irreducible. While he almost anticipated
of
would have
the innovation of
knowledge and
Kant by enquiring
in
mathematics, he
perceiving
the
into the conditions of intuitive
was by no means
mathematics of his
own
day, and he
character of
abreast
with
the
quite failed to
see
the direction which that science had already taken.
He
further committed the fatal blunder of forgetting his
own
1 '
De immenso, De minimo,
I, j. I,
iv,
independently.
schol.
Leibnitz
fell
on the phrase quite
"
-
—
._.^
Cena,Dial. Ill : Leibnitz, G. W; Monadology, §70. * Stein, L Leibnitz und Spinoza, Ein Beitrag zur Entwickelungegeschichter der Leibnizchen Philosophie, 1890, p. 197 sqq. Mclntyre '
Cfr.
;
—
op.
cit.,
pp. 224, 343 sqq.
GIORDANO BRUNO
236 between
distinction
body which as a
He
of atoms.^
file
physical
the
For example, he treats of the
bounds.
it
or boundary and
limit
it
geometry by
to simplify
tried
making the greater part of
line
intuitively comprehensible
through three vastly involved figures.
The Unit
II.
At the autumn
Wechel and Fischer produced
fair,
remainder of the great poem, permission
which
the
for the printing of
not recorded in the Frankfurt Censorial Register.
is
was entitled " Of the Unit, Quantity and Shape, A Book Following The Five On The Least, The Great And Measure. Also Eight Books Concerning The Innumerable, Immeasurable And Infigurable, Or Of The Universe And Its Worlds." ^ In fact, two volumes were bound up in one. The first of these, " Of the Unit," commences with laudatory verses addressed to Duke Henry Julius of Brunswick. It
Bruno contrasts the strenuous
life
who
of those
with that led by pleasure-seekers and the idle
love truth
rich.
It is
clear that the long struggle with obscurantists, the buffets
of exile,
persecution
by academies, and the general
success which attended his mission had
The
iron
had entered
into his soul.
daunted, and sings with
boyhood, and, God be witness,
may
death
Yet he
prophetic instinct
cruel fate shall await me, the struggle
quished, nor
left their
itself
I
is
"
:
ill-
marks.
still
un-
Whatever
began far back
in
follow the truth unvan-
bear the smallest terror to
any wise do I blench before the violence of any mortal man." ' And later in the book, he sings " I have me, nor
in
:
'
^
De minima, V, v. De monade, numero
minima, m,agno
et
et
mensura.
inftgurabile, seu de universo '
De manade, cap.
I
figura, liber consequens quinque de Item de Innumerabilibus, immense et et
mundis,
v. 38-45.
libri acta
.
.
.
1591.
THE GREAT LATIN POEM AND LAST BOOKS fought
Be
it is
:
that with
much,
.
me
it
as
.
.
Victory
future ages will not deny that
second to none craven
to a
lies in
may, whoever
in constancy,
I
the hands of Fate.
shall
prove conqueror,
did not fear to die,
and preferred a
was
spirited death
Here, says Brunnhofer,
life."^
237
Bruno's
is
epitaph.
There are many
marred by
fine poetic passages, too often
ugly neologisms, curious syntax and execrable prosody.
Apart from these, the sole interest of the book
modern reader
much
occultism which held so
The
Renaissance. built
to
the
the singularity of that pronounced
lies in
scientific
men
attraction for
education of the day
of the
was not
on the secure foundation of careful observation and ex-
periment.
Stress
was
laid
With greater
results.
on word and symbol, with curious
sagacity,
men put
faith in intuitions
springing from the mind, like Minerva from the brain of
her Divine Father
;
but they
Bruno draws
verification.
knew
little
largely from
of the methods of
many
sources in this
work, but chiefly from Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa of Nettes-
He
heim."
tells
us that the work deals with revelation, faith
and divination, and not with reasoned knowledge and experiment. He takes occasion to protest against dogmas which " disturb
human calm and
the peace of ages, put out the light
of the mind and avail not in morals."
The work
is,
however, chiefly
mystical and
such
author's
own
philosophic
filled
with a selection of
as
lore
fell
in
with the
conceptions and with a singular series of
geometrical constructions founded upon a theory of distinct
mathematical minima, and upon the numerical mysteries of Pythagoras,
One 1
'
is
all
invested
with metaphysical significance.
the perfect number, the source of infinite series.
De monade, cap. vij, v. 128 sq. De occulta philosophia. Cfr.
/. di G.
Tocco, B. in Acad, dei Lincei, Rediconti
F Fonti pui ;
ser., vj, p. 534.
recenti della
:
GIORDANO BRUNO
238 Even so does an stance
infinity of
worlds proceed from one sub-
the diversity of the universe
;
and
all its
the
Many.
One and
being due to the union of the
creatures
On Immensity
III.
The De Immenso is a very great book indeed It is a hymn of wonder and praise and intellectual
prolonged
exaltation,
may
sung
in the
Perhaps
temple of immensity.
Essentially in line with the explict idealists of the
works.
early nineteenth century,
he always
unite his
to
tries
idealism with scientific conceptions of the Universe.^ of kinship with which he regards
spirit is
it
be ranked with the Causa as the greatest of Bruno's
that of a poet lately "
among us
So may we read and
Not Not
The
the starry host
little
them cold dead space,
find
frosty lamps, illumining
:
distant aliens, not senseless Powers.
The fire is in them whereof we are born, The music of their motion may be ours." ^
De Immenso the great precise.
a restatement of the cosmic teaching of
is
works, often more detailed and more
Italian
De Minima and De Monade
Like the
years had passed since the the world with a
views in their ance
;
it
consists
and prose annotations thereon.
of Latin verses
first
new cosmology.
final form, the
but, since these
Seven
bold attempts to furnish
work
As is
presenting Bruno's
of the highest import-
have been dealt with
in the
order
in
which they were given to the public,
to
do more than present a general notion of the work and
set
down
it
is
not necessary
indications of advance.
He says
there
'
Hoffding,
H
;
^
Meredith,
G
;
is
an incessant unfolding of Nature in move-
Mod. Phil., tr. Meyer, igoo, Meditation under the Stars.
Hist, oj
vol. I, p. 139.
;
THE GREAT LATIN POEM AND LAST BOOKS
239
ment; and the same motion never exactly repeats
itself.*
must be corrected by comparing the report of one
Illusion
sense with that of other senses.^
mathematics and astronomy had of Copernicus
In the Cena Bruno's
below the standard
fallen
here he corrects errors, reproduces a whole
:
chapter from the work of that wonderful Pole,* criticises
him, and sagaciously comes very near to the law discovered
by
Galileo, that in rotary motion the direction of the axis
remains parallel
system
is
All planetary
to itself.*
life in
derived from the light and heat of
its
any
sidereal
central sun
He
planets such as the earth, being cold, dark bodies.^
has insight, before his
in Nature,
believes
earth
the
that
assertion,
Newton confirm
Kepler, Galileo and not the
is
thing
heaviest
where worlds move securely through space, he
of
own
their
There
energy.*
intrinsic
is
no
between the heavens and the earth,
essential difference
as Aristotle taught;' or in essential nature, between sun
and
There
earth.*
revolving round
are
the
not
stars,*
volving round our sun.*"
with liquid material in
it,
merely
The sun
is
a solid body, but
which burns, and hence
being a solid metallic body, but
now he
conceives of
and heat as produced by the chemical changes its
to these chemical '
The
body.*'
He immenso, VI, xvij.
«
Ibid.,
»
Ibid., I, iij, V. 13 sqq
"
iij, V.
'
27 sqq. ;
III,
iv, v.
Ibid.,
Kyz sqq
;
IV, VI,
Ibid., II, ix, V, 127 sqq.
IV,
''
Ibid.,
"
Ibid., Ill, V ;
ix, V. 32.
IV,
Cfr. Infinito, Dial. III.
vii.
;
**
Ibtd., I, iv.
'
IV,
light
in the liquid
changes cause a rotation of the sun
'
* ^
its
incessant internal commotion due
Tocco, F; Op. lat. espos. e confront., pp. 313 sqq. De imm., Ill, x Gf schol. Ibid,, III ; IV, vij v. 76 sq ; VI, v, 5 sq. Ibid., Ill ; IV, XV, v. 12 sqq : VI, ix, v. 12 sqq.
'
has
it
In 1584, he regarded the sun as
a luminous atmosphere.
parts of
planets
invisible
but undiscovered planets re-
vij, v. ij, v.
18 sqq. 7 sq.
and
GIORDANO BRUNO
240
the scintillation of sun
1
!
tion
which do not give out
He was
and
stars
but the phenomenon
;
light,
is
is
due
to rapidity of rota-
not observable in planets,
but only reflect
it.^
and shows that he
exhibits great interest in comets
closely following the observations of the astronomers of
his time
he casts aside the notion, which had prevailed
;
since the time of Aristotle, that they were slowly burning
by the motion of the
vapours, set afire
genuine members cosmic law.
stars,
of the cosmic system and
subject
;
they are living beings.^
He had
poor notion of the relative distances of the planets not think Jupiter or Saturn could be
sun than the Earth
much
is,
much
but a
he did
farther from the
longer than our year.' to
have believed the
and planets to be eternal, though subject to vicissi-
stars ;
*
but
eternal
is
:
or that their period of revolution
Seven years before, he would seem tude
to
Meteors are also cosmic matter, wandering
through space
could be
and he
wandering Arabs of the sky are
recognises that these
;
now he says its
that only the Universe as a whole
worlds decay and perish, their constituent
parts entering into fresh combinations.*
He
attacks the superstitions interwoven with
all religions,
and especially the creed of those Catholics who put the Pope in the place of God.^ He is still as filled with religious enthusiasm and poetic
opened
as
fire
to transcendent truth
the confident vision of
an
;
when
his eyes
were
first
he rejoices now as then
everliving, infinite universe
in
and
innumerable choirs of flaming spirits dwelling under the
its
reign of ever-unfolding, spiritual law. It is
worthy of note that he refers sympathetically and
almost proudly to the daring sea-dogs of Britain '
De immenso, IV,
^
Ibid.,
'
De immenso,
V,
vij,
i
*
viij.
II, v, v.
i
sqq
;
IV,
sqq.
*
viij.
Cena, Dial.
V
;
who had
Ihid., V,
ij.
Infinito, Dial. II. '
Ibid., I.
1
THE GREAT LATIN POEM AND LAST BOOKS
24
braved the might of his own monarch, Philip of Spain, and prevailed against him.^
IV.
On
and Ideas
Images, Signs
At the same autumn fair appeared the last work given to by Bruno himself. There is no record extant of
the world
permission for
its
publication
but
;
mentioned, with the
appearance, in Bassaus' Frankfurt Catalogue of
date of
its
1592.
"The Arrangement Of
preceded by a dedicatory
is
it is
Images, Signs
letter to
And Ideas"
Heinrich Hainzell, the
"distinguished and most generous" lord of Elgg.
informs Hainzell that this
works, having for signs and ideas
its
may
is
*
Bruno
one of his most important
object the description of
how
images,
be so ordered in the mind as to sub-
serve a general scheme for the discovery and arrangement of truths and for the fixing of them in the memory.
greater part of the treatise
is in
sions into verse.
There are three books, the
of two sections.
The author
of
importance from the
first
and
Sigillus,
extracts
De
all
first
consisting
that he considers
Utnbris, Cantus Circaus
condensing and improving without greatly
The wprk
altering.
The
prose, but there are excur-
indeed
is
an important one,
for,
although Neo-PIatonic distinctions are adopted, Neo-Platonic doctrine
which "
The
is
is,
widely departed from, and a position in essence, that of the great
say everything.
>
taken up Idealists.
simplest operations of arithmetic are very easy," he
says, yet " to do these to
is
German
.
is to .
.
do everything
;
Herein the whole
to
say them
light
is
He immenso, VI, xx. De Imaginwn, Signorum
is
more
ei Idearum Comp., Frcf. ap. Jo. Wechelium et P. Ficherum consortes, 1591. We know that it was the last work published at Frankfurt from the De Monade, Cap. Ill, schol. and from the work itself, ///, vij. '
Q
;
GIORDANO BRUNO
242 present, clear
and obvious
to our intelligence than is the
outer light of the sun to the eyes.
power, however, because so few
.
.
Because the eye beholdeth other things, see.
But what
such wise that seeth
may
things in
all
itself it
perceive itself?
It is
and which even
itself,
call
a
it .
.
.
doth not
passage where, couched
in
identification of thought
and
that ej^e which is
At the commencement of the book we
memory and
I
that eye which beholdeth other things in
is
it
Shall
.
know and understand ?
all
things."
^
come across a
scholastic terminology, is the thing, intellect
nature, knowledge
and
and substance, " Ideas are the
fact.
cause of things prior to the things, the vestiges of ideas are the things themselves, that
is
to say, they exist in things
the shadows of ideas are derived from things, that
is
to say,
they are subsequent on them."
He
again records his belief in mystic intuition, writing of
" the interior intuition which it
is
both the light and that which
illumines, differing from external intuition as a mirror
which only
own
reflects
nature
.
.
.
would from a mirror illuminated of its wherein object and sensitive subject
^
are one."
That same Pythagorean through
all
fallacy is repeated
Bruno's work and
time, viz., that, since simple
all
which runs
the philosophy of his
numbers can be
clearly con-
ceived and are without contradiction, they represent the ultimate constitution of the Universe and possess objective existence.
He ledge
perceived the unity of the fine arts and that knowis
a constructive art; and one
may
infer
from the
following passage that he found keener enjoyment in sight
than in hearing
:
" There be
men who
find
harmony through
the eye ; others, though in less measure, through the ear. '
'
Prefatory letter to Hainzell. De Compositione, I, sec. i, c.
i
THE GREAT LATIN POEM AND LAST BOOKS The minds
243
of such as be true poets, musicians, painters
philosophers are akin
;
for all true philosophy is at
and
once
music, poetry and painting; true poetry hath both music
and philosophy of divine
in
it,
wisdom and
A
V,
and music and philosophy are a kind painting.",
Philosophical Lexicon
The "List Of Metaphysical Terms For Taking The Study Of Logic And Philosophy In Hand " ^ was published at Zurich four years after the lessons, of
were given
which
a digest,
is
it
and fourteen years later Eglin had Marburg with the addition of a " Proposi-
in that city,
them reprinted
at
Of Descent Or The Unfolding Of Being." ^ The first part was written perhaps with the encyclopaedic efforts of Aquinas and Albertus Magnus in bis mind and certainly tion
with the guide.
book of
fifth
It is
The
dictionary.^
Aristotle's
Metaphysic serving as a
a crude but bold attempt at a philosophical additional part
is
an application of the
definitions (of the first part) of Neo-Platonism.
Here, as elsewhere, Bruno employs the language of the schools in order to rise above the conceptions
The work
He
says that, according to the Schoolmen, faith
babes and common,
in
it
learned.
conveys.
thi'ows great light on his attitude towards religion.
God
and
folk
and space, but
acts in time
and change, and with him Everything, however far
explicit in the is
is
implicit
wise and
above time
liberty
and necessity are one.
may
be from being good in
it
Summa terminorum meiaphysicorum ad capessendum Logicae Philosophiae Studium, ex Jordani Bruni Nolani Entis descensu manusc. excerpta ; nunc primum luci commissa ; a Raphaele Eglino Iconio, Tigurino : Zurich, 1 595. * A ccessit ejusdem Praxis Descensus seu Multiplicatio Entis ex manuscripto. Marpurgi, 1609. '
et
.
'
.
Mclntyre, op.
.
cit.,
p. 113.
GIORDANO BRUNO
244
means
nevertheless a
itself, is
We
to good.
can observe
Will operant in Nature {voluntas naturalta) as a
moving
principle,
intelligent
merely transcendent
and
but, in fact, operates
;
Nature can never give what truth
is
base or
not
through Nature
false.
Philosophic
cannot be at variance with theologic
It
truth, as the upholders of the
although the latter intelligence
self-
is
procurable by setting forth from the
certitude,
is
gates of sense.
God
Wherefore thorough investigation of
Nature.
in
is
and prescient.
{Summa
Twofold truth maintained,
given by revelation from a superior
is
sub evidentia).
The Fastenings of Kind
VI.
During his second and longer stay
own hand "The
wrote with his
which he never
finished.
Besler, pretty certainly at
Bruno
Of Kind,"^ A part of this was copied by Padua, and detail was added.
Both MSS., which were discovered last century, are
at Frankfurt,
Fastenings
now preserved
at
in
Paris during the
Moscow with
the other
" NorofF Manuscripts."
This treatise
is
on Moral Science from an objective point
of view, the passions being dealt with in the cold, detached
manner of an impartial observer.
human
love which bind the attraction naturalistic
ment.
is
The
different kinds of
spirit are discussed,
and sexual
discussed in a singularly straightforward,
way, unrelieved by the smallest dash of
Here and
are repeated.
there,
As
De Magia, an
in
senti-
passages from the Italian works attempt
is
made
to
reduce the attractions and repulsions to be found in Nature
no
less
than in
trary and
human
opposite
feelings
with Dante, Hate
is
^
De
and emotions
to the con-
Love and Hate. As regarded as Love inverted. After
principles
of
Vinculis in genere.
THE GREAT LATIN POEM AND LAST BOOKS all,
these
two
final
contraries
turn
out
to
245
be one at
bottom.
Bruno opines
that the fear of hell
the place itself would be:
human
it
is
is
more dreadful than
a powerful chain to the
mind, acting through the imagination.*
Tocco's judgement of this quite unfinished work it
" shows an experience of
and a delicacy of observation '
Bruno
'
Tocco,
;
life,
far
from common," ^
Op. lat. cura Tocco &• VitelH, III, Op. ined. di G. B., p. 257.
F
;
is
that
a sobriety in speculation
p. 638.
CHAPTER
XVII
AT VENICE AND PADUA
There had
been a time when the human
the discovery of ancient letters and of a
small measure of freedom under Popes distinguished sons of the Renaissance
braced by
spirit,
new world, enjoyed no who were themselves but such liberty was
;
never formally authorised and established, and theshock which Protestant aggression gave to the Catholic conscience and the dwindling
by
this time
power and purse of the Roman theocracy had caused a complete reversal of Papal policy.
Bruno, in spite of the persecution he had endured at the
hands of minor
officials,
believed in the sweet reasonable-
ness of a Church which tacked and temporised so often in the past,
and which was even now governed by so many
wise statesmen, had the adherence of so
numbered so many sincerity
of his
and a
life
belief in the
in Naples,
on him.
lost
sincere priests.
many
scholars and
Filled with his
own
triumph of truth, the lessons
Geneva, Paris and Germany were
Candid and of generous and open mind, he
judged the rulers of the Church by his
own
high liberal
standard and that of a few like-minded friends.
He had
not the least doubt as to the genuine Catholicity of his
own
belief,
rity to
and
that he only needed access to high autho-
be restored to the bosom of his Church.
sent him more than one pressing invitation
promised him ample protection.^ after »
some misgiving and swaying
Docs.
V, viij.
'
246
At to
*
length,
and
Sigwart ; pp.
Mocenigo
and probably it
fro,
cit.,
may be desire to
p. 30.
AT VENICE AND PADt/A revisit Italy
and one
24J'
and dwell once more among Italians prevailed, day in the autumn of 1591, he set forth
fatal
for Venice.
Bruno could not have been long It
is
was
also, of his
mental
new
suggestive that Mocenigo told the Inquisitors
some time
for
Padua."
in lodgings, but for the
(G. B. Leone) less
pupil. :
" he
most part
in
But he was singularly inept at reading character.
^
That of Giovanni Mocenigo denunciations^ and in the no
in finding out the
perhaps the niggardliness
limitations,
^
is
pretty fully revealed in his
letters
Lauro
of
which Ciotto published
for him.
