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The Crimes of Giordano Bruno
of the surrounding cooling bodies, analogously to how those in our
world depend on the Sun’s heat. The Earth seemed to be a relatively
opaque star, whereas some other stars are bright. He also argued
that some stars are moons. He argued that all stars are worlds and,
furthermore, that stars are rational, moving animals, which, like the
Earth, have waters that move within their caverns as blood through
veins. He spoke about a soul that embraces and infuses all things.
He referred to the Earth as a ‘divinity’. Furthermore, Bruno praised
the views voiced in Plato’s Timaeus and by Nicholas of Cusa. Against
Aristotle, Bruno argued that the accepted concept of the order of
the elements and the heavenly bodies was a vain fantasy.
Bruno portrayed Pythagoras as a role model, denying such praise
to Plato. Bruno echoed Cicero’s claim that Pythagoras coined the
word ‘philosopher’, and then Bruno called himself a philosopher.
He expressed his allegiance by referring to ‘the school of Pythagoras
and our own’. He praised the ‘saintly words of the philosopher of
Samos’. Bruno defended the theory of the transmigration of souls
(metempsychosis), and argued that soul is in things, that it survives
death, by existing in atoms. He voiced his desire to create a new
science based on Pythagorean principles. Furthermore, in his writings Bruno referred to some famous Pythagoreans, even Apollonius, whom he called a magician. Bruno alluded to Apollonius’ ability to
know things at a distance.48
Meanwhile, in 1584 the Spanish theologian Diego de Zúñiga published a commentary on the Book of Job, defending the Copernican theory. Zúñiga noted that in the Bible the characterization of God
as ‘He who moves the Earth from its place, and its pillars tremble’
seemed to say that the Earth moves. He claimed that this passage
could be explained by ‘the statement of the Pythagoreans’ and of
Copernicus.49 Seemingly contrary passages, such as ‘Generations will come, and generations will pass away, but the Earth remains
forever’ (Ecclesiastes 1:4), argued Zúñiga, referred not to the Earth
unmoving but to its durability. He credited the Pythagorean opinion of the Earth’s motion to Philolaus and Heraclides (citing the Placita), followed by Numa, and Plato when old.
In a work of 1585 Bruno described a dialogue between a donkey
and a man called ‘the Fool’. This book presented abundant sarcasm
against the Christian religion. At one point the wise donkey brings
up Pythagoras and the notion of transmigration, by saying:
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Don’t be so proud, O Fool, and remember that your
Pythagoras teaches not to disdain any thing found in the
bosom of nature. Although I am an ass in form at present,
I may have been and may become again the form of a great
man; and although you are a man, you may have been and
may yet become a great ass, according to what will seem
expedient to the distributor of clothes and abodes, and the
dispatcher of transmigrant souls.
Another character in the dialogue, Onorio, makes several statements
about transmigration. One of his companions referred to Onorio as
‘living now in the terrestrial, now in the infernal, now in the celestial
abodes’. Such statements and others seem to suggest that Bruno
favoured the notion of the transmigration of souls.50
Like Copernicus, Bruno also praised the legendary discipline
of silence of Pythagoras:
the most profound and divine theologians say that God
is honoured and loved more by silence than by words; as
can be seen more by closing one’s eyes to the representing
species than by opening them: thus the negative theology of
Pythagoras and Dionysius [the Areopagite] is much more
renowned, above the demonstrative one of Aristotle and the
scholastic doctors.51
In 1588 Bruno moved to Prague. There the Holy Roman
Emperor Rudolf ii was nominally Catholic, though he tolerated
the Protestants and was interested in mysticism and alchemy. Bruno
promptly dedicated a work to Rudolf, titled ‘One Hundred and Sixty
Articles Directed against the Mathematicians and Philosophers of
the Day’. Bruno voiced hopes for religious unity and complained
about intolerance. He wanted to transform Catholic Christianity. He
complained that ‘authority usually binds and deceives in countless
ways’, such that thinkers should free themselves from ‘subjection’. 52
Still, Bruno left Prague to go to Helmstedt where a new university
had recently opened. He matriculated in January 1589 and dedicated
much time to reading and writing about magic, that is, about how
to effect occult but natural feats. However, Bruno encountered religious controversies again. The chief pastor of the Lutheran church 36
The Crimes of Giordano Bruno
in Helmstedt excommunicated him. The charge was a public dishonour, as if he were a heretic. Bruno’s ideas seemed so unorthodox that some Protestants did not tolerate them. So he left the city and
headed to Frankfurt in mid1590.
