Burned Alive: Bruno, Galileo and the Inquisition

by Alberto A. Martinez

  Therefore, an officer of the Inquisition composed the summary of

  the long proceedings, finished before 1 March 1598, and discovered

  centuries later by Mercati. And after it was written, the Inquisitors

  confronted Bruno in a ‘Seventeenth Deposition’.

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  We know about this important deposition because brief notes

  about it were added in the margins of the ‘Summary’ of Bruno’s

  trial. First, in the account of Bruno’s third deposition, in which

  he had discussed the Trinity by describing ‘the Pythagorean doctrine’ that the Holy Spirit is the soul of the world and quoting Virgil’s Aeneid, an employee of the Inquisition now added, in the

  margin of that page: ‘About these replies by him, he was interrogated [again] in the 17th Deposition, folio 257, where he affirmed the same replies in which he relapses [ reincidit].’ Second, in the

  immediately following paragraph, in which he said that he had

  some doubts about some expressions about the persons of God,

  again the margin bears an annotation: ‘About these words he was

  interrogated in the 17th Deposition, fol. 257 v up to fol. 261, and he

  gave replies which relapse [ reincidunt] into the same thing’. Third,

  also in the summary of that third deposition, in which Bruno had

  said that he agreed ‘with Pythagoras’ that the Earth is a star similar

  to the Moon, again someone added in the margin: ‘About this reply

  he was interrogated in the 17th Deposition, fol. 261, but does not

  seem to satisfy, because he relapsed [ reincidit] into the same reply.’

  The word reincidit was a technical term for Inquisitors. It was part

  of the definition of someone who has ‘relapsed’ into heresy.198 This shows that Bruno’s beliefs about the soul of the world, the persons

  of God and the plurality of worlds were heretical, and that he obstinately repeated them.

  By March 1598 the Congregation of the Holy Roman Office

  (the Inquisition) consisted of several cardinals, several coadjutors or

  consultors, an Assessor of the Holy Office, a General Commissary

  and the official notary. Father Alberto Tragagliolo was the General

  Commissary of the Holy Office. Tragagliolo and Bellarmine agreed

  to produce another list of propositions that would synthesize Bruno’s

  principal heresies, and on 14 January 1599 Tragagliolo and Bellarmine

  presented ‘eight heretical propositions collected from the books

  and trial’ of Bruno. 199 The Inquisitors agreed that Bruno would be required solemnly to abjure such propositions. Unfortunately, the

  official document is not extant, or researchers have not found it

  despite many efforts.

  Some scholars have tried to guess the eight propositions on

  the basis of the alleged transgressions in the Venetian and Roman

  proceedings against Bruno. In 1886 Felice Tocco speculated that

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  the propositions were about: (1) the distinction of persons in God;

  (2) the Incarnation of the Word; (3) the nature of the Holy Spirit;

  (4) the divinity of Christ; (5, 6, 7) the necessity, eternity and infinity

  of nature; and (8) the transmigration of souls. These questions are

  theological, but in view of the present analysis of the ten censured

  propositions, several of Tocco’s conjectures now seem Pythagorean

  too: the Holy Spirit as soul of the universe, the eternity and infinity of nature, and the transmigration of souls. Likewise, in 2002

  Finocchiaro speculated, ‘it is likely that this list [of eight heresies] dealt primarily with the questions of the temporal, spatial and plural infinity of the universe, and with issues of the nature,

  immortality and individuality of the soul and its relationship to

  the body, the world and material substance.’ Such conjectures are

  plausible, but I won’t speculate about Bellarmine’s list of eight

  heresies.200

  One proposition, however, seems to have been specified in a later

  document: ‘That you had said that it is a great blasphemy to say that the

  bread transubstantiates into flesh, etc. ‘Was this the first of Bellarmine’s

  ‘eight propositions’? It was the first accusation that Mocenigo had

  raised against Bruno. From this Ingrid Rowland speculated that all of

  the eight propositions were extracted from Mocenigo’s initial accusation.201 I disagree. The document in question is a ‘partial copy’ of Bruno’s final condemnation, which omits material with an ‘etc.’