Settizonio
A
man
cunning than vain, as grudging as treacherous, as
shifty as superstitious,
and managed by
an incapable dabbler, shallow-brained
his confessor,
too close an intimacy at to his solicitations later
though Bruno fought shy of
first,
we
shall find
and taking up
him yielding
abode with him.
his
There was a daily public boat-service between Venice the distance was not more than Bruno availed himself of this to return to the city where nearly fourteen years before he had found the University deserted by reason of plague. He now stayed three months at that ancient and renowned
and
its
University-town
;
about twenty miles.
seat of learning, getting his bread to all
a
circle of
countries
by giving private lessons
Men
German
students.*
—from
Scandinavia and Cyprus, Sicily and
of
all
ages and from
Spain, Britain and Poland were wont to foregather at the old palace of the Signoria which Venetian conquerors
had
restored and modernised by the hands of Sansovino and
converted
into
the
University building.
The
subjects
but free treattaught therein were rigidly prescribed ment of them was accorded to the famous public lecturers, ;
1
Doc.
'
Lett, famil. di Go. Battista
'
Doc.
i.
vj.
' Docs, j, ij, Leone, Ciotto, Venezia.
viij.
GIORDANO BRUNO
24S
and troops of Protestants might be observed, making
way
to the
University or to a tutor's rooms
"not of suche
;
their
and these
alone as most commonlie are
students
brought up in our universitees (meane mens children sent to schole in hope to live upon hyred learning) but for the more parte of noble mens sonnes, and of the best gentilmen that studie more for knowledge and pleasure than :
The presence of wealthy students was advantageous to the private lecturer moreover, a student was " bound to no lectures, nor nothing else but what he lyst himself to go to."^ But many of them for curiositee or luker."
*
;
" lysted
" to rioting and " feates of arms." Bruno had Besler for company, Besler acted as his copyist,
— —and he met men whom he had known men,
ceivably,
also,
whom
in
Germany
;
con-
he had known in England.
Strange that he did not take alarm at what was being said about his presence in Italy furt marvelled at his temerity.^
thought,
we may read
in
!
The
What
scholars in Frank-
the
Germans
in Italy
a passage of a letter written by
Havekenthal of Brandenburg (Valens Acidalius), who was studying at Bologna, to Michael Forgacz of Bavaria,
was
at
Padua.
2 1 St, 1592, "tell
" Tell me," he asks in a
me
letter
of yet another matter.
Giordano Bruno the Nolan
whom you knew
who
dated January It is said that
at
Wittenberg
among you at Padua. Can this be so? What manner of man is this, an exile, as he was used to admit, to living
is
dare to re-enter Italy? believe ^
it,
although
Thomas, William
I
;
I
have The
it
marvel,
I
marvel, nor can
from a sure source.
historic of Italic,
Tell me,
I is
a boke cxccdying proHoward, English
fitable to be reddc, 1549, p. 2; quoted by Clare Travellers of the Renaissance, 1904, p. 53.
^ Hoby, Sir Thomas ; The Travels and Life of Sir T, H., written by Himself, 1547-1564, Ed. E. Powell, Camden Soc, Ser. iij, vol. iv
1902, p. 10. '
Ciotto's evidence, Doc, v.
AT VENICE AND PADUA
249
news false or true ? " How far Havekenthal's astonishment extended to Italians, we do not know but it is dear this
;
that many-tongued Italy, for
rumour was
work among Germans
at
on Mar. 3rd Havekenthal wrote
more concerning that
"
I
in
marvel no
sophist, for, every day, all sorts of
incredible stories are reported here."
Bruno would seem
:
to
have
^
no
felt
He had
fear.
been
dwelling in freer lands than Italy and did not realise the
changes effected by the enforcement of the decrees of
Nay, he went on with studies which the Church
Trent.
He was
regarded as at least questionable. Besler
in
De
copying
employing
and ancient, unprinted
Vinculis
among them being the " Seals of Hermes and Ptolemy," a work which was found in his possession at
works
;
Venice and which he was careful to state had been praised
by Albertus Magnus," the " Universal Doctor " of the He confesses that he had not seen too closely
Church.
books
into the contents of these
he had not read.
;
indeed this particular one
He was philandering with perilous material,
preparatory to a study of judicial astrology.^
Whether or no Mocenigo's
taste for secret
included hankerings after the " Black Art "
He was
eager
to get
Bruno "
offered tempting terms. I
into his
He
is
knowledge
not apparent.
house at Venice, and
would support
should be satisfied with him," says Bruno.
me
well
and
In a fatal
hour the unsuspecting thinker put his head into a noose.
He
accepted the offer of a treacherous and incapable dabbler,
returned to Venice in March, 1592, and took up his abode
with Mocenigo in the little
Campo of S. Samuele, on the Grand
Canal, just opposite the palace '^
Acidalius, Valens
;
where our Browning
Epist. a fratre
died.
editum, Chr. Acid., 1606,
p. 10. »
Doc. xiv.
lib. V.
Cfr.
Albertus
Magnus
;
Physicorum Mineralium, °
Hoc. xiv.
GIORDANO BRUNO
250 At
would seem that
first, it
went
all
well.
He
frequented
shops and chatted with the learned people
booksellers'
whom
Ciotto would seem to have heard no heretical and Brictanus said that " Giovanni had not spoken to
he met there. talk,
The fame
him on such matters." ^ There were
Venice.
there as elsewhere circle
was wont
of his abilities spread in
literary clubs of
in
a social character
and the most distinguished
Italy,
assemble at the hospitable house of man now " in the middle
to
Andrea Morosini, the historian, a of the journey of our life"
met
all
—he was 35.
Here were
and every Venetian of note who was interested
printers
and, from the leanings of some of his guests,
may have
given his evidence with due caution and reservation.
how, he related at the
booksellers, bearing the
had been on sale
name
Any-
"For some months
that
trial
certain philosophical books
past
at Venetian
man
of Giordano Bruno, a
reputed to be of varied learning.
heard
I
understood from what
Venice and from what Gio. Battista (Ciotto) the
in
bookseller said to diverse gentlemen, and especially to self,
that this
him
to
all
to
man was
here and that
we might
to
come
for the discussion of literature
Wherefore
of philosophy.
come
;
I
and he did so several
learned matters.
I
and above
said that he should get times, debating
have never been able
and, so far as
"
am
concerned,
be a Catholic
to
contrary house."
I
I
—and
I
him
on various
to infer
from his
reasonings that he held any opinion contrary to the
him
my-
desire to get
our house, where certain gentlemen and also prelates
wont
are
in
Morosini was a broad-minded Catholic,
things of the mind.
I
to be
the cultivated patricians, Fra Paoli Sarpi, the famous
faith,
have always considered
at the least suspicion of the
should not have allowed his presence in
my
2
Many
patricians *
Doc.
vi.
and
literary people gathered together 2
Doc. XV.
1
AT VENICE AND PADUA there," said Bruno, "
and
with some librarians persons, for
I
I
do not
may
it
in
Venice have
to
tell
—
have exercised some measure :
"
Never since
I
have
taught heretical doctrine, but have
I
only discussed philosophy with
can
particular "^ a wary
be, to protect others as well as
of caution outside Mocenigo's doors
been
recollect
know who they might be
But he appears
himself.
have also entered into discussion
but
;
did not
statement, designed,
I
25
many
patricians, as they
you." ^
now
Indeed,
that he
and pathetic
persistent
was
in
efforts to
" Christian, Apostolic and presenting his case to the
Italy,
Bruno was making
be received again into the
Roman Church." He meditated New Pope, Ippolito Aldobrandini,
Clement VIII, who, having achieved no small reputation elected to the tiara
Pope
to
for
when he was papal legate, was on Feb. 2nd 1592. Bruno knew the new
wisdom and temperate
policy
be a man of gentle character and broad
intelligence,
anxious to secure the best minds for the service of the Church, and, indeed, for a time Clement acquitted himself as a wise
But the Protestant rebellion so retolerant pontiff. awakened the slumbering prejudices of Catholicism and the Roman theocracy found itself so threatened on every hand that the establishment of unbending authority had become Clement, who was truly pious, conessential to safety.
and
was speedily acted on by the Curia, and finally Cardinal S. Severino led him into a policy Bruno exhibits a childlike belief in of inflexible severity. fessing his sins every day,
the reasonableness of
men and
that the world could
persuaded to share his philosophic outlook: the
be
Roman
Pontiff only required an intellectual appeal to perceive the
value of his views and to extend to him benevolence and toleration.
He
says:
"I was about
Frankfurt again to get certain of '
Doc. xvij.
my
to
proceed hence to
works '
printed,
Ibid.
and
GIORDANO BRUNO
252
on the seven
especially one
my
of
which
I
I
confirm and those
do not confirm, and place myself at the
Beatitude (for
I
my
to explain
with other
liberal arts,^ together
printed works, both those which
His
feet of
have heard that he loves upright men), and
my
case and to try to be absolved for
mis-
behaviour and allowed to wear the clerical habit, but free
from monastic authority, whereunto these last days to
were here
many
" (rather
particularly
have spoken during
I
Neapolitan Fathers of
my order who
a perilous proceeding, perhaps
Father Superior Fra
!)
" and
Domenico of Nocera,
who comes I Kingdom of Naples,
Father Serafino of Nocera, Father Giovanni,
know
not whence, save that
it is
in the
and yet another of Atripalda, who left off" his habit but resumed it
I
;
don't
Felice."
^
know his name
He
;
in religion
he was called Brother
repeated to his judges his desire to return to
the Church, but to be relieved of the bonds of monastic obedience.'
In a singularly cramped handwriting there of Bruno's statement.
is
confirmation
Father Domenico writes
:
" In
very month of May, on the Holy Feast of Pentecost, as
coming out of the Sacristy of the Church of St. Paul, I
not into
observed a layman
know him a private
;
but
bow
to me.
when he spoke
place,'
I
to
me
St.
At
this
was
I
John and first
saying,
'
did
I
Come
remembered him as one of our
brethren in the province of the kingdom, a
We
Brother Giordano of Nola by name. quiet place in the aforesaid church,
man
of letters.
withdrew
and there he
to a
told
me
the reason of his leaving our province his
and of the cause of unfrocking; being excommunication by Fra Domenico
Vita, Provincial at the time. in
many Kingdoms and
at
He
told
me
of his sojournings
Royal Courts and of
his important
* The Trivium or grammar, rhetoric and dialectics, and the Quadrivium, or arithmetic, mathematics, astronomy and music. ' Doc. ix. 3 23oc. xvij.
;
AT VENICE AND PADUA work
but that he had always lived
lecturing,
in
And when
Catholic.
253
and how he subsisted, he said
that he
but a very short time and had his
and that he wished
as
a
asked him what he did in Venice
I
and
to live quietly
had been
own
set
Venice
in
means
sufficient
about the writ-
ing of a book he had in mind, and' then, through important
patronage, he would present
it
to
His Beatitude and obtain
pardon together with satisfaction of conscience
his
he had
told
me
about.
He hoped
himself to literature, to
perhaps, to deliver some lectures." to
have gone frequently
St. Paul, the
for
what
Rome, to devote show what he was made of and, to stay in
During Lent he seems
^
to the noble
church of St. John and
Westminster Abbey of Venice, and also
smaller mediaeval church of S. Stefano which
was
to the
close
by
his quarters.
These
efforts are quite interpretable.
had found no country which was not
The
original thinker
hostile to
new
ideas.
After his stormy experience he sought a haven in the Church to
which he had once given a love which he had never quite
lost,
a church that had ennobled
and even by active help spirit.
Above
all
beloved district
apostacy life
and
;
in
itself
by periods of tolerance
the liberation of the
human own
he desired to be able to return to his
—"to my Province"— without
but, at
the odium of
no price with the renewal of cloistered
discipline.*
Mocenigo as well as
He
says that he confided his desire to
to
Fra Domenico, and " he promised
all
me in all things which were right." Blind belief that men who might appear to be friendly towards him were
no
less sincere
his
own
to help
ideas,
had exercised with host.
and single minded than himself
in
Doc.
Filled with
Venice in the intimacy of guest and teacher
Strozzi gave
the youthful traveller,
Wotton, excellent advice when he ^
1
he relaxed whatever modicum of caution he
X.
told
him *
to
Henry
"keep an
Doc. xvij.
GIORDANO BRUNO
254
open countenance and a shut mouth "^ said far too
much
man
to a
Bruno
in Italy.
of just sufficient intelligence to
misunderstand and misrepresent; one whose
affectation
of a love of learning, friendliness and generosity disguised
a stupid, superstitious mind, a treacherous heart and a
mean, sordid disposition.
Such blindness
well-nigh in-
is
conceivable.
with depraved religious
Either,
zeal,
perhaps at the
Mocenigo had
instigation of the Inquisition,
set a trap for
Bruno and enticed him from Germany to hand him over to the Holy Office when he had accumulated sufficient evidence
or he
;
was
dissatisfied with the lessons
He may have hankered after instruction in and taken a mean revenge when he found
he received.
the Black Art this not to
be
Probably, in any case Mocenigo's confessor
forthcoming.
had something
to
do with his action and took advantage of
the pupil's discontent to egg him on and to direct his pro-
The
cedure.
reader will be able to form his
quisitors
of
me
my
:
"
I
am
Confessor
with so
delaying
my
;
compelled by "
to the In-
my conscience and
and again
^
own surmise
Mocenigo wrote
from the facts to be produced.
:
much forbearance by pardoning my tardy accusation,
I
pray you
my
the order
" Since you have favoured
to
excuse
error in
before
it
was good for I could not get at the whole matter at once ; nor did I know the vileness of the man until I had kept him in my house and then I desired to get the better some two months of him and by my dealings with him could be certain that he would not make off without my knoivledge. Thus I have always assured myself of being able to make him come under This I have succeeded in the censure of the Holy Office. these Illustrious Lords, since
.
.
stretti e
il
.
^
"\ pensieri
intention
viso sciolto,"
Wotton, Sir Hy., Life and
Letters, ed. L. Pearsall Smith, Oxford, 1907, vol. ij, p. 382. "
Doc.
i.
;
AT VENICE AND PADUA doing." fessor,
This looks as
^
had spread the
if
net.
255
Mocenigo, advised by his con-
On
the other hand, his state-
ments are such twistings of truth
;
he was such a double-
dealer and so artful that his desire "to get the better of
Bruno " may have arisen from disappointment and his confession to his spiritual director a means to while his statement to the Inquisitors
dodge
to wriggle out of
spite,
and
that end,
may have been
a
an uncomfortable animadversion of
the Authorities and to set himself right again.
As
a former
Assessor at the sittings of the Inquisition, he had intimate
knowledge of
its
methods and was probably
So shallow a
with them.
in
may have been
soul
sympathy the
mere
obedient instrument of his confessor.
At first things had seemed to go smoothly. At the trial, Bruno volunteered the statement that he confided his desire to be restored to the bosom of the Church to Mocenigo as well as to priests, and that Mocenigo promised to do his
He
best for him.^
could not but be assured, by this time, of
mental poverty of his pupil, but rash and blind as
the
Bruno's expectations were, Mocenigo must have been a master hand at dissimulation.
He
did his best to instruct
a shallow person, expounding what he was engaged more.^
for,
and
Either the pupil wished to dabble in secret arts
which Bruno scorned, or he wished
to
worm
out enough
make a good case for It was a futile attempt. The and never attributed any
evidence concerning the Black Art to the Holy Office to deal with. Nolan " despised conjuration efficacy to
it."
he confessed
He had
not even studied astrology, though
judges that he had told several people
to his
that he wished to examine and see in
it
if
there were anything
should he get the necessary means and leisure and
could find some quiet place; conditions which had never yet
been in his power.* *
Doc.
ij.
^
Doc.
ix.
'
Doc.
vij.
*
Doc.
xiij.
GIORDANO BRUNO
256
Mocenigo, bent on betrayal, went to Ciotto.
had
to be careful,
the
to
Church were
many works
highly objectionable
by
sold quite freely; the State being
no means so subservient to
ecclesiastical authority as to
which added to the riches and
interfere rashly with a trade
reputation of the Commonwealth.
knew something
they
was a somewhat
avocation
their
for
dangerous one, although
Booksellers
Being learned men,
of the contents of their wares.
Ciotto
and Brictanus probably, had Bruno's books on
certainly,
their shelves.
Before the Inquisition such witnesses might
well falter.
they gave their evidence a colour favourable
If
might have
to the prosecution they selling heretical
books
to the accused they
;
if
might find themselves in the same plight
The impression one
with him.
Ciotto and Brictanus quite faithfully
excuse the fact of
to
they were taken to be favourable
is
gets from the evidence of
that they stated
and simply.
Ciotto said
start for the Frankfurt Fair last Easter
Mocenigo found me and asked me
He
said
'
I
He
pense.
what they knew "
:
I was about to when Signor G.
were going
if I
thither.
my
have him (meaning Giordano) here at has promised to teach
me many
things and has
had a quantity of clothes and money from me on account.
can bring him to no conclusion.
I
whether he
is
to Frankfurt, find out
if
anyone has
his promises.' I
this in
By
mind, and do
faith in
reason of
spoke with several scholars
when he was
in
that city
method and discourse. this, that
I
this
doubt
So, since you are going
quite trustworthy.
keep
ex-
him and
me
if
the service to
he will carry out
when I was in Frankfurt who had attended his lectures
this,
and were acquainted with
What
they told
his
me amounted
to
Giordano made strong professions of memory and
other similar secrets, but success with anyone seen,
and
his pupils in this matter
were
far
from
satisfied.
They
and others
said more.
was never
similar to
They
it
did not
AT VENICE AND PADUA
257
know how he could remain in Venice, for he is regarded as a man without reHgion. This is all I gathered, and I told it to Ser Giovanni when I returned from the fair, whereto he replied,
'
also
I
my
had
doubts of
this
what I can draw from him of
out
promised me, not
to lose altogether
and then I shall hand him over to Mocenigo also pumped Office.' " ^
but / wish to find
;
the instructions he has
what I have given him, the censure of the Holy the Flemish bookseller,
Brictanus, and declared that he, " in particular, spoke of
him
him
to me, declaring
and our heresy."
^
to
be an enemy of Christianity
and that he had heard him utter great
faith,
when examined,
Brictanus,
utterly refuted this
statement.*
According step
was
to his
own showing,
denounce Bruno
who
feeble-minded,
set its terrible, remorseless
Bruno seems
in motion.
advised him to
Any
the Inquisition.
to
muddle-headed intriguer could
machinery
the pious patrician's next
consult his confessor,
to
to
have become aware
was brewing. He tried to slip through the was closing in. He considered that he had discharged himself of even more than all the obligations which he owed his host. He told his judges " I therefore that mischief
net which
:
return
resolved to
works
to
Frankfurt and get certain of
Thursday (21st May)
printed, so last
I
my
took leave
of him to go away, and, according to what he said, he believed I
was not going
I
to Frankfurt, but to teach
have taught him and others.
He
insisted
on
my
what
remain-
was equally set on going. He began to comhad not taught him what I promised. Then threats, saying he would find means, if I did not used he remain of my own free-will, to compel me. Next night ing
;
but
I
plain that
I
(Friday), seeing that
had
settled '
Doc.
up V.
my
I
was determined
affairs '
to
and arranged Doc.
i.
go and that for '
the
Doc.
I
transit
vj.
GIORDANO BRUNO
258 of
my
belongings to Frankfurt, after
he came
I
had gone to bed,
on the pretext of wishing to speak
in,
and was followed by
his servant, Bartolo, and, if
whom
not, five or six others,
to
me,
mistake
to be gondoliers
believe
I
I
They made me get up and brought and locked me in Ser Gion himself saying
of the neighbourhood.
me
to a garret
that
memory
of words and geometry as from the
required, he
would have me
very unpleasant
be
seemed I
:
would remain and teach him the terms
if I
me
to
engaged
I
me
I
left
me
there until
to
Holy I
am
me
me
to
him
when another
me
captain
came
to the prisons of the :
"
He
not only
know, but desired to learn what anybody, and has constantly threatened teach
and honour
all I
if I
Mocenigo impounded scripts
did not know,
I
Later on, Bruno declared
to teach
unable
in life
^
would
always
following day,
the
men whom
until night-time,
Office."
it
a cellar in the basement where
with his squadron and brought
wished
that
replied
had taught him enough and more than I was far from deserving such
captain entered with
left
he had
set free, but if not there
results.
and made them take me they
for the
and that
He
treatment.
when a
that
for,
first
did not give
all
him
effected the arrest
knowledge."