In 1591 Bruno published a work building upon the ancient
Pythagorean notion of ‘monads’, as the constituent elements of
things and numbers. 53 Echoing Philostratus, Bruno noted that:
‘Apol onius, thanks to the virtues of numbers, resurrected a girl, after
she heard her name. ’54 Was it the case that only Jesus Christ and his apostles could perform resurrection? Bruno also again seemed to
advocate transmigration. In another book, Bruno argued:
According to how a soul behaved in one body, so too it disposes to depart from it, as said by Pythagoras, the Sadducees, Origen, & others and many Platonists . . . Therefore some
[souls] travel among human bodies, others enter the bodies
of heroes, while others are driven into the degraded ones.55
Prisoner of the Inquisition
In 1591 Giovanni Mocenigo, a Venetian aristocrat, sent Bruno a personal letter inviting Bruno to teach him. Bruno went to Venice and began teaching philosophy to Mocenigo, but in May 1592 Mocenigo
sent a written complaint to the Venetian Inquisition, with serious
accusations against Bruno. I will focus on the accusations pertaining to Pythagorean beliefs, but in order to see how the subsequent accusations against Bruno related to this earliest set, we should list
all of Mocenigo’s claims. I quote them in the sequence they appear in
Mocenigo’s original complaint, but add numbers to itemize them. I
have separated each distinct claim rather than group them according
to the semicolons; and I have omitted a few superfluous phrases,
adding ellipses:
First Accusations against Bruno, by Giovanni Mocenigo
(1) that he said that it is a great blasphemy of Catholics to
say that bread transubstantiates into flesh [of Christ];
(2) that he is an enemy of the [Catholic] mass;
(3) that no religion pleases him;
(4) that Christ was a wretch, who did wicked deeds to
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seduce people, that one could well predict that he should
be hanged;
(5) that he saw no distinctions of persons in God [the
Trinity], and that
this would be an imperfection in God;
(6) that the world is eternal,
(7) and that there are infinite worlds,
(8) and that God creates infinity continually . . .
(9) that Christ did [merely] apparent miracles and that he
was a magician . . .
(10) that Christ showed himself unwilling to die, and that
he tried to escape inasmuch as he could;
(11) that there is no punishment for sins,
(12) and that the souls created by the work of nature pass
from one animal into another;
(13) and that just as brute animals are born from
corruption, so too will humans, when after the deluges they
will be born again.
(14) He showed himself wanting to be the creator of a new
sect under the name of the New Philosophy;
(15) he said that the Virgin could not have given birth,
(16) and that our Catholic faith is full of blasphemies
against the majesty of God . . .
(17) that all are asses, and that our opinions are doctrines of
asses;
(18) that we don’t have proof that our faith has merit with
God . . .
(19) and that he is amazed by how God tolerates so many
heresies by Catholics.
(20) He says that he wants to study the arts of divination,
and that he wants to run all over the world;
(21) that St Thomas and all the doctors knew nothing
compared to him . . .56
Thus Mocenigo accused Bruno of many heresies and blasphemies,
saying that he suspected that Bruno was ‘possessed by a demon’. At
the time many denunciations to the Inquisition did not generate any
proceedings against a suspect. Yet Mocenigo’s accusations were so
significant that the Venetian Inquisition promptly arrested Bruno,
imprisoned him and began a process of interrogation.
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The Crimes of Giordano Bruno
The main function of the Inquisition was to condemn heretics.
When someone was accused of holding a belief that clashed with
Catholic dogma, the Inquisitors tried to compel that person to recognize the mistake. If that person refused to abandon such beliefs then he or she could be condemned to execution if such beliefs had
been classified as ‘formally heretical’. Other lesser beliefs could be
deemed ‘erroneous’: they might be classified either as ‘offensive’,
‘temerarious’ (rashly opposed to theological consensus) or ‘nearly
heretical’. If a questionable proposition seemed theologically debatable, its proponent could be asked to merely ‘retract’ it rather than
‘abjure’ it.57
The Venetian Inquisition subjected Bruno to six interrogations
over ten days. Bruno argued that he had not criticized the Catholic
faith, but had mainly spoken philosophically. He denied various
accusations. I now highlight only the relevant points concerning
Pythagorean beliefs. In the numbered list of initial accusations,
above, there are four arguably Pythagorean claims: (6) the world
is eternal, (7) there are infinitely many worlds, (12) animal souls
transmigrate into other bodies, (13) human souls are also reborn. By
‘Pythagorean’ I do not mean that I regard them as such, since we
don’t even really know the beliefs of Pythagoras; instead, I mean
that philosophers and theologians in the Renaissance had attributed
such notions to the Pythagoreans. These four claims do not seem
to stand out among the other presumably more offensive heresies
against Catholicism, but as we will see, they became increasingly
important in Bruno’s trial.
In his defence, Bruno clearly denied practically all of the offensive, embarrassing and dangerous statements that he had allegedly voiced against God, Christ, theologians and Catholicism. The historian Thomas F. Mayer grossly misrepresented Bruno’s compliance:
‘Unlike Galileo, Bruno did not need accusers. He was perfectly
happy to incriminate himself. ’58 But no, Bruno’s depositions actually show that he was very concerned with the accusations and denied
nearly all of them; acknowledging only the few that he construed
as not opposing Catholicism.
