Giordano Bruno (1548-1600)1.32004/05/11 15:38:11 GMT-52004/05/25 09:32:04.073 GMT-5AlbertVan Heldenhelden@rice.eduAlbertVan Heldenhelden@rice.eduRobertAhlfingerahlfing@rice.eduGiordanoBrunoGalileopolymathInquisitionCopernicusJohannes KeplerChristianityA brief biography of Giordano Bruno (1548-1600).Giordano Bruno
Christian Bartholméss, Jordano Bruno (Paris: Libaririe Philosophique de Ladrange, 1846), frontispiece.
Filippo Bruno was born in Nola, near Naples, the son of Giovanni
Bruno, a soldier, and Fraulissa Savolino. He took the name
Giordano upon entering the Dominican order. In the great Dominican
monastery in Naples (where Thomas Aquinas had taught), Bruno was
instructed in Aristotelian philosophy. His exceptional expertise
in the art of memory brought him to the attention of patrons, and
he was brought to Rome to demonstrate his abilities to the
Pope. During this period he may also have come under the influence
of Giovanni Battista Della Porta, a Neapolitan polymath who
published an important book on natural magic. Bruno was attracted
to new streams of thought, among which were the works of Plato and
Hermes Trismegistus, both resurrected in Florence by Marsilio
Ficino in the late fifteenth century. Hermes Trismegistus was
thought to be a gentile prophet who was a contemporary of
Moses. The works attributed to him in fact date from the turn of
the Christian era.
Because of his heterodox tendencies, Bruno came to the
attention of the Inquisition in Naples and in 1576 he left the
city to escape prosecution. When the same happened in Rome, he
fled again, this time abandoning his Dominican habit. For the
next seven years he lived in France, lecturing on various
subjects and attracting the attention of powerful patrons. From
1583 to 1585 he lived at the house of the French ambassador in
London. During this period he published the books that are most
important for our purposes, Cena de le Ceneri ("The Ash
Wednesday Supper") and De l'Infinito, Universo e Mondi ("On the
Infinite Universe and Worlds"), both published in 1584. In Cena
de le Ceneri, Bruno defended the heliocentric theory of
Copernicus . It appears that he did not understand astronomy
very well, for his theory is confused on several points. In De
l'Infinito , Universo e Mondi, he argued that the universe was
infinite, that it contained an infinite number of worlds, and
that these are all inhabited by intelligent beings.
Wherever he went, Bruno's passionate utterings led to
opposition. During his English period he outraged the Oxford
faculty in a lecture at the university; upon his return to
France, in 1585, he got into a violent quarrel about a
scientific instrument. He fled Paris for Germany in 1586, where
he lived in Wittenberg, Prague, Helmstedt, and Frankfurt. As he
had in France and England, he lived off the munificence of
patrons, whom after some time he invariably outraged. In 1591
he accepted an invitation to live in Venice. Here he was
arrested by the Inquisition and tried. After he had recanted,
Bruno was sent to Rome, in 1592, for another trial. For eight
years he was kept imprisoned and interrogated
periodically. When, in the end, he refused to recant, he was
declared a heretic and burned at the stake.
It is often maintained that Bruno was executed because of his
Copernicanism and his belief in the infinity of inhabited
worlds. In fact, we do not know the exact grounds on which he
was declared a heretic because his file is missing from the
records. Scientists such as Galileo and Johannes Kepler were
not sympathetic to Bruno in their writings.
polymath A person of great learning in several fields of study.Frances YatesNo Title GivenDictionary of Scientific BiographyNo Year GivenGiordano BrunoThe Ash WednesdayThe Hague:Mouton1975Sidney GreenbergThe Infinite in Giordano Bruno, with a Translation of his Dialogue Concerning the Cause, Principle, and OneNew York: King's Crown Press1950Jack LindsayCause, Principle, and Unity; Five DialoguesNew York: International Publishers1964Dorothea Waley SingerGiordano Bruno, his Life and Thought. With Annotated Translation of his Work, On the Infinite Universe and WorldsNew York: Schuman1900Frances YatesGiordano Bruno and the Hermetic TraditionChicago: University of Chicago Press1964 Walter PagelGiordano Bruno: The Philosophy of Circles and the Circular Movement of the BloodJournal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences19516116-125Angus ArmitageThe Cosmology of Giordano BrunoAnnals of Science1948624-31