^
Bruno's money, clothes, manu-
and books and handed them over
One Matteo Avanta,
my
to the inquisition.
captain under the Council of Ten,
and removed him
Inquisition, behind the walls of the
to the Prison of the
Prison, to the
west
of the Bridge of Sighs and facing the Ducal Palace.
For
on that very day.
May
23rd, Mocenigo
had denounced
his
guest to His Very Reverend Paternity, the Father Inquisitor for Venice.
The There
small-brained is
man
is
usually crafty and malicious.
abundance of stupid misunderstanding,
artful
perversion and odious fabrication in the three documents ^
Boc.
vij.
»
Doc. xiv.
;;
AT VENICE AND PADUA
259
His Very Reverend Paternity.
successively submitted to
Statements which are obviously truthful are twined with others less obviously
skilfully inter-
The
false.
document informs us that the Nolan "
first
precious
various times
at
when he has talked with me at home said that Catholics are much to blame in holding that bread becomes flesh that he is an enemy of the Mass that no religion pleases him; that Christ was a wretch; that he might very well ;
being hanged, since he did evil to seduce the
foretell his
people; that there
is
no distinction of Persons
which would be an imperfection and that there are
makes
infinities
infinite worlds,
and
that
God unceasingly
because he wills as much as he can
that Christ worked^ miracles
God,
in
that the world is eternal
;
(s/c)
appearance and was a
in
magician; the same of the Apostles, and that he might
be given the mind to do as much and more
shewed he was unwilling as he could;
that
that souls, created
one animal
there
the
name
and
long
sins,
and
even as brute beasts are
that,
who
New
Philosophy
are born again after
form a new
set forth a design to
of the
that Christ off as
by the operation of nature, pass from
to another,
He
;
it
no punishment of
is
born of corruption, so are men, deluges.
and put
to die,
sect,
under
said the Virgin could
;
not have brought forth a child, and that our Catholic faith is
full
of blasphemy against the Majesty of
God
;
that the
disputes and revenues of friars should be stopped, because
they befoul the earth; that they are doctrines asinine
;
that
we have no
all
asses and their
proof that our faith
is
endorsed by God, and that to abstain from doing to others
what we are unwilling they should do to us a good life that he is in favour of all other ;
it is
a marvel
God endures
so
many
enough
sins,
for
and that
heresies of Catholics
he says he desires to apply himself the world would follow him ; that St.
is
to divination,
and
all
Thomas (Aquinas) and
:
GIORDANO BRUNO
26o the doctors
all
the
knew
nothing, and that he could enlighten
theologians in the world so that they would be
first
Mocenigo then says that Bruno
unable to reply."
Rome had
the Inquisitors at
prepared
1
him
told
30 charges, and that
he made off while they were being presented because he
was
said to
have thrown
his accuser, or
He
believed to be such, into the Tiber.*
him
whom
he
adds that Ciotto,
He
Brictanus and Morosini can confirm his statements. believes trial,
Bruno
is
possessed by a devil, asks for a speedy
and presents three printed works by the accused and
a manuscript on the Deduction of the Universal Predicates of
God
2
and certain hasty memoranda made by
himself.*
Searching questions would seem to have been put to the
Denouncer, for another statement, dated the 25th May, runs "
On
the day
he would
when
fulfil
unwilling to teach
ness and
held Bruno locked up,
I
me
many wicked words
my many
in return for
so that
gifts,
to
!
if
acts of kind-
against our Lord Jesus Christ
and the Holy Catholic Church." piece of self-revelation
asked him
might not accuse him of so
I
me
I
what he proved
his promises concerning
The
Truly an astounding
short-witted
man
discloses,
not only avarice, but the hypocrisy of his religious zeal, in
no dread of the Inquisition, in
The
weighing his coppers against his Christianity.
precious document continues
his
way
it
to
me
and, even
without
if
way, and, even
if
'
so,
he had
and
present,
could injure him in that
he should be handed over to the Inquisi-
they could only force him to resume his habit.
you were a monk,' said •
I
had
not recall having said
he had done
any witness being
therefore he did not fear that
tion,
replied that he
he had offended no one
for
of living and could
anjrthing wicked;
said
He
"
:
I.
He
Compare Cotin's statement, page Not known to exist.
replied,
'
I
'
So
only took the
35. »
Doc.
i.
1
AT VENICE AND PADUA and
first habit,
therefore, in
that he had been a
how Bruno hardly
lied
concerning the
with Bruno's
tallies
wearing the
if
can readily adjust
I
how Bruno
final
own account many priests
followed up with,
And how
'
you do not believe
had con-
that he
as to his getting to live in peace, rule.^
can you adjust your
affairs
the most
in
Holy Trinity
;
say such wicked things of our Lord Jesus Christ hold our souls to be
made of
filth
You must
the rest will be easy
;
needs
and,
first
me
if
you
if
you
in the
on several
adjust your opinions, and
you wish,
if
;
and everything
world to be guided by Fate, as you have told occasions ?
and
it
under monastic
habit, but not
clerical
let slip
at
and irrevocable vow
and being allowed
to the Apostolic Chair
I
case,
monk, how Mocenigo caught
sulted his host as well as
"
any
This dramatic account of
matters.'"
26
will give
I
you
all
you may know that, although you have word and been so ungrateful for all my kindness, I still wish in every way to be your friend.' At this he only prayed me to set him free if he had packed his things and told me he wished to leave, he did not mean the aid
I
can, that
so broken your
;
it,
I
but wished to bridle
my
impatience to be taught, wherein
perpetually tormented him, and,
liberty,
he would teach
me
disclose the secret of all his
if
he knew
all
works
to
would
I ;
set
him
at
moreover, he would
me
alone
;
also, that
he meditated writing others, which should be beautiful and exceptional
than what house,
it
thing to
which
I
Seals of
;
my
he would be
had given
I
should be mine, for
me
:
all
slave with no further reward
and,
;
if I
in
wanted
every
he wanted was a
little
he had in
all
way he owed
my
every-
book of conjurations
among his writings."^ This was "The Hermes and Ptolomy" which Albertus Magnus,
found
universal doctor of the Church speaks about and which
Besler copied at *
Doc.
ix.
Padua
for '
Bruno,
Doc.
ij.
who had
not yet read '
Doc. xiv.
it.^
;
CHAPTER
XVIII
THE TRIAL
The
evil lead
given in the fourth century by the fifteen
ineffective edicts against
pire into unity
Em-
heresy in order to weld the
and protect
it
against those blind, scarcely
conscious centrifugal forces which were apt to fight under the
more
legible ensigns of religious differences persisted
throughout the Middle Ages.
But
it
was not
until
Thirteenth Century that an organised Inquisition instituted
was
and the Church, holding the keys of heaven and
hell at its girdle
and conscious of the duty of maintaining
own supremacy and some sort of unity in Europe, with free authority and made a systematic attempt to
its
opinion.
the first
Its
acted fetter
proceedings became secret and mysterious
the victim disappeared as
if
the earth had silently swallowed
was only apparent when he was restored to the public gaze in a procession of priests and godly men conducting him to the stake. Written accusations were him, and the issue
accepted of anyone, and, while the accused might
demand
a written account of the charges brought against him, the
names
of the accuser and of witnesses
were with-held.^
After a period of greater tolerance, at the instigation of
Don
Inigo
Lopez de Recalde, better known as Ignatius
Loyola, founder of the order of Jesuits and a
man
wholly
devoted to the service of God, Paul III yielded to the entreaties of Cardinal Inquisition, 2 1st July, ^
Bulls
of
Innocent
Carafa and instituted the
Roman
1542, on the improved, severe and IV,
Cum Negocium
accepimus. 262
and
Licet
sicui
THE TRIAL searching Spanish model.
few months of
It is
263
noteworthy that within a
event Copernicus published his sub-
this
versive theory and set afoot the long
and Orthodoxy,^ dedicating
war between Science
his book, with quite unconscious
irony, to the Pope.
The Roman and
terrible.
became more and more
Inquisition
On
Oct. 21st,
1567, Carnesecchi,
active
who had
published no books but had expressed his opinions to friends,
was beheaded and
his
On July 3rd,
body burned.
four years of imprisonment, Antonio Paleario
and
his
1570, after
was
strangled
body burned because he sympathised with Protestants
beyond the Alps and declared that
it
was unlawful for The Roman
the
save only
the
Vicar of Christ to put heretics to death. quisition
triumphed
throughout
Italy,
Republic of Venice, which would not allow
and jealously watched such
territory
it
why Bruno
its
own
encroach-
spiritual
This
independence.
In-
to enter its
ments of the Ruler of the Papal States, wherein ceived a menace to
in
is
it
per-
probably
thought himself safe in Venice.
At Venice
there sat with the Inquisitors the Patriarch,
invariably a patriot, and at least one of three Savii all' eresia,
Assessors of the State,
year and
who were under
himself usually a just and
Roman
Inquisition, the
officials
were sworn
who were changed every
the direction of the Governor,
humane man.
whole Court and
all
While, in the witnesses and
to secrecy, here, the representatives of
the State were compelled to reveal the proceedings to the
Doge and Senate, and had ceedings
if
secret instructions
The Court could
^
De Orbium
'
Doc.
if
had been received from the Government.
not be opened without the formal sanction of
an Assessor being given
xiii,
the power to suspend the pro-
Venetian laws were not wholly respected or
;
^
and torture was rarely
applied.^
Ccelestium Revolutionibus,
prcemial.
^
Berti
;
Vita di G. B., capitolo xv.
GIORDANO BRUNO
264 It is
believed that, at that time, the Inquisitors
met at the
Patriarchal Palace on the opposite side of the Rio di Palazzo to the prison
and a
higher up.
little
They
sat under the
presidency of the Patriarch.
On
Tuesday, 26th May, 1592, the Holy Tribunal met to The judges were-^Laurentio consider the case of Bruno. Priuli,
who had been Venetian Ambassador
the Patriarch,
at Paris during Bruno's first visit, ten years before,
who may have heard
him there
of or even seen
vico Taberna, the ^Apostolic Nuncio, ^the
^
;
and
Ludo-
Very Reverend
Father Giovanni Gabrielle of Saluzzo, and^Aloysio Fuscari the Assessor.
having been sworn, gave evidence
Ciotto,
which, so far as his direct knowledge of Bruno went, was
But he had heard the prisoner spoken
wholly favourable. ill
That was
of at Frankfurt.
cerning Giordano
;
if
was customary he was sworn It
all
he knew or could say con-
he knew more he would to silence
tell
As
it.
and the Court
rose.
did not reassemble until Friday, the 29th, and
composed of the same members as years (he
was
except hearsay.
37),
knew nothing
Brictanus, the
Ciotto
by twelve
at all of Bruno's views
After adjournment for the mid-day meal,
Bruno was brought
The Clerk
before.
man than
Flemish bookseller, an older
was
He had
in.
lain three
of the Court describes
days in
his cell.
him as of ordinary
height,
chestnut-coloured beard, and looking his age, about 40. Ciotto
had described him as little,
We
know from
slenderly-built, with a black beard.
Eglin and Alsted that he accompanied his
he had the Admonished to
earnest and rapid speech with lively gestures
changing expression of a Southern
Italian.
;
tell
the truth before cross-examination, he burst out, "
tell
the truth.
Office
and
I
Often have
deemed
it
a joke
an account of myself."
commenced
I
;
so
Then,
that story of his
I
shall
been threatened with the Holy
life
I
in
am quite ready to answer
furnish
to questions,
he
and wanderings which has
:
THE TRIAL in these chapters, until " the
been incorporated late,
when he was
warning."
265 hour was
sent back to his place with the usual
1
The Inquisitor required Mocenigo to furnish more matter he must write down " with extreme carefulness all that Bruno had said against our Catholic faith." The document is a subtle commingling of truth with
Dated the
its distortion.
same day of Bruno's first examination, it affirms that Bruno had pronounced the priesthood degenerate from Apostolic practice, " manifesting violence
The world could
heretics.
Truly the Catholic religion was more acceptable
religion.
to
and not love towards
not remain in ignorance and without a good
him than others
world would take
;
but
its
continue so corrupt.
needed much reform.
Soon
reform on
could not
all
own
itself, for it
He hoped much
the
from the King of
Navarre, and therefore he was anxious to publish his works
and get
credit
for himself
;
would lead that coming
time.
He
would not always be poor, but would enjoy the goods of
There
others.
time, since
is
greater ignorance than ever
men now
namely that God
is
to
is
impossible and
When
I
told
be silent and hasten on with what he had to do for
me, because
I
was a Catholic and he a Lutheran, and I Oh, you will see what your
could not abide him, he replied, faith will
when
afore-
teach what they do not understand,
a Trinity, which
blasphemous against the Majesty of God.
him
was
do
'
for you,' and, laughing,
the dead shall arise
righteousness.'
And on
you
'
await the Judgment,
will get the
reward of your
another occasion, he
Republic has a reputation for great wisdom
;
said,
'This
should deal
it
with the monastic revenues in the French manner; there the nobles enjoy the monastic revenues and the friars live
on broth.
The
friars of to-day are all asses,
them enjoy so much wealth ^
is
Doc.
a great sin." vii.
and
to let
(This stroke
;
GIORDANO BRUNO
266 was him
certain to
well
" Also he told
tell.)
me
that ladies pleased
but he had not yet reached Solomon's number
;
the Church sinned in making a wickedness of that which
was
and which,
of great service in Nature,
highly meritorious."
was
in his view,
*
Next day, Saturday 30th May, Bruno was again fetched from prison. The Apostolic Nuncio was represented by his vicar, tell
Dom
Bruno, having been sworn to
Livio Passero.^
and
the truth, continued the concise, matter of faqt
straightforward story of his
making a natural mistake
life,
here and there about the length of time he stayed at this or Parenthetically, he observes that he does not
that place.
endorse
all
the
works he has written
repeats later on, adding
:
"
I
—a statement which he
have uttered myself and handled
matters too philosophically, wrongly, not sufficiently after the
manner of a good
Christian, and, in particular,
I
have
taught and maintained in some of these works philosophical doctrines concerning what, according to the Christian faith,
should be attributed to the power, wisdom and goodness of
my
God; founding
doctrine on
reason and not on faith." reply to a question details,
recollect
I
will
look
He
" This
:
up
my
sensible
experience and
goes on to say, probably in
is
a general observation
writings
;
for
I
cannot
any particular passages or teaching; but I come back to me.'' ^
reply to questions as they shall gather, then, that he
books.
;
for
now will
We
was allowed to refer to the seized was given the customary
After a lengthy sitting, he
serious warning
and taken back
to his cell.
Next day the officers of the Inquisition obtained a deposition from Fra Domenico which confirmed Bruno's statements about their conversation together.
The Court
sat again
on the 2nd June, another State Assessor, one Sebastian *
Doc. via.
^
Cigogna
;
Iscrizioni Venete,
iv, p.
417.
=
Doc.
ix.
;
THE TRIAL
267
Barbadico, giving the requisite permission and watching
Bruno furnished a complete list of his works, and drew the attention of his judges to the fact that, as the case.
their
and contents should prove, they were purely
titles
We
see that he still believed that "judicious theologians " would recognise the validity of the claim of philosophical.
and independent enquiry, "provided
the intellect to free it
does not dispute divine authority but submits to
demand
Putting into practice his
he set forth his deepest convictions with manly sincerity, "
and pluck.
I
chiefly considering
its
hght; not
what must be held according
believe that nothing can be found
I
spirit
have ever expounded philosophically and
according to the principles of Nature and by
and
it."^
for " philosophic freedom,"
to Faith
by which
I
can
be judged rather to animadvert on religion than to uphold philosophy
although
;
have
I
may have
I
matter occasioned by
my own
set forth
much impious
natural light.
.
.
.
Never
taught anything directly contrary to the Catholic
was judged to have done so indirectly I was allowed to maintain certain discussions entitled 'A Hundred and Twenty Articles against the Peripatetic School and other commonly accepted Philosophers ; and this was printed by permission I was allowed to expound on natural of the Authorities. Religion, although
I
at Paris, where, indeed,
'
principles without prejudice to truth in the light of faith, in
which way one can read and teach the works of Aristotle
and Plato
;
for they are indirectly contrary to the faith in
—
same manner much more so, in fact, than the philosophy I propounded and defended, the whole of which the very
is
expounded
and
entitled
in part,
may
De
in
my
last Latin
books published at Frankfurt
De Minimo, De Monade and De Immenso, Compositione.
In these
be specifically read, which »
is,
Cjr. Causa, Dial.
my
object
in a
IV.
word
and,
and doctrine :
I
hold the
; ;
GIORDANO BRUNO
268
universe to be infinite as result of the infinite divine power for I think
it
unworthy of divine goodness and power
have produced merely one
finite
world when
worlds
like
regard
I
with Pythagoras, as a
it,
and the moon, the planets and the stars are similar
star,
the latter being of endless number.
it,
to
have
I
an endless number of individual
is
our earth.
to
was able
Wherefore
bring into being an infinity of worlds.^
expounded that there
it
make an whole
of worlds
infinity
in infinite space,
an
to
All these bodies
they constitute the infinite
;
infinite universe, that is to say,
So
containing innumerable worlds.
that there is
an
infinite
measure in the universe and an infinite multitude of worlds.
But
this
may
be indirectly opposed to truth according to
the faith. "
Within
this
universe
whereby everything
And
perfection.
I
place a universal Providence,
I
grows, acts and abides in
lives,
understand
after the fashion of the spirit in the
whole body and
this in
a two-fold
which
is
This
The
Nature, the shadow and record of the Divine.
manner as
spirit,
"
Now,
is in all
I
understand
call
other
which God, an essence,
and above
all,
not as part, not
all
attributes to be
mind"
(intuitive
intellect
;
I
power, wisdom and goodness
Power), "comprehension and Love.
Things are through mind through
one and the same
with theologians and the greatest thinkers,
conceive of three attributes
tinct
in
I
but unspeakably.
in Deity, and,
or,
way
the inconceivable
is
presence and power,
its
one,
:
completely present
every part thereof.
in
way
;
;
they are ordered and are dis-
they are in harmonious proportion
through universal love, in
all
and above
There
all.
is
nothing that doth not shine in being, any more than anything
is
beautiful without the presence of beauty
;
wherefore
nothing can exist shorn from the divine presence. ^
Cfr. Infinito,
Proem. Epist.
But
;
THE TRIAL made by
distinctions in the Divinity are
Thought and are not
cursive
"
I
tradictory, as St.
to call
Thomas
as external or in time,
all
it
explains.
all is
the method of Dis-
reahty.
understand, with Aristotle, that
on the First Cause, so that
is
269
the effect
which exists depends
a creation
not con-
is
Whether understood of the first Cause and
not independent."
Bruno
Virgil,
endeavours to reconcile the doctrine of the
That
Trinity with his j^ilosophy. characteristic
which the Church
Power ; the Son or the Word the Holy Spirit is love the
is
—
gration."
Father
is
Will or
the intellect, understanding of the universe, the Soul that has
all
and bodies, are immortal as
All things,
life.
to their substance,^ nor
any other death than
there
is
attribute or essential
calls the
life
of the World, " whence issues souls
by quotations from Holy
next, supporting himself
Writ and
dispersion
and
re-inte-
^
Asked
he held Father, Son and Spirit to be
if
One
in
Essence but distinct Persons, he replied that he had doubted in private
concerning the distinct personalities of the two
Indeed
latter.
