PhilosophersGiordano Bruno

Giordano Bruno

The universe is infinite, filled with countless worlds.

Humanism · Neoplatonism1548 – 1600 ItalyPhilosopher of natureCosmologist of the infinite universeFormer Dominican, condemned for heresyWriter of dialogues
Come è possibile che l'universo sia finito?
How is it possible that the universe can be finite? (Filoteo, his spokesman)
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È dunque l'universo uno, infinito, inmobile.
The universe is then one, infinite, immobile. (Teofilo, his spokesman)
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lui non vedea per gli occhi di Copernico, né di Ptolomeo, ma per i proprii
He did not see through the eyes of Copernicus, nor of Ptolemy, but through his own. (Teofilo, about "the Nolan", that is Bruno)
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Maiori forsan cum timore sententiam in me fertis quam ego accipiam.
Perhaps you pronounce this sentence against me with greater fear than I receive it. (Reported by Kaspar Schoppe, a hostile witness)
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trovaremo non esser morte, non solo per noi, ma né per veruna sustanza
We shall find that there is no death, neither for us nor for any substance. (Dedicatory letter of The Infinite, in his own voice)
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Misconceptions

Nuanced
Bruno was burned for defending Copernicus and science.

From the texts we have, the questions were mostly theological. Before his Venetian judges he is questioned about the Trinity; he admits having doubted that the Son and the Holy Spirit are "persons" and that the Son became incarnate. Schoppe, present at the reading of the sentence, lists the "dogmas" he finds in his books: innumerable worlds, but also souls passing from one body to another, magic, the Holy Spirit as the world-soul, Christ not being God (the list of a hostile witness, who says he quotes the titles from memory). The plurality of worlds was thus among the theses held against him, but Copernicus had not yet been condemned (that came in 1616). The sentence itself is not in our corpus: we cannot say, text in hand, which charges decided it.

Nuanced
Bruno, martyr of free thought.

He died refusing to recant, and he defended the philosopher's freedom: to claim there is only one road to knowing nature is pride. But the image of the "martyr of free thought" is mostly a 19th-century construction: the statue in the Campo de' Fiori was unveiled in 1889 by anticlerical circles. Bruno himself said he hated "the vulgar herd", and his spokesman approves of certain truths not being taught to the people. The freedom he defends is first of all the philosopher's.

Nuanced
"You are more afraid to pronounce this sentence than I am to receive it": these were his last words.

The sentence is well attested, but by a single witness, Kaspar Schoppe, a convert hostile to Bruno, in a letter written on the day of the burning. It was not said at the stake but on 8 February 1600, after the reading of the sentence, and it begins with "perhaps" (forsan). Schoppe adds that at the stake Bruno grimly rejected the image of the crucified Christ shown to him.