  I suspect that the original, long list began with Mocenigo’s accusations, plus others, and concluded with the last eight propositions selected from Bruno’s books and trial. Indeed, the preceding sentence

  refers to the accusations from ‘eight years ago’ (by Mocenigo), and it

  is followed by a paragraph that mentions ‘these eight propositions’,

  clearly meaning the ones by Bellarmine.

  It doesn’t make sense to have a denial of transubstantiation as

  one of those eight propositions because, under interrogation, Bruno

  repudiated Mocenigo’s accusation of denying transubstantiation,

  saying, ‘I have not doubted this sacrament. ’202 Neither did he deny transubstantiation in his books or depositions. Therefore this could

  hardly be one of the ‘propositions collected from the books and

  trial’. Rowland’s guess stemmed from her arbitrary interpretation of

  the ‘partial copy’ of Bruno’s final sentence. I cannot imagine, however, that an expert on heresies, Bellarmine, would simply echo the accusations of a Venetian layman, Mocenigo.

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  Moreover, Rowland missed the important fact that two of the

  eight propositions were mentioned in a later document, and that

  these are not among Mocenigo’s accusations. Therefore, Bel armine’s

  list was not a copy of Mocenigo’s.

  Apparently, though, Bruno didn’t know the eight propositions

  were heretical, telling the Inquisitors ‘that if the Apostolic See and

  the Holiness of Our Lord held these eight propositions as definitely heretical, and that His Holiness recognizes them as such, or by the Holy Spirit he defines them as such, then he [Bruno] would

  be willing to revoke them’.203

  The list of eight propositions was not final. The minutes of the

  Decree specifying that Bruno be presented with them concludes

  with a statement to ‘Seek other heretical propositions from the proceedings and books. ’204 A notary document about the list makes a key point, the answer to the question Bruno had raised:

  Our most Holy Lord decrees and ordains that it be intimated to the apostate brother Giordano Bruno of Nola by the theologian Fathers, namely Father Bellarmine and the

  Father Commissary, that these propositions are heretical, and

  not only heretical as now declared, but by the most ancient

  Fathers of the Church and the Apostolic See.

  Two more documents echo this claim, one of them adding that

  these propositions were ‘heretical and contrary to the Catholic faith’

  and that the ancient Church Fathers had ‘rejected and condemned’

  them.205

  So Bruno’s worst heresies were old. They had been denounced

  ‘by the most ancient’ Church Fathers. From the previous historical

  context, it seems fitting that some of Bruno’s censured propositions

  appeared in ancient works by several advocates of the Pythagoreans,

&nb
sp; including Apollonius, Porphyry, Iamblichus and Philostratus. And,

  ancient Church Fathers such as Irenaeus, Tertullian, Athanasius,

  John Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine and Isidore had denounced

  claims about transmigration, the eternity of the world, many worlds

  and Pythagorean denials of the uniqueness of Jesus.

  Bruno had spent six years in the Inquisitions’ prisons. Yet they

  then gave him forty more days to recant the heresies in Bellarmine’s

  list. Time passed, but Bruno did not recant.