Augustine
to
term
the
be
new
in
Person was
his time.
by
declared
He had
doubted
St. the.
doctrine from his eighteenth year, but had never denied, or taught or written against
it.
Asked
if
he had doubts
concerning the First Person, he replied " Never "
always held the doctrine of the regard.
In
answer
doubted and wrestled
to
interrogatories,
in spirit
:
he had
faithful Christian in that
he
said
he had
concerning the incarnation,
but had never doubted that the Son was one in essence ^
He
would seem
to use the
term substance
in
logical sense to express substrate or the ingredient,
its
Aristotelian,
one knows not
what, of concrete being as such, and not in the scholastic sense of the nature of the individual thing. '
Cfr.
De minimo,
monade, IV.
I,
i,
v.
4;
De immenso, VIII, x; De
;
GIORDANO BRUNO
270
with the First Person, while the Spirit,
was not
essence,
if
indistinct as to
inferior, since all the attributes of
He
are also those of Son and Spirit.
God
had merely quoted
the opinions of Arius in his youth at Naples as being those of Arius.
The
come
time had
to adjourn for the
Bruno was taken back
his
to
cell
mid-day meal and
after
the
invariable
warning.
On
reassembling the Nuncio was represented by his
May
Vicar, as he had been on
much works
and the Patriarch by
matter might be extracted from his
objectionable ;
30th,
Questioned, Bruno repeated his admission that
his Vicar.
but never had he impugned the Catholic
had always claimed
He
faith.
reason by natural intelligence and
to
He had
not as a theologian.^
reasoned philosophically
and had merely quoted the heretical opinions of others. He repeated that he had gravely doubted the Word becom-
The examination being pushed he
ing flesh.
make
clearer
what
believed that there
the
Word and
in
said this morning,
I
;
we speak
dread when
we
are obliged
Old or
New
the Divine
; '
'
we
the Divine Spirit
is
but
to grasp the three being really
Augustine says,
said
:
"
To
have held and
a distinct Godhead in the Father, in
is
Love, which
Essence, these three are one
it.
I
I
Persons and have doubted
utter the
name
of Person with
of divine matters, and use
nor have
Testament."
Word was
I
and, in
;
have never been able
it
because
found the term applied in the
As
to the Incarnation,
he thought
present in the humanity of Christ
but he could never comprehend the union of the Infinite
Real with the one single ineffable
finite in
reality,
manner
the
way
thereof,
which body and soul are
and never as
Scripture which declares the 1
in
but had swayed to and fro as to the
Cp. Causa,
to the authority of
Word was made
Dial. Ill
;
Eroici, Dial. I,
flesh i.
and
is
1:
THE TRIAL
27
Pressed he said
SO in the Blessed Sacrament.
ing theologically, Divinity could not be
human
except as supporting
it
that,
speak-
united with the
he did not
{assistentid), but
was not divine. As to miracles, he held them to be genuine witnesses to the Divinity but a yet greater witness was the law of the
infer that Christianity
;
He had
Gospel.
Church
always accepted the doctrines of the
as to transubstantiation,^
and had shown
his respect
Mass by absenting himself therefrom, he being exHe had never held the opinions of Protestants or sat at their Communion table or discussed anything but pure Philosophy with them, whereby they deemed him to be a man without a religion. He was asked concerning the statements of Mocenigo that he had denied Christ's divinity and asserted him to have been a malefactor, the author's name being withheld. for the
communicate.
"
marvel," he exclaimed, " that you should ask such a
I
Never did
question. Christ.
him."
say or think such a thing about
believe as
very sorrowful conceive
"
and, returning to the subject
how such
that Christ
when
I
Holy Mother Church does concerning The document relates how, " as he said this he grew I
was
:
things can be imputed to me."
"
I
cannot
He
the contrary should be proved of him, he
submit to any penalty.
He
would
believed in the Sacrament of
Penitence and the damnation of such as die in mortal
sin.
had repeatedly tried to be absolved and accepted by
He
the Church. souls,
"
I
have held and
still
hold the immortality of
which are kinds of existence specially due to sub-
stance.^
1
held
begotten, by the Spirit, of a Virgin-mother
That
is to
say, speaking Catholically, the intellec-
Cfr. the statement in Cotin's diary,
sub Dec. 7th 1586, quoted on
p. 185.
"He Doc.
xi.
uses the scholastic
term substanhae subsistentiae.
Cfr.
GIORDANO BRUNO
272
tual soul does not pass
from body to body, but goes to
Paradise, Purgatory, or Hell
but
;
I
have thought deeply,
as a Philosopher, how, since the soul does not exist without
body and does not
exist in the body,
it
may
pass from body
to
body even as matter may pass from mass
if
not true, bears a close resemblance to the opinion of
Pythagoras."
It
is
to
mass ; which,
obvious that he would claim for the
initiated the right to hold theological doctrine in
sense from that in which the uninitiated take
Whereupon you a
the Court puts the sardonic question
skilled
theologian
Answer
decisions ? "
:
on
" Are
:
and acquainted with Catholic
" Not much,'- having pursued philo-
sophy, which has been scorn
a different
it.
theologians ?
my avocation." Had he poured No on the contrary, he had ;
condemned Protestant teachings so far as they departed from those of Rome, and had always upheld the theologians of the Church, St.
Thomas Aquinas
before
He had
all.
read heretical books and animadverted on them.
As
to
the doctrine of good works, he quoted passages from his
own faith,
writings,
which maintained that works, no
were necessary
precise page,
it is
to
salvation.
less
than
Since he gave the
evident that the books lay on the table
or that he was allowed them in his cell for the preparation of his defence.^
Had he
said that
monks
to those of the apostles ?
did not
make
their lives
conform
'"I have said nothing of the
and therewith," says the Inqui" he threw up his hands and was agitated
kind, nor held that view,' sitorial record,
because such questions were asked of him."
The judge-prosecutors pushed him hard with Mocenigo's Bruno
charges, which they brought forward one by one.
1 It is true. Later in the examination he attributes to Joachim of Flora a doctrine which Joachim expressly repudiated. J- The Causa is erroneously inserted for the Spaccio in the MS.
;
THE TRIAL remembered
saying
example,
preaching,
the
that
273 and
miracles of the Apostles effected more than the Church's
appeal to force to-day does
;
but his works showed that
he supported the discipline of the Church against heresy. Closely pressed as to the different method of the Church in Apostolic times, he replied that perhaps hearts were harder
and
to-day,
so,
although there were exemplary Christians,
our wicked and perverse generation would not
Asked
if
both hands and cried out these devilries ?
O God
!
what
I
"
:
What
is this ?
I
The
gibe concerning the Last
:
My
are profane enough it
Asked as
him was
to I
Lord, look through ;
my
entered
my
books.
head."
he had spoken of fornication as it
in frivolous
had never blamed the Church- for
code, but accepted
its
They
but you will not find a trace of this
to carnal sin,
He
then
have never said
the smallest of such sins and joked about
company.
invented
would rather be dead than have
said anything of the kind."
these things.
Who
is this ?
have never even thought such a thing.
Judgment which Mocenigo attributed " brought up, and Bruno exclaimed
nor has
listen.
Christ wrought his miracles by magic, he raised
Bruno
the subject, the Court then informed
its
moral
Changing
teaching on the subject.
that he
must
not be surprised at the questions which were asked, for he
had dwelt
in
heretical countries,
had had many dealings
Such was
with heretics and had attended their sermons. their
comprehension of the impressionability and lack of
personal force of the great original thinker before them
He
had admitted,
the}' said,
against him credible.
take heed and
make
enough
to
make
These were enumerated. full,
open and
!
the allegations
Let him
faithful confession in
order to be received into the bosom of Holy Mother Church
and be made a member of Jesus a marvel
if
Christ.
But
it
would be
persistence in his obstinate denial did not lead S
:
GIORDANO BRUNO
274
The Holy
usual end of the impenitent.
to the
desirous of bringing to the light, by love, those
piety and Christian
who were in darkness, and way to the straight path
of deliverance from
the crooked last
it
was
must have been
tightening.
" every
clear,
of eternal
my answers my memory has
satisfaction, I will again
At
life.
even to Bruno, that the noose
So may God pardon me," he
"
one of
so far as
was
Office
its
replied,
every question has been true
to
me
served
my
pass
;
life
my
but, for
greater
in review, and, if
I
have said or done anything against the Catholic Christian Faith,
I will
and
true,
I
frankly confess
shall never be
have said what
I
it.
shall continue to say
I
it.
proved against me."
is
and
just
am certain the contrary He put a vastly dif-
on the Catholic Christian Faith and
ferent interpretation
what he had written about
it
to that of the
Church
itself.
Next day (June 3rd) the Court reassembled, the Patriarch and Nuncio being again represented by their vicars. The interrogatories of the previous
Bruno was asked
the charges indicated. fasts,
day were again read over and
he were guilty with regard to any of
if
He
replied that he
which were not kept by
had indeed broken
heretics, for
he did not know
when among CathoHcs
the appointed days except
he had had scruples, but punctilious observance would have excited
ridicule.
He was
should adhere to
:
of opinion that every faithful Catholic the
Calendar
but he called
;
God
to
witness that he had not offended in this respect because of
He
despising such observances.
sermons of Protestants out of
had never sat with heretics
had
attended
the
intellectual
curiosity,
and
at
their breaking of bread
or at their other usages.
Pushed on
"Wherein
I
will
I
have erred,
never find that this
Catholics
in
those
parts
this point
he replied
have told the truth, and you
is
not so.
who drop
There are plenty of their
observances without becoming heretics."
own
religious
Cross-examined
THE TRIAL
275
concerning the divinity and birth of Christ, he repeated his former statement, adding, " told
you,
I
what
I
have held,
never talked on the subject.
admissions to clear
my
I
have
volunteered
I
Frankly, the doctrine
conscience."
of the infinite nature and infinite humanity of Christ could
not be understood in the same
and mind
in the
way
as the unity of body
He was
one individual.
far
with Joachim of Flora in understanding the
from being
human
nature
of Christ as a quaternity, additional to the Trinity.*
whole subject was one bristling with
difficulties,
and,
The how-
ever fallacious his premises might be, he had not fallen into heretical conclusions.
Pressed as to his having derided the
Miraculous, Christ and the
Sacraments, he repeated his
former denials and referred his judges to his Latin poem,
which would show that he had done justice to the Clergy.
He had
never held that
though he had quoted Epicurus writings. but,
;
man was the
of purely animal origin,
opinions
Lucretius
of
and
nor could such a charge be drawn from his
He
had contempt
nonetheless,
still
and the
for conjuration
like
;
study judicial astrology.
desired to
Never had he taught that the world is governed by Fate and not by God's providence nay, he had always held that there is a Divine Providence and that the will is True he had praised free, which is the antithesis of Fate. ;
heretics
and
not for
their religious opinions
their
princes for their ;
human
virtues, but
moreover, the praise of
Cross-questioned about is demanded by etiquette. King of Navarre, he said that when conversation turned on that monarch he had expressed his belief that
Princes the
was made with an eye to the He had seen but did not know him or his ministhrone. ters ; but he had said that, if the new monarch followed
his profession of heresy
the edicts of his predecessors, permission might be obtained ^
Bruno was
in error
;
Joachim did not hold
this view.
GIORDANO BRUNO
276 him (Bruno)
for
to lecture publicly,
With regard
had allowed.
to his
he neglected to point out that
the wealth of others
recollection
wished to be " captain "
and secure
II divus.
was no martial
his
;
he had called her diva
He had no
he had also called Rudolf of having said that he
if
which the former king
compliment to Elizabeth,
what he wanted was not wealth but
disposition,
to follow
and
philosophy
and the sciences.
Throughout the day, the Court had repeated,
in
varied
forms, questions which had been asked before and to which It was now demanded of him if he abjured and hated his heresies. Bruno answered " I hate and detest all the errors I have at any time committed as regards the Catholic Faith and decrees of Holy Church, and I repent having done,
the prisoner had surely replied sufficiently.
:
held,
said,
believed
or
doubted
anything
Catholic.
I
Holy Tribunal that, aware of my infirmity, it admit me into the bosom of the Church, providing me
pray will
this
with remedies proper to salvation and shewing mercy."
We
shall see
The
how he
received both.
facts as to his flight
from Naples were
from him, and he was removed to his
At a short
sitting the
now extracted
cell.
next day, whereat the Nuncio and
Patriarch themselves were present with the Father Inqui-
and the State-Assessor, Barbadico, the evidence was read over to Bruno who replied that it was accurately sitor
reported and he had nothing to add. tion,
Asked about Divina-
he explained about the transcription found among his
belongings.
Asked
if
he had an enemy, he replied he
could think of none, except Mocenigo, against whose truculent and vindictive behaviour he inveighed, exposing
he supposed to be '
Doc. xiv.
its
The examination
ix, xi, xij, xii]\ xiv, xvij.
what
cause.^ of Bruno
is
given in Berti, Docs,
vij,
;
THE TRIAL
277
was not until three weeks later that the judges reThomas Morosini now representing the State. The prisoner was not brought before the Court, but the It
assembled,
entirely favourable deposition of the distinguished patrician
and scholar, Andrea Morosini was taken. called
and confirmed Bruno's statement
to present a
book he was writing
After two tedious months
in
to the
was
Ciotto
that he intended
Pope
in person.^
a prison-cell, doubly lacerat-
ing to a spirit so enamoured of freedom and so restless,
not to speak of the doubt and dread which would attend
any
solitary prisoner of the Inquisition,
Bruno was brought
again before the same authorities as on the last occasion
He was
with the addition of a second State-Assessor.
asked better.
if,
having had time
he could
to reflect,
No, he had nothing to add.
that his protracted
tell
the truth
He was
informed
and contumacious apostasy placed him
under the grave suspicion of the Holy Chair (so there had
been communications with the Pope and Curia).
Perhaps
was more than appeared behind the statements he made. He must purge his conscience. The prisoner had replied that his confessions and writings were indeed such as to rouse suspicions of heresy he had always felt rethere
;
morse and wished
to
amend
his ways, wherefore he
sought a less irksome path than that of returning
had
to strict
monastic rule and had hoped to make himself acceptable to
His Holiness, so as
Catholic priest.
to live in
more freedom, yet as a
There had been no
slight
the Faith, but dread of the rigours of the
love of liberty.
But, he
was
told,
intended to
Holy
Office
and
" had your desire been
sincere you would not have lived so long in France
and
other Catholic countries and here in Venice without having
consulted some prelate
and
;
whereas you went on teaching
up
heretical doctrine *
to
now."
Docs. XV, XV].
Bruno
false
referred the
—
;
GIORDANO BRUNO
278
judges to his deposition to prove that he had indeed conHis conduct in sulted prelates and Catholic Fathers.
Venice had been without fault
he had discussed philo-
;
sophy with many patricians, as his judges might ascertain he he had expressed his disapproval of Protestantism ;
;
designed to be absolved so as to
among
the
monks
of his
native
live,
but not cloistered,
He
province.
believed
Being
Mocenigo, and he alone of men, was his accuser.
told that he had been so long time an apostate and dwelt
so
many
years
among
heretics that he might easily be 'a
wicked man, wherefore he must prepare to purge his conscience, he replied that
it
might be he had erred more than he
could recollect, but truly, though he had thoroughly searched
He had
himself for faults, he could not find them.
confessed
all
readily
he knew of; he was in their Lordships' hands
he did not know what the needful penalty might be ; he was ready with his soul to receive
it.
His great scheme of getting the ear of an enlightened
Pope through high influence and the presentation of an explanatory and illuminating book had
many
attempts
to
reconcile
failed, like all his
with
himself
Church.
the
Traitorously delivered to the Inquisition, at
first
he
felt
was convinced of his own integrity and blindly self-assured of his own essential Catholicity.
little
or no fear, for he
But now he
felt
with the
"All
I
Theban King can touch
Is falling, falling
round me, and o'erhead
Intolerable destiny descends."
He his
cast himself on the
mercy of the
Inquisition.
knees he humbly demanded pardon of
Court. public
Falling on
God and
the
Might any punishment be given privately, and disgrace not
If his life
attach
to
the
habit he
were spared he promised so
to
had
reform
worn. it
as to
THE TRIAL outbalance
all
him
and asked
to
to rise
reveal.
previous stain.
The Sacred Tribunal ordered
he had thought of anything more
There was nothing.^
again removed to his to dine.
if
cell to
This was the
279
last
appearance of Bruno before the
Venetian Inquisition. '
So the prisoner was
meditate and the judges went
Doc. xvij.
CHAPTER XIX BRUNO AND THE INQUISITORS. THE REPUBLIC AND THE POPE Let
us pause to examine a
more closely the conduct
little
of the Inquisition, and the line taken by the prisoner.
Like the proceedings of the Venetian Three, those of the Inquisition
were shrouded
in secrecy
and
silence,
and the
Court was shielded by the terror which it inspired.' Every witness, every official was muzzled by a sacred oath.
Morosini in his history makes no mention of Bruno.
The judges allowed
their prisoner
of proving his innocence
fell
The onus
no advocate.^
on him alone
;
but he had
no means of communicating with the outer world
the
;
names of his accuser and of witnesses were withheld from him,' and he was given no opportunity of cross-examining the witnesses, who were heard and questioned by the Court His prosecutors were his judges, and they were pastonly. masters in the art of luring the victim on until he made some
fatal
fessed
admission. the
that
They were
sufferings
of
ecclesiastics
our mortal
life
who
pro-
weigh as
nothing compared with eternal blessedness or the tortures " Eternum servans sub pectore vulnus," of the damned.
gave
Eternal
Justice
humaner
instincts
and
authority for
the
suppression
of
for loosing those primitive instincts
Lea, J. C Hist, of Inquis. in Spain, 1906, vol. ij, p. 470. Masini, Eliseo Sacro Arsenate, ovvero Pratica dell' officio della Santa Inquisizione, Bologna, 1665. 1
'
• Bulls of
;
;
Innocent IV,
Cum negooium 280
and Licet
sicut accepimus.
1
BRUNO AND THE INQUISITORS of cruel absolutism heartily aroused
and crushing
in the
retaliation
to
which are so
most cultured minds when some
darling prejudice or wonted privilege
Yet the Court seems
28
is
assailed.
have acted with caution and with
honest intention, according to
The
lights.
its
inquisitors
practically restricted their enquiry to the charges contained in
Mocenigo's denunciations and conducted
moderation as was usual
it
with as
much
in the civil courts of the period.
The Court was more painstaking than is many a modern Court of Justice. The case presented difficult points, so the prisoner's
philosophical
doctrines
were
The judges would for this
skimmed
lightly
Perhaps they were "merely put aside
over.
for the present.
naturally be perplexed, and
it
may be
reason that they communicated with Rome.^
unlike the rebel-churches, the heretrix of Imperial
For,
Rome
has always secured by organization and subordination that ministers shall deal only with those matters in which
its
they are fully competent.
On
the whole, the depositions
carefully
would seem
and accurately recorded.^
to the prisoner,
who thus had
to
have been
They were read over
opportunities of discovering
An easy evasion by Bruno of the charge of having broken his obligation to celibacy was fought shy of by the judges, for sexual immorality, even in the priesthood, was never pursued and correcting any injurious mistake.
during
the
Counter-Reformation, or at
that implacable rancour
any
time, with
with which heresy was hunted
down.' Doc. xvij. Fiorentino; Lettera al Prof. Spavenfa, Giorn. Nap., N.S., 1879, pp. 4S0-SI. ' Peccant nuns, however, were far more severely dealt with. An examination of the Index Expurgatorius to-day will show that its ^
^
great object
is
not the suppression of vicious literature but of anything
which impugns the authority or doctrine of the Church.
—
;
GIORDANO BRUNO
282 But, as the
we
proceeds,
trial
find the attitude of the
judges becoming more and more sinister
accusations are
;
brought up again when they have been answered and apparently disposed of; less and less
is
mask of im-
the
partiality maintained.
