Giordano Bruno

Giordano Bruno, a man who gave his life for the fight against The Papal Empire (Cf. Galileo's attitude)

Giordano Bruno was an Italian radical philosopher highly influenced by Nicola di Cusa. He was burned at the stake in February 17, 1600 by the Roman Inquisition. He was charged for the following 'felonies':

1. The denial of the Bible as being sacred

2. The debunking of the Sacraments

3. The criticizing of the Roman Church for her worldly politics

4. The commercialization of sin redemption of which the huge profits were being used by a  serial of corrupt popes to fight wars & build preposterous churches

5. His influence was enhanced by his heroic death, and was perhaps a crucial trigger in the Scientific Boom of the XVII century

6. He went far ahead the weak, theological notion that the Heliocentric System is an array of spheres rotating around a source of light (the sun, actually a symbol for God), since:

7. Bruno radicalized cosmology asserted that:

7.1. The universe has no middle point at all

7.2. The sun is a star between millions of others

7.3. The Universe is infinite, a dangerous opinion, which Copernicus, and many others, carefully avoided

8. Bruno was an unconventional thinker who stopped seeing god as a 'person' but rather as some sort cosmic entity inhibiting everything as a divine spirit (pantheism)

9. He also believed that there was intelligent life on other planets

While Galileo bowed down for the inquisition & started to hide the social implication of his science by mathematizing it, thus making it incomprehensible for the laity. For Bruno, as a philosopher, the new cosmological system was a tool in his overall attack against the way the world was organized.

Bruno integrated the new science into his worldview, a worldview which became a way of life he refused to surrender under any circumstance. Bruno was truly a radical. From the divinity of the universe he explained God as not somebody who can be contacted when needed, but as something akin to nature itself. In a time in which the representation of god on earth was the justification of authority & a constant cause of war, Bruno was sweeping the power base under the asses of catholic & protestant leaders by stating that their personified god did not exist. A maverick opinion, which laid the foundation for the teachings from Spinoza & the sub-cultural atheism at the end of the 19th century.

His life threatened in Italy, Bruno traveled for more than 30 years throughout protestant Europe. Easygoing as he was, a fluent debater who was able to make admirers wherever he introduced himself & being on the run for the 'heretics of Rome' he was easily seen as a friend by the protestants he encountered. He managed to get appointments at royal courts & universities without much trouble, but as soon as the initial enthusiasm for his person fainted it turned out that his personality as well as his strange theories were to uncompromising to root under protection of any worldly power. At the end he was lured back to Italy by a certain Mocenigo who wanted Bruno to teach him, but eventually handed him over to the inquisition. Why Bruno excepted this offer to come back in the first place is a question which have never been fully explained, home-sickness has been suggested. Bruno was put into prison & for the rest of his live, 9 years, he was to remain there. But his power of will was unbroken, time after time he refused to withdraw anything he had said. He accepted his death penalty with as he said: "Less fear than you my judges lay it on me". Legend has it that Bruno's last act of resistance while dying on the stake was to push away a crucifix which was showed him. This might be true coming from a man who collected a triple heresy bill. The Catholics of Rome, the protestants of Geneva & the Anglican Church in Britain all convicted him as a heretic.

Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, Tycho Brahe & other eminent scientist of those days were certainly aware of the books written by Bruno, but for their own safety Galileo for instance never acknowledged Bruno's existence. Bruno's work being connoted with sinner's fire soon went down into obscurity.

Confront Bruno's attitude and behaviours with Galileo's inconsistencies and abnormal behaviours

This were the circumstances which made Copernicus & Galilei became the great scientists which 'invented' modern astronomy, while Bruno remained a footnote in the history of the late renaissance. But we should not forget that Bruno was not an scientist, he was a philosopher in a time that this was an all compassing profession. He regarded Copernicus as just a mathematician & as such not being able to understand fully what his discoveries meant. It was differentiation of science into different fields of specialization which began with the 'new science' that Bruno distrusted more than everything else.

Only at the end of the 19th century Bruno was rediscovered by freethinkers and even gained so much popularity that Bruno statues in Naples & Rome were erected. His statue in Rome is located at the Campo dei Fiori, at the same square he was burned, a stone's throw away from the Vatican. The unveiling of the monument (June the 9th, 1889. turned out to be a great event, more then 10.000 people from all parts of Italy showed up to celebrate Giordano Bruno & to demonstrate against pope Leo XIII in the process. Fearing riots the Vatican was closed for 3 days while the Swiss Guard was armed & ready.