Bruno Giordano

Born in Nola (in Campania, then part of the Kingdom of Naples) in 1548, he was originally named Filippo Bruno. His father was Giovanni Bruno, a soldier. At the age of eleven he traveled to Naples to study the Trivium. At 15, Bruno entered the Dominican Order, taking the name of Giordano from Giordano Crispo, his metaphysics tutor. He continued his studies, completing his novitiate, and becoming an ordained priest in 1572.

He was interested in philosophy, and was an expert on the art of memory; he wrote books on mnemonic technique, which Frances Yates contends may have been disguised Hermetic tracts. The writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus had played an important role in the Renaissance Neoplatonic revival. At that time they were thought to date uniformly to the earliest days of ancient Egypt and to encode a form of "pristine wisdom" ("prisca philosophia").

They are now believed to date mostly from about 300 A.D. and are associated with Neoplatonism.

In Rome he was imprisoned for seven years during his lengthy trial, lastly in the Tower of Nona.

Some important documents about the trial are lost, but others have been preserved, among them a summary of the proceedings that was rediscovered in 1940. [2] The numerous charges against Bruno, based on some of his books as well as on witness accounts, included blasphemy, immoral conduct, and heresy in matters of dogmatic theology, and involved some of the basic doctrines of his philosophy and cosmology.

Luigi Firpo lists them as follows: [3]

Holding opinions contrary to the Catholic Faith and speaking against it and its ministers.

Holding erroneous opinions about the Trinity, about Christ's divinity and Incarnation.

Holding erroneous opinions about Christ.

Holding erroneous opinions about Transubstantiation and Mass.

Claiming the existence of a plurality of worlds and their eternity.

Believing in metempsychosis and in the transmigration of the human soul into brutes.

Dealing in magics and divination.

Denying the Virginity of Mary.

Bruno continued his Venetian defensive strategy, which consisted in bowing to the Church's dogmatic teachings, while trying to preserve the basis of his philosophy. In particular Bruno held firm to his belief in the plurality of worlds, although he was admonished to abandon it. His trial was overseen by the inquisitor, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, who demanded a full recantation, which Bruno eventually refused. Instead he appealed in vain to Pope Clement VIII, hoping to save his life through a partial recantation.

The Pope expressed himself in favor of a guilty verdict. Consequently, Bruno was declared a heretic, handed over to secular authorities on February 8, 1600. At his trial he listened to the verdict on his knees, then stood up and said:

"Perhaps you, my judges, pronounce this sentence against me with greater fear than I receive it."

A month or so later he was brought to the Campo de' Fiori, a central Roman market square, his tongue in a gag, tied to a pole naked and burned at the stake, on February 17, 1600.