What was
The Canon Law
Bruno's attitude ?
recognised
—
a fide and a tnandatis Dei that of He conunbelief and that of violating monastic vows. two sorts of apostasy
sidered himself guilty of having violated the latter and less
apostasy only his
and
;
Order, and the
The Roman form he
felt
this
was within
Inquisition
of the Tribunal
himself secure, and
the sole jurisdiction of
had nothing
to
do with
was not allowed
when dragged
in
it.^
Venice
before the Venetian
Court,he was confident, fearless, and franker than was wonted
Untaught by so long and
even with innocent persons.
bitter
experience, he believed that such highly qualified scholars
and thinkers as the men who
tried
him would be as devoted
to the pursuit of truth as himself, as eager for "large draughts
of intellectual day," as tolerant and broad-minded, and as
ready to follow the " Divine Counsellor within them." *
He
remembered only the long periods of intelligent toleration by which the Church had distinguished itself, and he forgot He boldly expounded his philosophy the Council of Trent. and science
;
he might be mistaken on this or that point, but
he believed he presented what intelligent
men would discover God and of
be truth, or at least a reasonable view of
to
Nature.
So, the
first
man
since the triumph of Christianity
return openly to the independence of the old Greek
to
thinkers, he claimed the right to essentially superior to theology
expound philosophy as
and independent of
maintained his right to think for himself;
^
Bartholmfess
;
op.
cit.,
He was
II, p. 226.
anxious »
He
he would not
He
passively receive the opinions of others.
judges to his latest works.
it.
referred his to subscribe
Spaccio, III,
if.
BRUNO AND THE INQUISITORS to Catholicism,
to
which he believed
He
social order.
show
tried to
high truth and
to contain
human guidance and
be necessary for
283
the maintenance of
was
that he
truly Catholic
and believed the main teaching of Holy Church,
at heart
though he had attacked the superstitions of Catholics and Protestants alike in his writings.
Minima, written lunatic
which he dared
to
having
of
been
For
De
he had
from childhood with
saturated
meanings held by the professedly holy man and
He
based on a false conception of truth.^
consuming passion of
that very
in
to refer his judges,
for truth
How
understanding.
is
possessed by
must declare truth to all men strange to him that Catholic ;
how
perverters in high places do not see
departed from the ineffable light
!
far they
have
Will they not soar again
from the abysmal depths of mere superstitious credulity,
communicate afresh with God, who declares Himself
open book of Nature and
in the
human
heart,
in the
and reform
themselves into a truly universal and better instructed
Church? their
own
Otherwise Bruno believed they would contrive ruin;*
dissensions religion
among
how
Roman
would be no universal
there
sanction for social order and civic authority. Protestants
!
*
And
Witness the
without constituted
could society flourish ?
But, although anxious to subscribe, he must be allowed to reveal his
own
soul in fetters.
philosophic vision
Without
;
he
will not
recalling one single
have his
word
of his
philosophic and scientific creed, he admitted the essential truth contained
in
Christian
inmost conviction, expressed
which he was discreetly
dogma and elsewhere,
silent at the trial,
practice.
His
but
concerning
was
that, while
there are immediate experiences which cannot be restated in
thought, theological
dogmas are
^
Cfr. Oratio Consolatoria.
•
Spaccio, III,
ij.
defective truth at best,
'
Ibid., II,
i.
GIORDANO BRUNO
284
though very necessary and of supreme practical importance.*
His temperament was
not
scientific,
tremely reverent; he fought shy of
men
like all the
tolerant life
Bruno
for ;
Ancient cults had a certain
humanity,
the " Bacchic rout " of
;
power and
Egyptians had also seen inferior in so far as
it
and dead men's bones noble activities.*
had pushed
;
God
tions of the
deities set forth the persistent
in
Nature.
had become a so far as
it
2
the ancient
was
cult of ascetic saints
mutilated
human joy and
Yet the emphasis
his pretensions unduly.*
One
;
Christianity
had become obscurantist, and the Pope
It
on Divine love raised
laid
its
rejoiced in the fulness of
it
immanence of the Godhead
vital
was
the religion of the Classic world
;
glorified
it
though ex-
fanatic ways, yet,
of the Renaissance, he discovered traces of
truth in every singular creed.
charm
pietistic, all
it
it
above other imperfect adumbra-
Perfect Light.
Only a purgation of the
excrement, superstition, and a granting of complete tolerance to the qualified
The
and judicious thinker were needed.
opposition between Revelation and reason had been
clearly discerned at a very early period in the history of the
TertuUian affirmed the former to be " credible
Church.
because inconsistent because of
it
;
assured because impossible.
absence of reason."
its
secure freedom for
human
tained that Truth
is
I
believe
Later, in order to
reason, certain schoolmen
^
main-
twofold and contrary, the content of
reason occupying a diiferent sphere from that of Faith.
They enabled
the
human
intellect to
pursue
its
own
course
;
but the distinct and superior claim of Faith was acknow'
Gentile
;
G. B. nella storia della cultura, p. 78, n. 2
;
Spaccio,
I, a. »
De Immenso, VI,
ij ;
Spaccio, III, ij.—Cfr. Spaventa,
di Critica, Napoli, 1867, vol.
i,
p. 225.
Cabala; Asino Cillenico.
'
Cfr.
*
De Immenso, VIII, i, v. 67 / Oratio V aledictoria. William of Ockham and Duns Scotus to wit.
'
B
;
Saggi
BRUNO AND THE INQUISITORS
285
The doctrine had not yet been impugned, and Bruno frequently distinguished between Catholic and Philo-
ledged.
sophic doctrine in his defence.
he did not disclaim
Of
it.
he took a higher ground. bility
But he did not accept though
the line of Lully and Cusanus,
Lully had maintained the possi-
of demonstrating Catholic truth by the exercise of
reason
Cusanus had made some attempt
;
Bruno scorned
the current theology;
and disputes
;
^
his
was
conviction
mere symbol of reason, and that
to explain
away
theologic subtleties
dogma was
the
and reason, so
far
that
intuition
from being opposed, are the two sides of what should be the great and growing body of organised knowledge.
As
early
Aristotle
as the second century certain
began
to
of Greek
terms
Hebrew
the
interpret
Philosophy.
Tertullian, Augustine
the early Christian apologists availed
and
themselves of the
doctrine of " language of accommodation."
whom Bruno
of in
Later, Philo systematized
allegorical renderings of them.
Aquinas,
followers
Scriptures
^
Thomas
St.
expounded and
especially respected,
Dante popularized the doctrine that both Scripture and Holy
Church condescend
weakness of human
to the
faculty.*
The
Ages took the symbolic view that the world was subtly and mystically interpenetrated by the best minds in the Middle
Divine Spirit, which revealed
many imperfect forms way as Isaiah,
itself in
;
they regarded Virgil as inspired in the same
though
less fully
and
trated belief,
by flashes from Bruno accepted.
;
an uncertain
Authority
'
Artie. Cent, et sexag. Dedicatio.
Tertullian
Adv. Marc, II,
16.
still
— St
was
twilight, pene-
the high white star of truth.
"
;
Classic mythology
persistently.
symbolic to Dante and others
This
reigned in the Re-
Augustine; Gen.
xviij, as
well as other writers. '
Aquinas;
Summ.
Paradiso, III, 40 sqq.
Theol., I,
i,
10;
I,
— Cfr. Spaccio, II,
19,
ij.
11
;
I', 4,
7; Dante,
GIORDANO BRUNO
286 naissance, and
Bruno defended himself by quoting Virgil, But such philosophy
the Bible, the Fathers and Pythagoras.
was not
for the vulgar
So we
remain."^
" Let simplicity and moral fable
;
find Bruno,
nor wanting in
infertile in gloss
unknown
pedients are not entirely
dogma and
He
reason.
with the Inquisition
by example, not Such exreservations.
fortified
in attempts to reconcile
endeavoured to make his peace
he took care not to expound the sense
;
which he accepted heaven, purgatory and
in
not develop
hell;
he did
the veiled hint, given in the Spaccio, as to the
Divine Virtue merely communicating
itself in the
person of
Christ.2
Roman Christianity was the organized and historic bond among the western peoples he had been born and
of unity
;
bred in the Catholic
Faith.
It
was a system entwined
round his heart by early associations brain by
that early appeal to the senses
;
branded into his
which
is
as of reality
It had buried itself in the depths of his nature, become bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. Deprived of corporate communion he had been for years doubly an exile from home. Catholic authority had judged him to sin, and, itself.
as a good
member
of
human
society, as a
accepted the judgment, however mistaken
good Catholic, he it
And,
might be.
while he would not sacrifice any assured philosophic conviction,
he was
deadly peril
in
;
his chance of being received
bosom of the Church was now narrowed down to what might happen at this trial. Surely at worst, he might hope for life and be allowed a life of quiet study if he did what he had always purposed doing confessed his fault ? * He fell on his knees and submitted, but he did not retract. into the
—
Seven years before he had written it
:
" As to
my
faith
I
hold
a most proper thing to declare and affirm with theologians '
Spaccio, III,
^
Cjr. Gentile, op.
"
iij. cit.,
cap.
ij,
La
Spaccio, III,
genuflessione.
ij.
;
BRUNO AND THE INQUISITORS
287
and those who are concerned with the laws and tions of the people."
^
No
one was ever firmer
taining his right to hold and declare his
But he
yore to esoteric interpretation of
The phical
its
was by no means easy
case
own
conclusions.
less lenient
were involved, and where precedent
The Venetian
than of
doctrines.
to deal with.
and theological problems of a very
pensable.
main-
an ingenious but not always a successful
The Church had become
experiment.
in also
Pouring new wine
tried to reconcile irreconcilables.
into old bottles is
institu-
Philoso-
intricate nature
rules, caution is indis-
Inquisition
was
in
communication
with the Holy Office at Rome, and here, on September 12th, a Congregation assembled under the presidency of Cardinal
Santoro di Santa Severina, who represented the Pope. Santoro, a Spaniard, had distinguished himself by purifying
the Church in the extirpation of heretics.
he had persecuted in Naples
;
In earlier days
he had hailed the massacre of
Parisian Huguenots with satisfaction and pronounced that
it
made the Feast of St. Bartholomew " a famous and a very joyous day."
He
loved humanists
to his credit that he
but
it is
the
tomb of
Sixtus V.^
little
better than heretics
and Cardinal Colonna saved
Cecilia Metella from the destructive energies of It is
not surprising that, with such a zealot in
the chair, the Congregation resolved to get the heretic
from Venice
(a State
which was
politic
away
and too commercially
somewhat Laodicean in regard to heresy) and dangerous person who would appear to have set up philosophy against estabThey despatched a missive to the Venetian lished truth. Inquisition, demanding that the prisoner should be sent to the Reverend Governor of Ancona, by whom he would be affected not to be
and
to deal themselves with a difficult
*
Eroici, Argomento.
'
Balzani,
Cfr. pp. 173, 174 of this work.
Count Ugo; Camb. Mod.
Hist., 1904, vol.
iij,
pp. 443,4.
;
GIORDANO BRUNO
288
forwarded to Rome.^
Perhaps
it
was not
Rome
alone which prompted this action. politic
religious zeal
never missed a
opportunity of asserting Papal claims over a govern-
ment which so often defied them and with which there was an enduring territorial dispute. Five days
September
later,
sitting of the
the State Assessor present. to act warily: they
so that
was not
it
It
Tommaso
at a
Morosini being
behoved the Sacred Tribunal
waited until the next until eleven
was read
17th, the letter
Venetian Inquisition,
Roman
post arrived
days later that the Vicar of
and Morosini
the Venetian Patriarch, the Father Inquisitor
The Vicar professed that they had not liked to bear the prisoner away to Rome without informing the Council first. This was a appeared before the Doge and Council.^
Rome
device to disguise the aggfression of
The
sent had to be sought for extradition.
now
They urge
:
Venetian contrue bias of the
Bruno is not merely he had written books in which he praised Elizabeth of England and other heretical princes and in which there was much that was inimical to
judges
appears.
that
guilty of heresy, but a leader therein
;
even if taken philosophically he was an apostate monk, who had dwelt many years in those heretical parts, Geneva and England, and he had been pursued for heresy before at Naples and Rome. The Vicar added that he
religion,
;
desired the matter should not be delayed, for a boat just about to set
off.
The Doge
refused to be hustled
replied that the matter should receive It
was not
difficulties
the
first
again, ^
and was put
when Sixtus
V
they had demanded his recall
in the city
Doc. xviii.
he
time the Venetian government had had
In the afternoon of the
came
:
due consideration.*
with the zealous Inquisition;
was Inquisitor by Rome.
was
same day
the Father Inquisitor
off with the statement that, seeing '
Doc. xix.
"
Ibid.
BRUNO AND THE INQUISITORS the matter
209
was an important one and the Council being many grave matters, they had not been able
occupied with to decide
A
about
it.'-
Oct. 7th, a copy of the Roman deby the "Three," together with secret instructions to Donato, Venetian Ambassador. The " Three " sign themselves -I-117, —2 and —6. The request could not
few days
mand was
later,
sent
be complied with
;
demand was an infringement on
for the
the Authority of the Venetian Inquisition, and with,
a very bad precedent would be
with
interfered
Ambassador
is
the to
liberty
convey
of Venetian to the
this
if
complied
Moreover
set.
subjects.
it
The
Cardinal with due
compliments.*
Donato
replied on the loth that he
commands: should any would deal with
it
which Bruno lay
incredible
discreetly.*
argument turn up, he
Three months passed, during
in his prison cell at
diplomatic fencing between Pope and
On
would carry out these
Venice and there was Ambassador at Rome.
Dec. 22nd the Nuncio returned to the charge.
He
appeared before the Venetian College, repeated some of the heretical charges,
and added another calculated
to appeal to
commercial instincts: some of Bruno's books purported falsely
to
have been printed at Venice.
and begs the Doge
His Holiness
Rome
to expedite justice
to extradite him.
The Nuncio was
desires to have the prisoner in
followed by Donato,
who had
returned to Venice.
recounted his interview with Clement
;
He
he had told the
was invariably done at the Venetian Inquisition; for the Pope was always represented there by his Nuncio, who could always obtain instructions from Rome, and, in fact, did so; he failed to see any necessity for Pope
that justice
extradition.
and
Whereat
the
Pope appeared
never mentioned the subject again. 1
Doc. XX.
^
Doc. xxi.
to
be
satisfied,
But Severina and '
Doc. xxij.
GIORDANO BRUNO
ago
the Inquisitors were not
men
to
be easily put
Nuncio now spoke again, urging that the
off.
The
man was no
Venetian but a Neapolitan, charged long ago at Naples and
Rome
with the gravest offences.
On
previous occasions,
more than two dozen cases had been sent on from Venice
Holy Roman Tribunal, which, the Nuncio reminded was the head one. The man was merely a friar, and therefore the desire of the Pope should not be denied to him moreover the culprit was a notorious to the
the College,
;
heresiarch and guilty of vile offences which he (the Nuncio)
would not speak about, as only the matter of
faith
was
to
Undoubtedly the Venetian Inquisitor should deal
the point.
with ordinary cases arising within the Venetian State, but not with this grave case, begun aforetime in Naples and
continued in Rome.^
The Nuncio was informed that their Lordships would confer, and he was assured that it was desired to give His Holiness every satisfaction possible.*
The Government was somewhat had increased States under
its
temporal and, at
its rule,
perplexed. The Papacy power by consolidating the the same time, the carrying out
of the Decrees of Trent had added to
An
open rupture with
Rome was
its spiritual
prestige.
very undesirable, but the
Venetian Republic must be kept inviolate from the ever recurring attempts at aggression which
So
marked the
policy
government consulted with the procurator, Federigo Contarini, an ingenious lawyer, to find of the Pope.
a
way
out.
He
the
appeared before the College on Jany. 7th
After recounting facts
1593.
against
Bruno, he
where he wards
first
custom of that
to
island,
processes
England,
and
after-
Geneva, leading apparently a licentious and
'
There
'
Doc. xxiij.
is
the
added that he escaped
lived after the
(sic) in
as to
no mention of the alleged Vercelli process.
1
BRUNO AND THE INQUISITORS diabolical
life
But the
(sic).
legal
certain balance shall be held
that
"his heretical
offences
mind requires that a
so, after this,
;
29
when
stating
very grave," Contarini
are
adds, " although, for the rest he has a mind as excellent
and rare as one could wish learning and insight." learning
;
so here
and
for,
of exceptional
is
Venice prided herself on fostering also an indirect compliment
is
State.
After this preamble, since
and no
subject,
Bruno
is
to
the
a foreigner
and the case having been begun elsewhere,
may very
the wishes of His
Holiness
with, especially as
there have been precedents, and His
Holiness
is
well
be complied
There
reputed to be very prudent.
yet
is
another argument:
he avails himself of Bruno's desire
to reconcile himself
with the Pope.
report, that the prisoner,
was coming
to
He
understands, by
on being informed that the case
a conclusion, replied that he had resolved to
present a petition showing his earnest desire to be remitted to the justice of
Rome
designed to delay the follows.
trious
With
;
but this
evil
may be mere
A
day.
bit
pretence,
of self-revelation
professional caution he entreats the illus-
Signory to keep his report absolutely secret
May we
public as for private reasons.
for
suspect that these
reasons were that Bruno had particular supporters in Venice
whose favour the time-server did not wish goes on to say that he
will
He
to lose?
always be ready at the com-
mand of His Serenity and in the service of his country. Whereupon the Doge must have been much relieved for now there was a clear way open out of a difficulty, not ;
unattended by the diplomatic advantage of appearing to
up a foreign monk who had formerly escaped from and no Venetian subject, and of being graciously disposed to His Holiness. He complimented the clever lawyer
yield
justice
on his
activity
and promptitude
in the public service.^
Doc. xxiv.
GIORDANO BRUNO
292
was resolved by the Three Nuncio and the Venetian Ambassador at
Later on in the same day, notify the
to
Rome
that,
it
it
being found suitable, especially in such an
unusual case as that of an escaped prisoner from the Neapolitan and
Roman
Inquisitions, to give satisfaction
His Holiness, Bruno
to
On -the
Nuncio.
shall be
over to the
delivered
9th Jany., a letter signed like the former
was sent to Paruta, now Ambassador at Rome, instructing him to make capital out of the transaction he is to i-epresent to the Pope that the extradition one
in a secret code,
;
an expression of the
is
His Beatitude, and
for
to
filial
and express the joy
illness
reverence the Republic bears
commiserate with him on his recent felt
at his recovery.^
The compliments were returned that
replies
the extradition
who expressed
it
on the i6th Paruta
was news
that
His Holiness,
Clement
he greatly desired
be
to
in
diplo-
har-
with the Republic, and he hoped that, thenceforward,
would not give him very hard bones
should be accused of yielding too tion.
to
himself as highly gratified.
matically added
mony
:
much
The Nuncio responded with
to
gnaw,
lest
he
to his great affec-
correct expressions of
devotion.^
So
the prisoner
warded by sea
to
along a fork of historic
eight
the
months of captivity visited
in
Way
and along that Rome. Released from a cell, some gleam of hope
Flaminian
and splendid approach
may have air
was consigned to the Nuncio and forAncona, whence he was transported to
him as he breathed the keen wintry
and saw the ever green valleys of Central Italy and
the sun playing on the waters of
the Tiber.
before him dismal years to test his sincerity
and the
final, ironic
There lay
and firmness
pageantry of a triumphal parade to
the stake. '
Doc. XXV.
'
Doc. xxvij.
CHAPTER XX THE ROMAN PRISON.
He
was
cast into the Prison of the
Here he
Feb. 27th 1593.^
him, and some Italian
documents
critics
in
Inquisition,
is
For the
absolute silence concerning
deem
the absence of existing
During the short rule of the
significant.^
Republic
Roman
lay seven long years.
greater part of this time there
Roman
FINAL SCENES.