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  In March 1599 Bellarmine was promoted to Cardinal and

  Inquisitor. On 30 April one of the early consultors of the Inquisition

  in the proceedings against Bruno, Ferdinando Taverna, became governor of Rome. Taverna soon became infamous for being ruthlessly cruel towards criminals. He personally extracted the confession of

  a young woman who killed her incestuous father: Taverna’s officers

  beheaded her and her mother, then they bludgeoned her son and

  tore his body to pieces. People rioted because of such brutally cruel

  executions, claiming that the governor and the Pope did not care

  for justice, but Taverna crushed them.206

  Meanwhile, far from Italy, Catholics in India reasserted their

  denial of transmigration. In June 1599 the Christians of the Malabar

  Coast in India formally united with the Catholic Church. At the

  Synod of Diamper, they denounced three ‘common Errors’ of infidels, foremost among which was the false ‘transmigration of souls, which after death go either into the bodies of beasts, or of

  some other men’. The third error they denounced also echoes one

  of the accusations against Bruno, that everyone may be saved, ‘a

  manifest heresy’ since Salvation was conditional; it could only transpire through Christ. Members of all other sects would burn in Hell.207 I do not suggest that the decrees at Diamper influenced the Inquisitors in Rome, but the converse: such ‘errors’ were condemned

  in India because they were repugnant in Rome.

  In August 1599 a Decree of the Inquisitors noted that Bruno

  had ‘clearly revoked in writing’ most of the the eight propositions

  presented to him in April – with the exception of two: ‘namely

  the first, about the Novatian heresy, and the 7th, which treats the

  soul being in the body as a sailor in a ship’. 208 Neither heresy was explained in that Decree but we discussed the latter, which was the

  eighth proposition censured by consultors. Bruno had asserted it in

  at least three of his books.209

  The other heresy is mysterious. Novatian was a Roman bishop

  around 240 ce who denied that the Church could forgive the sin of

  idolatry. He argued that a newly elected pope, Cornelius, was too

  forgiving of Christians who denied their Christian faith during persecution. So Novatian proclaimed himself Pope. For this and other reasons he was deemed a heretic. As summarized by Bishop Isidore,

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  around 630, ‘The Novatians ( Novatianus) originated from Novatus,

  priest of the city of Rome, who, in opposition to Cornelius, dared

  to usurp the priestly chair. He established his heresy, being unwilling to receive apostates and rebaptizing the baptized. ’210 What was meant by accusing Bruno of ‘the Novatian heresy’?

  One meaning for such an expression was the accusation against

  Novatian’s claim that some sins are so grave that the Church cannot

  forgive them, only God himself can.

  Trying to explain the mysterious ‘Novatian heresy’, historian

  Luigi Firpo speculated that ‘maybe Bruno insisted beyond measure

  that there are difficulties in being admitted to penance, leading him

  to talk about an impossibility of his absolution and thus engendering suspicions in Bellarmine of Novatianism.’ I disagree with Firpo’s conjecture because it sounds distant from Bruno’s words.

  Actually, Bruno said he wanted to do confession, that he frequently

  asked God for forgiveness, and that he appreciated the Sacrament

  of Penance.211

  Thus Bruno did not voice heterodox views on penance and forgiveness. He acquiesced to the Inquisitors’ requests on this. I see no clear reason to think that his ‘Novatian heresy’ was about this.

  In 2006 historian Lucia Boschetti analysed this puzzling

  accusation, comparing editions of Novatian’s works with Bruno’s

  expressions, and found that Novatian’s notion of the Trinity, especially as interpreted in the 1590s, resembles Bruno’s. As Boschetti explained: ‘The concept of God expressed by Novatian had been

  explicitly developed following Virgil, although in this Christian

  theologian [Novatian] we do not find a literal citation. ’212

  Boschetti compared lines from Novatian’s On the Trinity with

  lines from Virgil’s Aeneid. Virgil wrote: ‘Mind agitates the mass and

  intermixes itself with the great body.’ Novatian described God as the

  ‘Mind that generates and completes everything’. Similarly, Bruno

  wrote that ‘one mind, infused through the framework, moves the

  universal mass, as said by Pythagoras.’213 As I’ve explained, Bruno quoted Virgil’s words as ‘the Pythagorean way’ of construing the

  Holy Spirit. This was one of the questionable beliefs Bruno boldly

  defended. Boschetti detected the pervasive Pythagorean thread in

  Bruno’s arguments about this matter.