Still, Bruno voiced other opinions that had questionable theological relevance. In particular, in his third deposition Bruno explained his philosophical views. Again he said, ‘I have not
taught anything against the Catholic Christian religion.’ But he
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acknowledged that philosophical arguments could be misinterpreted
as being indirectly opposed to the Catholic faith. He said that he
had articulated his philosophical views clearly in his books. He then
summarized his views:
I affirm an infinite universe, which is the consequence of the
infinite divine power, because I regard it as unworthy of the
divine goodness and power that, being able to produce in
addition to our world another and infinitely others, it would
produce one finite world. I have indeed asserted infinite particular worlds similar to the Earth, which with Pythagoras I consider a star, similar to which is the Moon, other planets
and other stars, which are infinite; and that all those bodies
are worlds and numberless, which thus constitute the infinite
universality in an infinite space; and this is called the infinite
universe, in which are innumerable worlds.59
Despite his intentions, Bruno’s ‘philosophical’ opinions had theological significance because they referred to ‘the divine power’ and the nature of God’s Creation.
When he was interrogated by the Inquisitors, he admitted that
‘regarding the divine Spirit as a third person I have not been able to
grasp the sense in which it ought to be believed, but instead according to the Pythagorean way, in accord to which way I understand it as the soul of the universe, as shown by Solomon’. 60 Bruno quoted a biblical line attributed to Solomon:
‘For the spirit of God fil s the Earthly orb: and therefore he
who contains everything’, which entirely conforms to the
Pythagorean doctrine explained by Virgil in the sixth [book
of] the Aeneid:
‘In the beginning the spirit nourishes within
the sky, and lands, and regions of water,
and the shining globe of the Moon, and the Titanic stars,
totally infused through the limbs
a mind agitates the mass . . . ’61
and that which follows.
Thus from this spirit, that I have called the life of the
universe, I say in my philosophy, there originates the life
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The Crimes of Giordano Bruno
and the soul of each thing that has soul and life, which I
understand to be immortal; as all other bodies.62
Bruno immediately added: ‘As for their substance, all [bodies] are
immortal, death being nothing but division and congregation.’ He
quoted the statement in Ecclesiastes 1:9 that ‘there is nothing new
under the Sun.’
To explain himself, Bruno thus referred to book 6 of Virgil’s
Aeneid ( c. 19 bce). In it, Virgil had written about how the hero Aeneas descended to the underworld, where he then spoke with
the phantom of his dead father, who revealed a secret vision to his
son: countless souls (or ghosts) crowd around a dark river, waiting for new mortal bodies. The ghost explained that a great
fiery spirit fil s and animates al the world, in earth, water, air, heaven,
the Sun, Moon and in every star. This spirit gave rise to animals and
humans, as their souls originate in Olympus but are imprisoned in
earthly bodies, until those bodies die and the freed souls return to
the heavens. But each body somehow stains each soul; therefore each
soul must undergo a painful penance, to purge sins and crimes. Once
purified, the chosen few souls gain blissful Elysium, while the rest
flow back to the world, wanting to gain new bodies.63
By itself this episode of Virgil’s Aeneid might not necessarily
seem to refer to the Pythagorean religion in particular, but to popular
pagan beliefs, if only because Virgil did not name the Pythagoreans,
at least in the Aeneid. However, Bruno did.
Bruno had published his claim about the great Spirit in Virgil’s
Aeneid in his book On the Cause, Principle and One (1584), where he wrote:
The universal Intellect is the intimate, most real, peculiar and
powerful part of the soul of the world. This is a single whole
that fil s everything, il uminates the universe and directs
nature to the production of suitable species: it is concerned
with the production of natural things as our intellect with
the congruous production of rational kinds. It is called by
the Pythagoreans the motive force and mover of the universe, as said the poet [Virgil]: ‘Mind agitates the mass and intermixes itself with the great body. ’64
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Accordingly, historian Dilwyn Knox remarks: ‘Bruno, of course, recognized that the World Soul was an essential feature of Plato’s and Platonic cosmology . . . For Bruno, however, the doctrine was not
Plato’s invention, nor was it quintessentially Platonic. Rather, it was
Pythagorean.’ Knox recognized that ancient Stoics developed such
notions, although Bruno was unaware of it.65
In his manuscript On Mathematical Magic Bruno had presented
Virgil’s words as being by Pythagoras himself. Bruno there argued:
The heavens and the world are animated, and likewise
heavenly bodies that are visible, as the most noble poets
and the wisest philosophers have granted, and that one universal spirit is ingrained in the universal machine, one mind, infused through the framework, moves the universal mass,
as said by Pythagoras.66
Burned Alive: Bruno, Galileo and the Inquisition Page 5