1849,
the
Secret Archives of
the
Vatican were searched backwards from February 1600, but time only admitted of records up to Nov. 1598 being
To day we
examined.
ments
are assured that no further docu-
exist there.*
Bruno would lie unvisited, save by Officials of the Inand chosen priests, scriptures in hand, come to
quisition
exhort him
repentance.
to
materials were allowed. irons.
If
they
remained
measures were sometimes or, if
Neither
obstinate tried
in
milder
heresy,
and promises held out;
Campanella was tortured twelve times,
the twelfth lasting forty hours.*
During
notary took down what the sufferer silent, torture
"
writing
they were supposed to conceal their views, they were
put to the torture.
•
books nor
Prisoners were often put into
Roman
was
re-applied.
The
this barbarity
said, and, if
mildest
a
he were
punishment
Docs. Hi.
Luigi, Annibale; Dtte Artisti ed
uno sciemiato, Atti
Ace. delle sc. mor e pal, Napoli, xxiv, pp. 468 ' ArckivJ. Gesch. d. Phil., vj, p. 344 sq. * Levi, D ; G. Bruno, Torino, 1887, p. 369. 293
sq.
della
R.
GIORDANO BRUNO
294
which an apostate monk might hope for was perpetual
The
imprisonment.
were instructed
Inquisitors
to
be
Their manual speaks of the Institution as not
merciful.
desiring the death of the sinner, but rather that he should
turn from his wickedness and
The
live.^
of the documents
earliest
Archives of the Holy Office at 1599.^
The Congregation
seven coadjutors and the
preserved in the
still
Rome
bears the date Jan. 14,
consisted of eight cardinals,
official
notary.
Eight heretical
propositions had been extracted from Bruno's books and from
the process by
were read, and in the
the
it
Commissary and Bellarmin.
was decided
that certain ones, not
document, should be selected, so that
seen whether he would abjure them.
made
in the process
and
in his
A
works
These
named
might be
it
search was to be for other heretical
propositions.
Among
the Congregation were Cardinal Santoro di
Santa
Severina and the great Jesuit luminary Robert Bellarmin.
Santoro had been a candidate for the Papacy
he of election that he had chosen his
by
his rival Aldobrandini
;
title
so sure was
;
— the same assumed
his naturally bitter
temperament
was not thereby improved. Bellarmin was one of the first learned men to weaken the mediaeval conception of Papal empire but he was unaware of the real nature and importance of the new principles he invoked; he was ;
always ready to employ his vast erudition and dexterity in the service of obscurantism;
he
intellectual it
was who
took the main responsibility on himself of denouncing the
Copernican theory,
who
distinguished himself
who added by distinguished men to
by persecutworks on
ing Sarpi and Galileo and
certain
Natural Science
the Index.
' Sacro Arsenate ovvero Pratica deW Officio della S. Inquiz, Bologna, 1665, p. 294. 2 Given in Berti's Vita di G. B. 1886, p. 441.
THE ROMAN
We gather from
FINAL SCENES
PRISON.
295
a further record of a Congregation held
on Feb. 4th, whereat six cardinals, seven coadjutors and the notary were present, that Bruno had expostulated concerning the eight propositions deemed to be heretical, whereupon it may be observed, was falling more and more under the influence of the more bigoted and therefore the more energetic members of the College of Cardinals)
the Pontiff (who,
"decrees and ordains that
it
be intimated to him by the
Father in Theology Bellarmin and the Commissary that these propositions are heretical, and not
now
all
declared so
by the most ancient Fathers of the Church and the Apostolic Chair. If he shall acknowledge for the first time, but
this,
good
The
later part of these
;
if less,
and has been
MSS. have
minutes
corrected.^
not know." For
ful, it is
a term of forty days shall be allowed."
all
What
is
not in the notary's hand
the propositions were,
we do
the papers of the trial as well as Bruno's
mysteriously disappeared.
Yet, however doubt-
quite possible that Bruno's trial did not
before the sitting of Jany. 14th
;
the
first in
commence
which there
was decided then that the propositions which Bellarmin and the Commissary had already selected should be read and acted on. But why was there in this case a delay which was unprecedented and unparalleled ? On Monday, April 5 th 1 599, a recorded reference to him.
is
a visitation of the Prison other
names
For
recorded.
is
it
Among
twenty-one
appears that of Bruno, "apostate from the
order of Preaching Friars "
;
the dates of incarceration are
and only one prisoner had been kept confined so long as a little more than a year and eight months, most of them only a few weeks or days. The problem remains unsolved. given,
Gentile believes that *
Berti, op.
'
Tocco endeavours
1886, p. 86.
cit.,
Bruno may have referred
to his
books
p. 441.
to reconstruct them.
See his Conferenza,
GIORDANO BRUNO
296
Mocenigo and that the works published abroad
to refute
and carefully examined, which would take time.^ As Mclntyre remarks, the books were not hard to come by, " and it would not require six years to find enough were sent
for
material to
condemn him
it
that
if
desired, ardently desired ?
may
and often
be,
and painstaking the doctrine of the Twowas not yet officially condemned ; the relationship
are, conscientious fold truth
But was
were desired." ^
Fanatics ;
philosophy should bear to theology, a thorny subject, not officially
determined, and Clement
was by nature conciliatory
and diplomatic, one who would perceive the value of demonstrating by example the liberal bearing of
Bruno but be brought
thinkers could
and make himself subservient
Church which he had never renounced. that the " Seven Liberal Arts
written
and have proved
in
tongue
Brunnhofer thinks
may have
''
towards
Authority of that
the
to
Rome
to bridle his
been already
some measure acceptable
to
Clement, as furnishing a plausible alliance between philo-
sophy and at
There could hardly have been anyone
religion.
once so powerful and so friendly to Bruno as to have Perchance, however, some of the
intervened on his behalf.
Princes of the Church
man
sincerity of the
and the strength of
may have
in believing
his desire for reconciliation.
absence of documents, speculation never acted precipitately of events it
had
its
and act
perceived the essential
he was genuinely Catholic,
;
its
is idle.
wont
is to
await the unfolding
at the appropriate season.
own good reasons
But, in the
The Church has
And
doubtless
for delay.
Forty days had been granted, but more than nine and a half months were allowed to pass evidence both as to the
—
courage and firmness of the prisoner and
skilful dialectic,
the no less persistent effort of the theologians '
'
Gentile
;
to break
G. B. nella storia delta cultura, 1907, p. 75. op. cit., pp. 88, 89. ;
Mclntyre
"
THE ROMAN PRISON. him down.
For the times, the
But
nomenal.
FINAL SCENES lenity
shown was phe-
must not be forgotten that the
it
manual directs that "
if
the culprit
297
Inquisitor's
deny the indictments and
these be not fully proved and he, during the term assigned to
him
to prepare his defence,
have not cleared himself from
the imputations which result from the process,
it is
necessary
have the truth out of him by a rigorous examination." ^ The case of Campanella shows what "rigorous examinato
Whether the sardonic irony of torture was applied to the man who had sung of heroic enthusiasm and held it the acme of human greatness to rise above all If so, he remained sensibiHty to pain * we do not know. tion " meant.
and unsubdued. On Dec. 21st Bruno was brought in person before tlje Congregation, which numbered nine cardinals, six coHe was "heard concerning all adjutors and the notary.
steadfast
" Says that he ought not to renounce
his pretensions."
nor will he do so
;
there
nothing for him to renounce and
is
not what he should renounce.
he knows
trious" were
still
among them)
;
patient
The very
illus-
(Santoro and Bellarmin were
they ordered that his " blind
and
false
made manifest to him, and appointed Hypohtus Maria ' and Paulus Vicarius * " to deal with the said brother and point out to him the propositions to be abjured, so that he may recognise his errors and amend
doctrine should be
and recant possible."
;
and do him
the good they can as soon as
all
^
The Pope
himself presided at a Congregation held on
January 20th
1600.
It
was reported
that
Bruno was
settled in his resolve not to abjure, asserting that
^^Sacro Arsenate, p. 154. '
Ippolito Maria Beccaria,
Dominicans. * Paolo di Mirandola, his
no
vicar.
less a
he had
" Spaccio, II. iij. person than General of the
'
Berti, pp. 444-6.
GIORDANO BRUNO
298
never propounded any heretical doctrines and had been badly interpreted by the servants of the Holy Office. An appeal of his to the Pope was presented and opened but not
Among
read.i
failed to
who had
the Catholic dignitaries
convince Bruno was
visited
and
Cardinal Baronius,^ Clement's
whom he was wont to obtain daily absoluand who may have reported his impressions concern-
confessor, from tion,*
ing the prisoner to the Pope.
It
was
at once decreed that
" further measures be proceeded with, sentence passed
and
the said Brother Jordan handed over to the secular arm."
There
further record of this having been done on
a
is
*
Feb. 8th.
There are reasons readily
for the
condemnation which
final
suggest themselves, though
delay which preceded
monk demanded
it
those
remain a mystery.
the
for
The
long
apostate
enquiry into truth, unprejudiced and
free
And he was regarded new sect, the
unaffected by theologic authority.
as a heresiarch, the possible leader of a
fomenter of a
new
already suffered so
discord within the Church that had
much
in
purse, prestige
and power
from the sectaries of the Reformation.
The sentence was
declared
publicly
the
Caspar Schopp, a scholar and recent convert
was
He was
present.
next to
day.
Rome,
informed that the culprit had been
about two years in prison.
He
says the Cardinals and
Coadjutors were assembled together at the Monastery of
The Governor of Rome represented the Bruno was brought into the Hall of the
the Minerva. secular arm. Inquisition
and forced down on
his
knees.
Sentence was
' For the purpose of preparing the petition writing materials would be allowed him. ' Conr. Ritterhaus suo G. Schoppius, vide Berti, op. cit., Ap-
pendice '
I.
Struvius, B.
Berti
;
op.
G
cit.,
;
Bib.
hist, lit,
p. 447.
Jenae, 1754,
vol. I,fasc. v.
:
THE ROMAN
FINAL SCENES
PRISON.
pronounced, and therein his
studies
life,
299
and opinions were
recounted, as well as the zeal and brotherly love of the Inquisitors in their efforts to convert him.^
In the latter
part of the last century copies of documents relating
to
Bruno and the Inquisition were, by sanction of the Pope, given by Canon Giovanni Battista Storti to Raffaelle De
The document
Martinis, a worthy priest.
sentence begin.
"
:
it
should
gave a few words of the condemnation
Storti
these run
containing the
mutilated just at the place where
is
You have
said that the transubstantiation of
bread into flesh was great blasphemy." But Storti adds " This note (sic) is not in the Archives to-day. G. C. S."
Canon was under
Gentile believes that the
many
suspected by
and designedly destroyed and
given to the
fact.
of the
It is
that the record of the sentence
deliberately
clusion
orders.*
One
able critic writes
was
false colouring
"
:
:
^
The sad conHeads
that one can place no confidence in the
is
Holy Office"*
of Bruno's
the travesty
may
This
views,
be
Schopp repeats
so.
as given
by Mocenigo,
almost word for word, and, although he attributes these to the work entitled " The Shadow of Ideas," he reproduces the denunciation so accurately that there can be no doubt
about these charges having been repeated in Court for the of those
edification
one
may
well believe that
was convenient to suppress for Schopp heard that ;
it
Nolan was only eighteen he began
the
and subsequently denied Transubstantiation '
Berti
op.
;
Therefore
scenes.
condemnation
the terms of the
when
not behind the
Appendice
cit.,
I,
;
to
doubt
he was also
Conrado Ritterhusio sua
G.
Schoppius.
R
^
De
'
Gentile,
*
Luigi, Annibale
Martinis,
G
Ace. delle
so.
far Gesch.
d.
;
Giordano Bruno, Napoli, 1886, pp. 207
;
G. B. nella Storia
mor.
;
Due ArtisH
Napoli, xxiv, pp. 468-69. Philos. IV, pp. 348-50. e pol,
sgq.
1907, pp. 71 sqq. ed un scienziato, Atti Delia
etc.,
R.
— See also Archiv.
GIORDANO BRUNO
300
with denying
charged
Conception of
the
virgin, the pubHcation
London "of a
in
the Triumphant Beast
—which
and other manifold "
terrible
among which we
to
is
Christ by a
libel
concerning
say the Pope,"
(sic
!)
and most absurd doctrines
find those of
"
an eternal universe and
innumerable worlds.
All this should have been duly set
forth in the precious
document of which no trace can be
" Then," says Schopp, " he was unfrocked, excom-
found.
The
municated and handed over to the secular arm."^
formally stripping a priest of his insignia and
office of
should have been
station
was by no means Pontifical
singularly unpleasant
unprofitable.
The
but
;
it
general register of
expenses bears the record that the bishop
of
Sidonia received 27 scudi for " the degradation of Giordano
Bruno, heretic."
of Rome was addressed, him under your jurisdiction,
The Governor
^
formula
in the usual
" take
:
subject to your decision, so as to be punished with due
chastisement
beseeching you, however, as
;
we do
earnestly
beseech you, so to mitigate the severity of your sentence
may
with respect to his body that there death or of the shedding of blood. Inquisitor
decree."
wont all
be no danger of
So
we, Cardinals,
and General, whose names are written beneath
By
^
this
to secure its
hypocritical form,
purpose while veiling
Holy Church was its
"
infamy.
When
these things were done," writes Schopp, " he said not
a word except in a menacing way, 'Perchance your fear in passing judgment on me is greater than mine in receiving
veyed
"
it.'
to
'
Berti, op.
cit.,
'
Fiorentino,
'
Frith
•
The Count
mony.
;
op.
The
«
him
F
the
officials
city
Appendice ;
cit.,
Op. p.
lat.
302
;
I,
of the Governor then con-
prison
by
Schopp' s
letter.
Tiber-side,
nearly
di G. B, state edition, I, p. xix.
also Sacro Arsenale
;
Schopp' s
di Ventimiglia, a pupil of Bruno, gives the Berti, p. 326, note i.
letter.
same
testi-
THE ROMAN PRISON.
FINAL SCENES
3OI
opposite to the castle of St. Angelo,^ a considerable distance
from the Minerva.
So great was the horror
of causing the death
and eternal
damnation of an impenitent sinner that eight days of grace passed by before the sentence was carried into
on the
1
But,
effect.
2th February the Avvisi, a wretched and ill-informed
Roman world
attempt at giving news, informed the
day we believe there
will
:
"
To
be witnessed the doing of a most
solemn act of Justice (nor do
I
know
if it
be not already
finished)
on a Dominican monk of Nola, a most obstinate
heretic,
who on Wednesday,
Madruccio
(sic)
was shown
at
the
mansion of Card.
be the author of diverse
to
horrid opinions, in which he remained obstinate and does
so
still,
The
notwithstanding that theologians
visit
him
daily.''
sentence was carried into effect on the ninth day
after the trial " without the shedding of blood."
For many
years the only account of the tragedy was that of Caspar
Schopp, and Catholic apologists declared the
letter to
be
a forgery and that Bruno had only been burned in effigy.^ It
was long suspected, however,
that
some document
relat-
ing to the execution might be found in the Archives of the St. John the Beheaded, who were accompany heretics to the stake and use the last chance of moving an obdurate soul and ensure to it "a It was stoutly denied that any such happy journey." record existed, and examination of the Archives was refused to many of the most eminent Italian scholars. But
Brotherhood of Pity of
wont
when '
to
was
Crispi
Berti
;
op.
cit.,
in
power he desired
Appendice
I.
— Pognisi, A;
S. G. Decollato, Torino, 1891, p. 62.
"
to inquire into the
The
G. B. e I'archivio di
prison was called the
Tower of Nona." "
elle
Desdouits, Theophile ; La Legende tragique de J. B, comment a et6 formie, son origine suspecie, son invraisemblance, Paris,
1885. '
Pognisi, op.
cit.,
p. 63.
GIORDANO BRUNO
302
They thought that, as so many applications had been made concerning Bruno, this was what Crispi was at, and forthwith, in order to avoid Brotherhood.
finances of the
further inconvenient investigations, the
was informed of
Royal Commissioner
the presence of an entry concerning
In fact, the
their registers.
Company was
him
in
discovered to
have registers of the roasting to death of 25 other people during the sixteenth century, and some of these "solemn acts of justice "
were aggravated by atrocious
cruelty.^
The
journal of the Provveditore records," ''Justice done on an
At the second hour of the night
impenitent heretic.
in-
formation came that justice would be done on an impenitent friar
in the
morning.
the
Comforters
night, S.
Hence, at the sixth hour of the
and
the
chaplain
assembled
at
Ursula and went to the prison in the Tower of Nona,
entered the chapel, and offered up the winter-prayers.
To
them was consigned the man Giordano Bruno, son of Gni. Bruno,' an apostate friar of Nola in the Kingdom,
He was
an impenitent.
exhorted by our brothers in
all
and two Fathers of the Order of St Dominic, two of the Order of Jesus, two of the new Church and one of St. Jerome were called in. These with all loving zeal love,
and much learning, showed him firm throughout
and
setting his brain
his
error, yet
he stood
to the
end
in his
and mind
to a
thousand errors and vain-
accursed obstinacy,
and he continued steadfastly stubborn while conducted by the Servants of Justice to the Field of gloryings;
Flowers {Campo di Fiori), and there being stripped and
bound
to a stake,
'
Pognisi
"
The
'
still
;
op.
cit.,
was burned
alive.
Throughout, our
p. 23.
dated Thursday 1 6th ; it should read 17th. We do not know if Giordano's father, who was alive in 1586, lived, and of his mother we only hear in the examination at
Venice.
entry
is
THE ROMAN PRISON. Brotherhood sang to the
his
litanies
FINAL SCENES
and the Consolers exhorted him
very last to overcome his obstinacy.
agony and
his wretched
But thus ended
life.''^
Short inadequate notices have been found
in the
contempo-
One runs "Thursday was burned
rary issues of news. in the Field of
303
:
alive
Flowers that Dominican Brother from Nola,
a pertinacious heretic, with a gag on his tongue because of the vile
words he spoke without wishing
He
Comforters or others. prisons
(sic)
of the
Holy
on another occasion."
Office,
was burned
Brother from Nola, of
from which he was liberated
Yet another account, bearing 19th
Feb. for date, announced that Field of Flowers
to listen to the
has been twelve years in the
" Yesterday morning in the
:
alive that
whom we
most obstinate heretic who,
wicked Dominican
have given news before
in his
;
a
whims, concocted diverse
dogmas against Holy Faith, and particularly against the Most Holy Virgin and the Saints. The vile man obstinately made up his mind to perish in these. He said that he died willingly and was a martyr, and that his soul would ascend in the smoke to Paradise. To-day he knoweth if he spake truth." * The two accounts would appear to differ as to the tying of the tongue, but probably Bruno was gagged when he could not be restrained
in uttering "
would seem that the Count Bruno who was present at the
it
For
wicked words."
of Ventimiglia, a disciple of trial,
said that, before his
death, the sufferer urged him (the Count) "to follow his
and to flee from prejudices and errors," ' and Cantii, without naming his authority, writes " It is narrated that when the crucifix was offered him he refused
glorious footsteps
:
to kiss
it,
and that he repeated the words of Plotinus,
power was needed '
'
330.
Pognisi Libri "
;
op.
to reunite that
cit., p.
A vvisi
which
is
divine in
'
Vast
me with
62.
e di Ritorni," quated
by
Berti, op. '
cit.,
pp. 329,
Ibid., p. 326.
GIORDANO BRUNO
304 that which
is
divine in the universe.' "
to his Protestant friend
February, 1600,
tells
Schopp, writing
^
Conrad Rittershausen,
him that when the
this
the stake to-day, although already dying,
very 17th
"was
heretic
when
led to
the crucifix
was held out to him, he turned his face aside in disdain." At last he had come at the actual worth of dialectic doublings and glozings and of an official Religion of Love. He had done with
that now,
all
mocked by the imbecile
zealots who,
almost from Calvary, have converted the symbol of
an engine
sacrifice into
lurk in the
self-
for letting loose all the devils that
human bosom
to rage
and rend.