  To check Boschetti’s claims, I read Novatian’s work On the

  Trinity in the original Latin and can confirm that there are

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  striking similarities. For example, consider this passage Boschetti

  did not quote:

  Above everything he [God] himself contains all . . . always

  intent on his work, pervading through everything, & moving

  all, & universally vivifying, and beholding the totality, &

  connecting discordant materials in a harmony of all the

  elements . . .214

  Here, as in Virgil’s Aeneid, Novatian portrayed God as somehow

  infusing, vivifying and moving everything. Novatian also said that

  ‘the warm nature of an interior spirit was added to everything. ’215

  Recall Virgil’s ‘Spirit nourishes within . . .’, which Bruno quoted to

  the Inquisitors.

  As for the Holy Spirit in particular, it seems peculiar that

  Novatian spent thirty chapters discussing God and Jesus Christ

  but he discussed the Holy Spirit in merely one chapter. In another

  chapter Novatian seems to say, briefly, that God is the same as the

  Spirit: ‘But when the Lord says that God is a Spirit, I think that

  Christ spoke thus of the Father.’ And Novatian there explained

  that just as God is not really ‘love’, ‘fire’ or ‘light’, God likewise is

  not really ‘a spirit’ in substance, because all spirits are creations, and

  because such biblical appellations are just efforts to convey what

  humans cannot express: what God really is.

  Boschetti fairly noted that since Novatian did not criticize

  the misidentification of God the Father as the Holy Spirit, later

  Catholic commentators surmised that Novatian heretically implied

  no distinction between the Father and the Holy Spirit. Such commentators complained about the ‘nefarious heresy’ of construing the Holy Spirit as a ‘breath’, ‘air’ or ‘wind’, so they rejected any

  interpretation
of it as ‘vital spirit’.216

  In 1579, for example, Jacob Pamelius published an annotated edition of Novatian’s On the Trinity, in which he criticized Novatian’s brief claim that ‘Every spirit is a creation.’ Here, Pamelius interpreted ‘spirit’ as meaning even the Holy Spirit, so he warned ‘it is not surprising that Novatian erred in this,’ because Novatian had

  not received the Holy Spirit through the sacrament of Confirmation

  ‘and therefore he easily fell into heresy; for nothing like this had

  been defined by the Church about the Trinity’.217 In this context, 69

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  it seems that Bruno’s ‘Novatian heresy’ was indeed his denial of the

  Catholic notion of the third person, the Holy Spirit.

  I might mention another point: the question of penance (the

  usual meaning of ‘Novatian heresy’) is linked to the interpretation of

  the Holy Spirit as the universal soul. Virgil’s Aeneid involved a pagan

  concept of penance, a punishment for sins not forgiven on Earth.

  Here Virgil argued that during a soul’s bodily imprisonment the

  body somehow stains the soul, so after death the soul must undergo

  a painful penance to purge sins and crimes before becoming purified.

  Along with the belief that soul travels in bodily vessels, Bruno

  refused to recant his Novatian heresy – whatever it was. In September

  the prosecutor, the commissary (Tragagliolo), the assessor and three

  consultors of the Inquisition al voted that Bruno should be tortured.

  Two of them (including Tragagliolo) said he should be tortured

  severely, and another said that he should be tortured more than

  twice. Only one of them specified a reason why: ‘concerning foremost the holiest Trinity torture him.’218 This confirms that one of Bruno’s heresies was his interpretation of the Trinity. The Pope

  was present at that meeting, along with Bellarmine and the other

  cardinal Inquisitors.

  The extant documents do not specify whether in fact Bruno was

  tortured. Pope Clement viii was patient, so more months passed.

  In December the cardinals of the Inquisition, including Bellarmine,

  confronted Bruno again. They asked if he would recant and recorded

  his answers: ‘He said that he neither wants to nor should repent, and

  has nothing to repent, nor has matters of repentance, and does not