He
had sung of despising death ; ^ he had written of being " so deeply possessed by other thoughts as not to feel
That he was
the last agony."*
know;
filled his
soul that his senses
we may
the stake,
So closed a
know
He
victor over the grave
were dead
torment of
to the
piously hope.
marked by supreme unity of purpose
life
the truth and declare
Rome.
— to
it.
perished in jubilee year.
flocked to
The men
Fifty cardinals
of
all
countries
were assembled
there.
Processions, confessions, kneelings at altars went on
Rome
day.
we
that supreme confidence in a rational universe so
resounded with penitential psalms.
all
Trades-
men and harlots did a busy trade. Men went along the broad new streets and- marvelled at them and at the new cut
by which Sixtus
Vatican
;
V
had joined the Lateran with the at the new population where a waste had existed
ever since Robert Guiscard burned half the city of Hilde-
brand
to the
ground
;
at the great buildings.
was taken of the
fire
of Flowers.
was no
Little notice
morning
startling novelty;
Cantu, Cesare; Gli eretici d' Italia, 1867, p. 62. from Porphyry's Life of Plotinus. 2 De immenso, I, i. 3 Sig. '
is
It
lighted that early
in the Field
only a minor
The Sigill.
quotation
THE ROMAN PRISON.
FINAL SCENES
3O5
excitement thrown in with the other allurements of a holiday.
The
made his painful way over the tufa stones with bared feet. He was chained by the neck and wore a white sheet emblazoned at the corners with the cross of St. Andrew culprit
and illuminated here and there with
He was litanies,
devils
and red flames.
accompanied by a procession of
priests, singing
exhorting him to repent, and thrusting the crucifix
to his lips
;
the Brotherhood carried torches and the officials
of the Governor of
Rome
city
was once wonted
the ruins of which
to
Arrived at the
acted as guard.
open space where the fashionable
crowd
frivolity of the ancient
into the Theatre of
Pompey,
guarded the Field of Flowers,
still
Rome who now dwelt around "Roman holiday." Narducci
all
the
were assembled
rabble of
it
at
discovered at the
this
Vatican that the precise spot where Bruno was burned
was in front of a house at the corner of the Campo di Fiori and the Vicolo Balestrari, where there is a stone inscribed with Latin verses and put up by the Superintendent of That Jubilee was reStreets in the fifteenth century.^
membered
;
for
celebrated the success of Clement's foreign
it
policy and the submission of Catholics to the yoke of dis-
Bruno's small part in
cipline.
from the moment when,
in
it
was
forgotten, almost
accordance with the
official
were scattered to
direction concerning heretics, his ashes
the winds.
The strange delay repeated
in dealing effectively
in the case of his writings.
with him was
They were
not placed
2| years later (Aug. 7th, 1603). Since in Catholic Countries the possessor of proscribed works placed
on the Index
until
himself in grave
peril, original
specimens have become very
rare.
His books never achieved popularity.
deists
who
rediscovered
him
in
eighteenth century tried to make '
Levi
;
op.
cit.,
the
much
p. 390, n.
The English of
early part
the
of him and failed. i.
U
GIORDANO BRUNO
306
His name practically disappeared. yoiith of
and
this
though
Then,
in the vigorous
German Philosophy, Jacobi recognised his genius, was generally acknowledged by German thinkers,
his
works were not closely
Hegel and
studied.
Schelling found in him a kindred
In 1847 a Frenchspirit. man, Christian Bartholmess, furnished with scanty material laboriously collected, attempted a biography
and gave the
world a well-considered criticism of his published works. Since then, in Germany, France, England and especially in Italy,
research has been
made and valuable monographs
During his researches, Ranke came across
have appeared.
a portion of the record of the
trial
at Venice.
Valuable
documents were afterwards discovered and scholars, such as Fiorentino, Berti and Tocco, devoted years to the examination of Bruno's life
his
and works.
countrymen caught
fire.
A
After the unification of Italy,
complete edition of his writ-
ings, including unprinted manuscripts,
by volume.
The man more
" God-intoxicated " than Spinoza even,
hailed in the eighties
bound
scientists
by
materialists
its
most of
whom
as their
The general enthusiasm
climax on the 9th June 1889.
folk assembled,
was
and monists and hide-
claiming to be metaphysicians
harbinger in the i6th century.
reached
was issued volume
For a time there was a veritable " Brunomania."
Thirty thousand
could never have read
or have formed any sound judgment as to his merits
Bruno :
they
knew he had been martyred by the Papacy. And to ordinary Roman, who from time immemorial has never
only the
been able to abide a Pope or subsist without one, that was occasion enough.
All followed the Syndic to the Field of where a monument had been erected to the
Flowers,
memory
of yet another great Italian
the Nolan
was
unveiled.
;
and
There was much
the guests hurried from dinner back to the illuminate
it.
It is
said that
Leo XIII
this statue of
feasting,
and
monument
to
fasted throughout
THE ROMAN PRISON.
FINAL SCENES
307
the day, and cast himself prostrate at the Statue of St Peter.
He
issued an address to the Curia which
One
churches.
in the
and understanding which was
species of Christian charity
He
exercised so freely of old time.
man
was read
discovers therein an impotent echo of that
of impure and abandoned
denounced Bruno as " a
life:
a double renegade, a
condemned, whose obstinacy against the
heretic formally
Church endured unbroken even
to
He
his last breath.
own and show
possessed no remarkable scientific knowledge, for his
condemn him of a degraded materialism was entangled in commonplace errors. He had no
writings that he
splendid adornments of virtue, for as evidence against his
moral character there stand those extravagancies of wickedness and corruption into which
He was
unresisted.
no signal service were
to the state
insincerity, lying
who
all
all
men
are driven by passions
the hero of no famous exploits ;
and did
his familiar accomplishments
and perfect
selfishness, intolerance of
disagreed with him, abject meanness and perverted
ingenuity in adulation."
Reading Galileo, "
one thinks of the famous exclamation of
this,
E
^
pur
Amid
muove."
si
the hysterics of the
herd on the one hand and, on the other, the denunciations of dogmatists in fanaticism of fear, "the heavens journey still
and sojourn not
"
and " philosophic liberty " pursues
her path of peace unconcerned.
Surely an ironic smile plays on the
lips of Clio, the
Muse
of History, as she registers the vagaries of " succession and vicissitude." bitter wit,
Rarely has old Time, that antic
seemed more sardonic than
fool
in his dealings,
with a
during
and after death, with this man Bruno was endowed with the fatal combination of a mind of enormous power and almost unrestricted range and a deof so rare personal force.
life
1
Given by the
late
Modern Philosophy,
Prof.
1903, vol.
R. ij,
Adamson
in
his
Development of
p. 23.
U
2
GIORDANO BRUNO
308
ficiency in those self-regarding virtues
One
high esteem to-day. rather
let
makes the
He
safe
wisdom
And
the
in the
little
in
Spinoza was much. martyr
after
And
for faithfulness
fall.
But
which shall not
it is
fail
genera-
evil fortune to influence
all,
But that thinker was Baruch de
to influence
more.
It raises
the
and strengthens reverence
Bruno
fell
of spring, foredoomed to be withered, to to
which
the intrepid constancy of the
for the right to think is
of highest and best in man.
and
life
many respects, marched
one great thinker.
Baruch de Spinoza, and,
measure
own
but protracted buffetings from adverse
man who,
ahead of his fellows had the
directly only
is
conduct of his
and successful man, was withheld from him.
experienced
tions
in so
us say, one of the most penetrative of seers, that
gift of practical
fate.
which we hold
of the most original thinkers, or
like fail
a
first
of
its
human
for
what
blossom function
the promise of a thousand to follow,
but fructify.
INDEX Absolute, The,
23, 24, 49, 127, 131, 132, 133, 152, 153, 154, 162, 163, 165, 176, 180, 199, 203, 204, 216, 228, 229, 230, 233,234, 241, 242, 243, 244, 268 Academies, Italian, 19, 37 Acidalius, Valens, see Havekenthal.V.
Acta Sanctorum, 161 Actuality, 130, 131
Adamson,
^neas
Prof., 80, yyjn Silvius, see Pius II
Agrippa, Cornelius, 18, 26, 168, 217, 237 Albertus Magnus, 21 249, 261 Albigny, Pierre d', 188
&
n, 208, 243,
Augustine, St. 12,15,41, 124, 185,269, 270 Augustus, Emperor, 6 Augustus of Saxony, 206, 207 Auvray, L, 44 Avanta, Matteo, 258 Avempace, 19 Averrhoes,ig Avicebron, 19, 20, 129 Avicenna, 19, 135 " Avvisi," 301 ,
Bacon, Francis,
33,
ii3n,
45,
117,
i67»
Alchemy,
86, 116, 213, 222 Algazel, 19, 20, 124 Alsted, J. H, 198, 264 Analogy, 71 Anaximander, 139 .Ancona, 287, 292 Anglicans, 107 Angoulfime, Henry of, 62
Balbani, N, 43 Barbadico, 276 Barebones, 83 Baronius, Card., 298 Bartholmfess, C, 306 Bartholomew's day. Massacre of St., SS.
287
Bassaus, 224, 241
Beaumont House,
Animism, 30, 67, 121, 135, 144 Anne of Denmark, 215
90, 93, 105, 109
Beccaria, Ippolito, 297 Bellarmin, R, 294, 295, 297 Belville, Abbot of, see Pierre d' Benivieni, G, 173
Anthony,
St., 12 Antidicsonus, 113 Apuleius, 167, 169
11, 14, 21 & «, 50, 52, 56, 57, 116, 124, 151, 243, 259, 269, 272,
Albigny,
Bergamo, 39
Aquinas,
Bishop of, 182 Bergeon, J, 45 Bergerac, Cyrano de, 80 Bergson, H, 134, I55», i64n, 2oin. Berkeley, Bishop, 131, 165 Berti, Doraenico, 74, 2o8n, 306 Besler, Jerom, 202, 216, 248, 249, 361 B6ze, T. de, 41, 45 Bibbiena, Card. 17, 78
285
"Arbor Philosophorum, 186 Aretino, Pietro, 17, 78 Arianism, see Arius Ariosto, 17, 148 Aristotelians and Aristotelianism, see '
Aristotle Aristotle, 17, 18, 20, 21, 23, 31, 44, 45, 46, 52, 58, 64, 6g, 8r, 83, 85, 88, 100, 106, 117, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 127, 128, I29n, 13I«, 13s, 14s, 169, 170, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 193, 197, 199, 200, 201, 202, 216, 230, 239, 240, 243,
,
Blois, 59
Boccaccio, 152 Boethius, Pastor, 218 Boiardo, 167 Bossulus, 186 Bottero, 189 Bradley, F. H, 23^,
269, 285 Arius, 14 sq, 270 Art, 116
29«,
I33n,
229n
Ascham, Roger, 40
Brictanus, J, 221, 250, 256, 257, 264 " Brotherhood of Pity," 301, 302, 303 Browne, Sir Thos. 88
Asinity, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172 Astrology, 149, 210, 213, 216, 217, 249, 255. 275 Atomism, 139, 145, 218, 229 sqq. Aubigny, D', J. A, 59
,
Browning, Robert, 249 Bruni of Asti, 2 Brunnhofer, G. B, 237, 296 309
;;; ;
;
GIORDANO BRUNO
iio Bruno, Bruno, Bruno, Bruno, Bruno,
Agostino, 7 Felipe, see Bruno, Giordano Fraulissa, 2 Gioan, i, 3, 184, 302«.
Giordano, birth, i sq; parentage, 2 childhood, 3 sqq education, sqq, 22; enters monastery, 10; 7 takes vows and changes name, 11 doubts, 12; process against, 12; ordained priest, 12, 14 summoned to Rome, 13 second process, 16 flight to Rome, 16, 34, 35 industry, studies. Chap. HI passim flight 17 ;
;
;
;
;
;
;
toGenoa,36; atNoli,37; atSavona, 37 at Turin, 38 at Venice, 38, 39 at Padua, 39: at Chamb^ry, 40; at Geneva, 41 sqq imprisoned, 45 sqq at Lyons, 49 at Toulouse, obtains degree, appointed 50 51 professor, 51 at Paris, Chap. VI passim summoned to Court, 57 appointed Lecturer, leaves 58 France, 65 at Oxford, Chap. VIII passim disputes there, 86, 87 forbidden to teach, 87 rescued by ;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
Castlenau, 89 at Elizabeth's Court, 93 sqq: experiences in England, Chap. X passim robbed, 113 leaves England, 114 second visit to Paris, 181 sqq presides at" a disputation, 190 sqq : at Mainz, 195 at Wiesbaden, 195: ,at Marburg, 195 sqq at Wittenberg, 197 praises Luther, 205 sq at'Prague, 210 sqq at Helmstedt, 213 sqq at Frankfurt, 219, 220-22; at Zurich, 222, 223; revisits Frankfurt, 223 sqq invited to Italy, 224 Sqq reaches Venice, at* Padtfa, 247 returns to 247 Venice, 249 handed over to Inquisition, 258 is tried. Chap. XVIII passim extradition demanded, 288 sqq sent to Rome, 292 treatment there, 292 sqq condemnation and death, 298 sqq. His appearance, 57, 87, 264 His character and mind, 4, 5, 6, ;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
;
14, 17, 18, 35, 44, 50, 52, 57, 59, 63, 64, 69, 71, 72, Si, 82, 83, 92, 97, 98,
105, iig, 123, 134, 136, 137, 153, 183 sqq, 209, 212, 214, 236, 237, 246, 251, 282, 283, 304, 307, 308 His ethics, 148 sqq, 175, 176, 204, 228 sqq, 273 His learning, 7 sq, 15, Chap. Ill passim, 201 His philosophy, 67 sqq, 75, 116, 121, 126 sqq, 137 sqq, 149, 154, 171, 174, 175, 176 sqq, 199, 202 sqq, 241 sqq, 266, 267 sqq.
His
religion, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 43, 44, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 65, 124, 125, 133. 137. 146, 147, 156 sqq, 163, 164, 169, 173 sqq, 185, 203, 204, 207, 208,
209, 212, 217, 221, 225, 2S6, 240, 245, 251, 253, 257, 265, 266, 267, 269 sqq, 272, 273, 274, 283 sqq, 285, 286, 296 His science, 31, 32, 33, 120 sqq, 13s sq, 139 sqq, 201, 212, 213, 215, 216, 217, 218, 227, 235, 237, 239 sqq. Works; Acrotismus, 6on, 6in, Animadver62!t, I93«, 2c;o sqq siones, 184K, 205 ArsReminiscendi, 58n, 66n, hgn,j2n, 115, 183; Articuli centum et viginti, 6o«, 62K, 193^, Articuli I9i«, I92«, 20i« 189, centum et sexaginta, 33M, I59«, 212, Artificium perorandi, 285K 213, ;
;
;
;
Arbor Philosophorum, 184 198 Asino Cillenico, loi & «., 171-72, 284K Cabala, 4«, 13M, 25?;, 26«, lOiK, i62n, 167-71, 172, 234«, 284K Candelajo, 4n, I3«, 36», 63«, 74 sqq, 99M, 183; Cantus Circasus, 8k, Causa, 13W, 62n, 72, ii5«, 24i« ;
;
;
;
$n, 7«, i8k, 19K, 20«, 24«, 32M, 55«, 8in, 85W, 88«, 89«, 90«, 9172, 92?;, 93n, 94«, 9872, 100, loi, 126-36, 138M, I57n, 164?/, 204», 2i6«, 228, 234M, 238, 267^, zyon, 2j'2n Cena, 5«, 7«, I3«, I7«, 3IW, 40«, 6o«, 64M, 74«, 81M, 85W, 87«, 90«, 9272, 9377, 9477, 99, loi & 77., 10377, 104 sqq, 117-25, 12671, 200, 23577, 239 Clavis :
;
Magna, 53;
Eroici, 377,
577, 977, 1277,
2077, 2277, 2477, 2577, 6977, 9677, 96 sqq, lOI, 10277, 13877, 14077, 172-80, 183,
203,
22477,
7377,
197, 200«
Figuratio,
28777;
27077,
186 & 77, 187, 188 & pendiosa Architectura,
77
De Com-
;
6i?7, 6277, 6377,
De Imaginum Com-
;
positione, 2477, \j2n, 223 & '77, 224, De Immenso, 577, 2477, 4977, 241 sqq :
8777,
II277, 11477, 14277,
10577,
14577, 20377, 20877, 21977, 224,
15977,
20277,
23577,
238-41, 28477, 304;
pade Combinatoria,
De Lam-
2677,
8677,
5377,
199; De Magia, 13577, 216, 217; De Medicina, 218; 19377,
19677,
197,
De Minimo,
2477,
1977,
3377,
14277,
213, 21577, 21977,222,223,224, 227-36, De Monade, 2677, 238, 26977, 283 3077, 8377, 14377, 15977, 20377, 213, 21577, 224, 236-38, 24177, 26977; De Principiis, 217; De Progressu, 199, 200 De Specierum Scrutinio, 202 ;
;
&
77,
De Umbris,
211;
2277,
2477,
66-72, 9877, 20071, De Vinculis, 244 sq, 249 241, 299 Dialogi de Fab. Mord., 187, 188; 5877, 5977, 6177, 6277, ;
;
Infinito,
2977, 1027I,
4477,
6477,
8977,
90,
10077, 136-47, 23977, 24077, Insomnium, 188 26877 ; Lampas Caballistica, 202 ; Lampas Triginta ;
Statuarum, 13877, 202-05, 233 Liber Physicorum 202 Manuscript Works, 205; Noah's Ark, 13; Oratio Consolatoria, 283 Oratio Valedic;
,
;
202,
;
1
INDEX toria,
2«, 5n, zin, zgn, 33«, 53?!, ig6n, zo6n, 207, 208 & n, zS^n Praxis, 243 & n Purgatory of Hell, Sigillus722n, 23», 24», 74, 113, 114 39«, 49», S3«, loo & «, 115 & n, 11:6 & ?;, i24«, 159, 203, 241, 304 n Signs of the times, 39; Spaccio, in, 2«, 4n, 5«, 9», 29K, 36M, 38«, 49K, 55«, 70?i, g5M, 96K, 100, loin, lozn, 148-67, 174 & n, I76«, 204^, 205W, 2o6«, 208, 215, 226n, 233, 272n, 282K, 283M, 284», 28s«, 286n, 300; Summa Terminorum, 577?, 223 & n, 234W, 243 sq Triginta Sigilloruni Explicatio, yn, 8k, 82 & n, 90M, loow, ;
;
;
;
;
US, 116 Bruno, Jordanus, see Bruno, Giordano Budgell, E, 167B Bulls, Papal, 27, 262«, 28o« Burton, R, i4i«, 167?? Butler, S, i64»
Cabala, The
Jewish, 71, 136
Cajetanus, 185 Calais, 81, 113 Callier, R, 190, 191, 192 Calvin, John, 41, 42, 43, 49 Calvinists, 49, 146 sqq, 193, 206, 207 Cambrai, College de, 60, 61, 62, 181, 184, 190, 200 (town), 14 Felice, i, 5, 9, 226 Campanella, 113, 293, 297 Campo di Fiori, 302, 303, 304, 306 Cantii, 303 Caracciolo, Galea-zzo, see Vico, Mar-
Campagna Campagna
quis of Carafa, Card., 262 Cardano, G, 32 Carnesecchi (martyr), 263 Casimir, John, 206 Castelnau, Madame de, 91, 93 Maria de, 92
M. de
(Mauvissi^re), 54, 65, 81, 82, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 100, 106, 112, 113, IIS, 126, 136, 138, 158, 181 Castiglioni, B, 173 Catherine of Sienna, St., 12 Cause, 121, 127, 128, 138
ChamWry, 40 Charing Cross, 11 I of England, 166
Charles
Chevillot, P, 188
Chicus ^sculanus, 66 Christchurch, Oxford, 85 Christian I of Saxony, 206, 207 Chrysostom, St., 34, 35 Cicala, i, 5 Cicero, 24, 70 Ciotto, G. B, 222, 224, 247, 250, 256, 263, 264, 277 Clement VIII, 251, 252, 289, 290, 291, 292, 294, 296, 297, 305 Clement, St., 23
311
Cobham, Sir H, 64, 65 Cohesion, 14s Colonna, Card., 186, 287 Comets, 144, 240 Congregation, The Roman, 287, 294, 29s. ?97 Contarini, F, 290, 291 Contraries, ig, 29, 134, 150, 151, 177 Copernicus, N, 18, 19, 31, 32, 64, 88, 100, loi, 105, 108, 120, 121, 239, 263,
294 Corneficius, Qumtus, 8, 9 Cotin, Guillaume, 35, 44, 183 sqq, 190, 27in. Croke, Richard, 84 Cujas (theologian), 186
Culpepper, Martin, 85 Cusanus, 23, 28 sqq, 122, 132, 134, 168, 208, 228, 285
Daczenus, Georgius, 212 Daniel, Samuel, 83 Dante, 17, 18, 2i«, 26, 32, 36, 71, 74, 75, 124, 148, i6sn, 172, 175, 181, 28s Dedekind (mathematician), 143 Dee, Dr. John, 86, 210 Democritus, 162 Descartes, 23, 84, 129, 213 Devereux, Penelope, 96 Dickson, Alexander, 98, ii3n, 126 Dissimulation, i6s, 166 " Doctors " of the Church, 21 Doletus, S, 49 Domenico, Fra, 252, 253, 266 Dominicans, 10, 11 sqq, 14, 18, 27, 39, SO, 29s, 30a Donato, Venetian Ambassador, 289 Dover, 81, 114
Duns
Scotus, 26, 124, 133
Dyer, Sir Edward, 9s
Eckharut,
Meister, 31
Eglin, R, 223, 264 Elgg, 222 Elizabeth of Denmark, 215
Elizabeth of England, 65, 90, 93, 94, 103, 108, 112, 275, 288
Court
of, 84, 8s, 90, 94, 96,
102, 103, 107, 108, 112, 113 Elizabeth of Hungary, St., 195 Elton, Prof., 107 Emerson, R. W, 71K. England, Appearance of, 81
Hellenism in, 84, 8s Englishman, Character of
the, 93, 102
sqq.
Englishwoman, The,
loi, 102
Epicurus, 162
Erasmus, Desiderius,
34, 78, 84, 101,
168, 182, I94n.
Erlangen Codex, 20s, 216 Este, Isabella d', 78 Ether, The, 122, 142, 143, 14s, 20i
Exchange, The Royal, 104
GIORDANO BRUNO
312 "Fathers"
of the Church, 15, 20, 35,
124, 2S6, 295 Faye, Antoine de
la, 44, 45, 46,
Fiainma (preacher), 186 Fichte, 180 Ficino, Marsiglio, 22 Filesac, 190, 191, 201 Filiberto Emmanuele, 38 Fiorentino, F, 2«, 306 Fischer, P, 222, 236 Fleix,
Peace
of,
III 200, 201, 215
,
57, 58, 59, 60, 65, 86,
,
Hering, Ewald, 16472. Hermes, The Pseudo-, 25
2o8n
Fuscari, A, 264
Gabrielli, G, 264 Galen, 135 Galileo, G, 120, 123, 141, 145, 239, 294,
307 Garnett, Dr. R, XAgn Geneva, 40-49, 146, 190, 191, 193, 195, 219, 225, 246, 288, 290 Academy of, 42, 45, 48 Genoa, 36, 37, 38 Gentile, Alberico, 85, 139 Gentile, G, 295 Gervis, 126 Ghiolieri, Michele, see Pius Giannone, P, 9«.
V
of, 67, 69,
129, 132,
133, 178, 179, 228, 244, 283 Transcendence of (see also
Ab-
solute, The), 68, 69,
139,
132, 133,
Hoffding, H, 180 Hofmann, Pro-Rector, 218, 219 Holy Office, see Inquisition
Horace, 102
Huguenots, 53, Hunting, 166
54, 55,
287
Ibsen, Henrik, 150 Ideas, Association of, 69, 72 Immortality, Personal, 79, 122, 138, 162 sqq, 169, 170, 179, 180, 203, 217, 232 sqq, 271, 272 Index Expurgatorius, 35, I43«, 149, 281, 30s Inference, 73 Infinity, 30, 120, 121, 131, 133, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 178 sqq, 201, 212, 227, 237, 238 sqq. Inquisition, The, 209, 262 : Roman, 35, 262, 263, 282, 287, 292 sqq.
—
Spanish, 2 Venetian, Chap. sim. Chap. XIX passim
XVIII
Intemperance, German, 166, 205, 206 Intuition, 25, 29 JACOBI, Friedrich Heinrich, 306 Jamblichus, 25 Jerome, St., 34, 35 Jesus Christ, 217, 259, 260, 261, 270, 271, 273, 275, 2S6, 30Q Jesuits, 51, 182, 185, 186, 210,
Greville, Fulke, 94, 95, 96, 105, io6, 107, 108, 109, III
Jovius, Paulus, 83 Julius of Brunswick, 214, 215
,
Wm
,
294
Jews, 162
Joachim of Flora, 272^, 275 Jonson, Ben, 78
84
Grun
(theologian), 198 Guicciardini, F, 79
Gwinne, Mathew,
Hainzell,
pas-
Instinct, 123
244 Goodness, 138 Gorbin, E, 66, 78, 200 Gregory XI, Pope, 27
Grocyn
214, 215,
222, 236 Heraclitus, 19, 131
64
God, Immanence
J, 191, 192 Henrietta Maria, i66 II of France, 62
Henry IV 265, 275 Henry Julius of Brunswick,
Florence, 187 Florio, John, 86, 98, 107, 109, iii, 193 Forgacz, M, 248 Form, 116, 127, 128 sqq. " Formula of Concord," 206, 207 Fracastoro, Girolamo, 13S & n. France, College dc, 60 Court of, 55, 56, 57, 59, 63 Franciscans, 27 Franco, Niccolo, 148 & n. Frankfurt, 219 sqq, 223 sqq, 236, 248, 251, 256,257, 264 Free Will, 146, 147 Frith, Miss I, 189?^,
Hennequin,
Henry Henry
48
86, 98, 107, 109
J. H, 222, 223, 241 Halberstadt, 214, 215 Halle, University of, 198 Hannibal, 6 Havekenthal, V, 248, 249 Hegel, 134 Helmstedt, 47, 213 sqq, 225 University of, 214 sqq.
Kant, Immanuel,
73, 140, 180, 213,
235 Kelly (Dr. Dee's seer), 86, 210 Kepler, Johann, 141 & n, 211, 239 Koln, 21 Krell, Nicholas, 207 "
Language
of
Accommodation,"
124, 203, 233, 285
Languet, H, 40 Laski, Adalbart, Palatine of Siradia,
86,87
INDEX Lee, Edward, 34
260, 261, 265, 271, 272, 278, 281, 296, 299
Leibnitz, G. W, 28, 167, 235 Leicester, Earl of, 94 Leo XIII, 306, 307
Molifere, 75,
274,
276,
80
Montaigne, Michel de, 54, 55, 86, 159 Montalcino, Fra, 14, 15 Mordente, Fabrizio, 187, 188, 189, 211 More, Sir Thomas, 182 Morehead, W, 166 Moro, Giovanni, 62, 63 Morcsini, Andrea, 250, 280 Morosini, Tommaso, 277, 288 Moscow, 216 Muret, Marc Antoine, 184 Mysticism, 25 & «, 30, 31, 67, 68, 69, 136, 140, 168, 169, 172, 174, 177, 242
Leone, Ambrogio, 5, 6 Leone, G. B, 247 Leucippus, 19, 162 Leviston, I,a, 62 " Liberal Arts," The, 296 Linacre, Thomas, 84 Locke, John, 130 Logic, 116 Logic (symbolic), 28 London, Chap. IX passim, 100, 104, 108 sqq. Lorentz, Hendrik Antoon, 141, 143 Loyola, Ignatius, 262
Naples,
i, 2, 3, 7, 9, lo, 14, 16, 21, 32, 33. 34. 36. 41. loi, 246, 270, 287, 288,
Lucca, 49 Lucian, 148, 150, 167, i6g
290 Narducci, 305 Nature, 30, 31, 120, 127, 134, 135, 154, i5o, 176, 201, 208, 217, 228, 283
Lucretius, 17, 19, 139, 162, 184, 227
LuUism, see LuUy LuUy, Raymond, 26 sqq,
3^3
44, 50, 53, 57,
Necessity, 146, 147
63, 67, 73, 211, 218, 225, 285 Luther, Martin, 43, ig8, 208, 209, 216 Lutherans, 206, 207, 209, 215 Lyell, Sir Charles, 123 Lyly, John, 102
Neo-Platonism, 22 sqq,
27, 66, 67, 68, 69. 73. 79. 98. 113. 115, ii£, 126, 132, 157, 168, 217, 228, 241, 243
New
College, Oxford, 85 Sir Isaac, 120, 122, 123, 145,
Newton,
Machiavelli, Nicolo, Mclntyre, Prof.
J.
239
78, 79, 167
Nigidius, Petrus, 196
L, 232, 296
Magdalen College, Oxford, 83
Nola, I, 3, 4, 5, 6, 159, 183, 188 Nola, Giovanni da, 6 Noli, 37 NoroffMSS, 216
Magic, ii6, 134, 135, 216, 217, 249, 254, 255, 273 Mainz, 195 Manuscripts, 45, 61, 196,202, 205, 216,
Occultism,
244, 252
Manutius, P, 8n. Manzoli, P. A (Palingenius), 33
Marburg,
31, 124, 133 170, 171 Orientalism, 26, 162, 189, 284 Orpheus, The Pseudo-, 25 Osiander, 31 Ovid, 17, II2«, I22K. Oxford, University of, 53, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 115, 184, 195
195, 196
Univ.
of,
52», 196, 197, 223, 225
Marlowe, Christopher, 102 Martin V, 27 Martinis, De, R, 299 Mathematics, 30, 33, 116, 143, 213, 217, 23s, 242 Matter,
n6,
127, 128 sq.
Padua,
Matthew, Tobias, 85
M. de, see Castelnau Maximum, The, 29, 228 Mauvissi4re,
Medici, Catharine de, 55, 58
Melancthon, Philip, 43, 195, 206, 207 Mendoza, Bernardino de, 90, 93, 182 Meteors, 145, 240 Michel Angelo, 179 Milan,
39 ^ 29, 30, 227 sqq. Miracles, 36, 75, 79, 160, 161, 271, 273,
K
Minimum, The, 275 Mirandola, i8S
see also Magic, 86, 116,
136, 213
Ockham, William of, Organs and function,
Pico
delta,
26,
66,
173,
Mnemonics,
8, 9, 13, 17, 53, 57, 67, 69, 100, 115, 186, 216, 223, 224, 256
Mocenigo, Giovanni, 35,225, 226, 247, 249, 250, 251, 254, 255, 256, 257, 258,
39, 40, 44, 48, 202, 247, 248, 261 University of, 247, 248 Paleario, Aonio, 263 Panigarola (preacher), 186 Paracelsus, Aureol Theophrast, 32, 135 & n, 208 Paris, 49, 53, Chap. VI passim, 78, 100, loi. Chap. XII passim, 211, 246, 264 University of, 27, 60 sqq, 190 sqq. Parmenides, 19, 116 Paruta (Venetian Ambassador) 292
•
,
Pasqua, Ambrogio, 11 Passerat (theologian), 186 Passero, Livio, 266, 276 Patrizzi, Francesco, 113K, 135
Paul
III, 31,
262
,
GIORDANO BRUNO
314
Royce, Rudolf
Paul IV, 42 Paul, St., 185
Cathedral
of,
Perron, Du, 191 Peter Lombard, St., 52 Peter of Ravenna, 8 Peter, St., 75, 185 Petrarch, 18, 50, 9;, 173 Petrarchism, 96, 97, 173 Philip II of Spain, 3, 9, 241 Philip, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel 196 Philippists, 206, 207 Philo Judseus, 25, 285 Pius II, 28, 39, 206 Pius V, 13 & n. Plato, 22, 67, 85, 116, 120, 126, 153, 172, 173 Platonists, Italian, 26, 135
Plautus, 75 Plotinus, 22 sqq, 69, 129, 131, 140, 173,
303 Porphyry, 24, 25 Porta, Giambattista della, 80 Possibility, 130, 131 Postel, Guillaume, 64
PotentiaUty, 127, 130, 131, 140 Prague, 209, 210, 211, 213, 215 University of, 209, 210 Principle, 127 sq, 130, 142 PriuU, Laurentio, 62, 264, 276, 288 Protestants (see also Calvinists, Huguenots, etc.), 9, 41 sqq, 50, 54 sq, 84, 146, 157-58, 159, 161, 210, 219, 248, 251, 263, 272, 278, 283
Pythagoras, 26, 27, 30, 85, 163, 164, 170, 179, iSo, 233, 234, 237, 242, 268,
286
QUADRIVIUM, The, 252 Rabelais,
& K,
I.
II, 82,
I26«. 210, 211, 212, 213, 276
104
76, 151, 152
Ram&,
Pierre de
Ramus,
45, 61, 64, 83, go, 135
la,
see
Ramus
Ranke, Leopold von, 306 Rapin, Reni, 192 Ravenna, Peter of, 8, 9 Rebiba, Card., 13 Reformation, The, 84, 157
Sacraments, The,
47, 48, 49, 51, 57,
159. 185, 271, 27s St. St.
St.
Clement, William of, in John's College, Oxford, 86 Maria Sopra Minerva, 34, 298,
301 St. Victor, Abbey of, 35, 183 Salvation by Faith, 157, 158 Sansovino, Jacopo, 247 Santoro di S. Severina, Card., 287, 289, 294, 297 Sarnese, II, 7 Sarpi, Fra Paoli, 14, 250, 294 Saulini, see Savolini Savolini,
Savona,
The, 7
2, 3, 5
3,
Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von, 132, 134, 306 Scholastics, The, 20, 21, 22, 27, 28, 73, 123, 126, 128, 129, 157, 271M. Schopp, Caspar, 298, 300, 301, 304
Scotus Erigena, 73, 133 Scriptures, The Holy, 71, 106, 124, 125, i6o, 169, 269, 285 Servetus, Michael, 42, 50 Settizonio, Lauro, see Leone, G. B. Sevcrino, Card. see Santoro Shakespeare, 94 Shaw, George Bernard, 150, 151 Sidney, Sir Phihp, 40, 82, 83, 95, 96, 97, ,
98, loi, 148, 150, 163, 166, 173, 180,
221 Sidonia, Bishop of, 300 Sigwart, Christoph von, 222n. Sixtus V, 182, 186, 287, 288, 304 Smith (?), 74, 98, 99, 113
John, 99 Joseph, 99 William, 99 Socinians, z20 Solomon, 66, 129
Somma, Monte,
i
Sorbonne, The, 60, 61, 62, 191 Sorgue, The, 97 Soul,
The
Individual, 23, 24, 129, 154,
Regnault, Henri, 62
185, 203, 204, 229, 231 sqq, 271 & n Soul of the World, The, 23, 24, 32, 49,
Relativity, 29, 121, 140, 141, 142, 143 Religion, 70, 73, 124, 125, 151, 155 sqq, 162, 163, 173, 174, 204
116, 127, 129, 133, 141, 144, 155, 162, 165, 201, 203, 217, 230, 232, 234 Soul, Transmigration of the, 163, 164,
Remigio, Father, 39 Renaissance, The, 32, 55, 67, 71, 78, 86, 151, 153, 237, 284, 285, 286 Revelation, 284 Rich, Lady, see Devereux, Penelope Rittershausen, Conrad, 304
170 Space, 119, 120, 138, 139, 141, 142 Spagnuolo, Alonzo, 182 Spampanato, Prof. Vicenzo, 2 n. Spenser, Edmund, 95, 96, 102 " Sphere," The, 37, 50, 87 Spinoza, 132, 178, 306, 308 "Stella," see Devereux, Penelope
Rome,
9, 16, 35, 39, 51, 187, 225, 281,
288, 289, 290, 291, Church of, 139, 163, 193, 209, 210, 282, 283, 286, 296,
292, 304 157, 158, r59, 160, 215, 216, 249, 251,
300
Stephanus Stewart, Sg, 90
(scholar), 49 Mary, Queen
of Scotland,
INDEX Storti,
315
Varano,
Canon, 299
Teoiilo da, 7, 8, 117, 126 Varro, Michael, 46 Vatican, Archives of the, 293 Vaucluse, 97 Venice, 38, 40, 43, 100, 221, 222, 224,
Stuttgart, 205 Substance, 130, 131, 137, 163, 230
Swedenborg, Emanuel, 71 Symbolism, 26, 71
Tabeena, Ludovico, 264, 289, 292 Tansillo, Luigi, 3 & n, 17, i39«, 148, 173. 175. 176, 179. 180 Tarcagnota of Gaeta, 186 Tasso, s8, 59, 148, 152, 153 Taylor, Prof. A. E, 23«, I38», 203n Telesio, Bernardo, 32, ii3», 135
225, 226, 247, 249, 250, 251, 257, 263, 277, 278, 282, 287, 289, 290
The Three " of, 280 Ventimiglia, The Count of, 300, 303 Vercelli, Process of, 38, 290 Vesuvius, I, s *
'
Vicissitude, 75, 86, 129, 131, 137, 154, 163, 165, 173, 240
Temple, The, no Tennyson, Lord, 2S«
Vico, Marquis of, 42, 43 Vincent, John, 44, 48, 190, 191
TertuUian, 124, 285 Thales, 24
Virgil, 17, 129, 269, 285, 286 Vita, Fra Domenico, 252 Voltaire, 150
Thames, The,
102, 104, 175
Theodosius, Emperor, 155 Theology, 84, 133, 146, 147 Thou, J. A. de, 59 Tiber, The, 35, 260, 292 Tocco, F, 181, 232, 24s, 306 Toland, John, I47«
Walsingham,
Sir Henry, 65, 94 " War of the Three Henries," 164 Warnsdorff, Hans von, 205 Warnsfeld, Field of, 221
"Wars
Toledo (preacher), 186 Toledo, Pedro de, 3, 4 Torquato, 98, in Toulouse, 50 Toulouse, University 57
Watson, Thomas, 98, ii3« Wechel, J, 221, 222, 236 Wechels, The, 220 of,
50,
51,
53,
Transubstantiation, 159, 299 Travel in the i6th Century, 193, 194 Trent, Decrees of, 8, 12, 78, 249, 282,
290 Trinity,
The,
12, 14, 15, 29, 156, 203,
259, 265, 269, 270, 275
Trivium, The, 252 Truth, 180 Truth, Degrees of, 29 Truth, Twofold, 124, 296 Turin, 38 Tycho Brahe, 211
of Religion," 53, 54 sq, 155,
192
Westminster, 107, log Whitman, Walt, 97
Whole, The
(see also Absolute, The),
132. 133
Wiesbaden, 195 William the Wise, Landgrave of Hesse Cassel, 196, 208 Wittenberg, 85, 195, 198, 233
University of, 196, 197, 198, 199, 202, 206, 207, 208, 209, 211
Wolff, John, 223 133, 224,
284,
Wotton,
Sir
Henry, 253
Zurich, 222, 223 Zutphen, 98
Printed by
Ballantyne, Hanson Work, Edinburgh
at Paul's
&• Co.