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Burned Alive: Bruno, Galileo and the Inquisition

Page 10

by Alberto A. Martinez


  know about what he should repent.’219 So they gave him even more time to recant. They submitted his books to the Index of Forbidden

  Books, for heresies and errors.220

  Fire and Smoke

  On 20 January 1600 a Decree of the Congregation of the Holy

  Office reported that Bruno had been asked to ‘recognize, detest and

  abjure’ the ‘heretical propositions that were contained in his books

  and that he had voiced in his depositions’. However, the Decree

  reported: ‘Bruno did not want to agree, asserting that he never said

  or wrote heretical propositions, but that the excerpts were done

  wrongly by the ministers of the Holy Office, conveying the opposite.

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  Because, he was prepared to give an account of all his writings, to

  defend them against any theologians.’221 Since he did not recognize his heresies, the Decree stated that he would be sentenced and delivered to the secular Roman Court for punishment. On 8 February the Inquisitors issued their sentence against Bruno, including the

  statement that ‘we condemn, reprove and prohibit all your books and

  writings mentioned above and others as heretical and erroneous and

  containing many heresies and errors.’

  They ordered that his works be publicly burned in St Peter’s

  Square and listed in the Index of Forbidden Books. In that document

  the cardinals condemned Bruno as an ‘obstinate and impenitent

  heretic’. Nine cardinals, including Bellarmine, approved the final

  judgement, and it was sent to the governor of Rome, Ferdinando

  Taverna. On the same day the Congregation of the Index duly noted

  that Bruno’s books and writings would be prohibited.

  Gaspar Schoppe, a virulent critic of the Protestants, described

  Bruno’s final days. Schoppe was a young German humanist, almost

  24 years old, who had quickly gained prominence in Rome thanks to

  his very boastful conversion to Catholicism. In a letter to his former

  teacher, the jurist Konrad Rittershausen, Schoppe said that he was

  present at the court of the Inquisition on the day when Bruno

  faced his Inquisitors on his knees, to receive his sentence. Schoppe

  noted that first they gave an account of Bruno’s life, studies and his

  doctrines. Schoppe said that many years ago Bruno had begun ‘to

  doubt, or even deny’ the doctrine of transubstantiation. Next he

  had doubted the virginity of Mary. Then he left his monastery and

  travelled to Geneva and other places. The Inquisitors described their

  efforts ‘to reclaim him’ to the Catholic faith, against his pertinacious

  impiety. Then they degraded him, excommunicated him and turned

  him over to the secular Roman magistrates to be punished. Schoppe

  said that the Inquisitors ‘begged that he be punished very gently and

  without profusion of blood’.

  Right then, Bruno said just one thing: ‘Maybe you have more

  fear in executing your sentence on me, than I in accepting it.’222

  Here again Bruno spoke like a Pythagorean, one who did not fear

  death. Was he convinced of the immortality or rebirth of the soul?

  In his dialogue On the Cause, the Principle and the One, Bruno had

  referred to the ‘saintly’ Pythagoras as one ‘who did not fear death,

  but expected the mutation’.223 In the end, Bruno refused to recant 71

  burned alive

  The prison of Tor di Nona (centre top), on the edge of the Tiber River, across

  from the Castel Sant’Angelo. Map by Antonio Tempesta, 1593.

  his views. They declared him guilty of heresy and sentenced him

  to death.

  Bruno was transferred to the Roman authorities and locked

  up in the Tor di Nona prison. 224 The Roman notary Giuseppe de Angelis wrote that Bruno was detained by Governor Taverna. The

  Roman judge Giovanni Battista Gottarello was assigned the task of

  carrying out the sentence imposed by the court of the Inquisition.

  Death sentences for heresy usually consisted of hanging, drowning, mutilation or burning. But before being mutilated or burned, some convicts were strangled or decapitated to reduce the suffering

  and horror. Being burned alive was regarded as the worst punishment, for the gravest offences.225 That was the punishment imposed on Bruno. It was a rare event in Rome. Schoppe commented that he

  had not heard about any heretics being burned at the stake there.226

  Although we do not know the total number of trials by the Roman

  Inquisition, there are some figures about executions. For example,

  the Archconfraternity that accompanied victims to their deaths

  kept records, including the names of 97 heretics executed in Rome

  between 1542 and 1761.227

  On 12 February an official Notice of Rome announced that the

  ‘obstinate heretic’ from Nola would be brought to justice. It summarily stated that Bruno had been sentenced for authoring ‘various enormous opinions’ that he had refused to recant. It also noted some

  of the cities where he had lived and added that ‘they say in Germany

  that he had disputed several times against Cardinal Bellarmine. ’228

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  Did that really happen? What did Bellarmine think about Bruno’s

  eccentric claims? Since Bellarmine wrote many works, I suspected

  that somewhere he commented on such beliefs. Indeed he did, years

  later, as we will see.

  A document recently discovered in a Roman archive and published in 2010 seems to note the importance of the heresy of the plurality of worlds. It seems to have been written on 12 February

  1600, the same day that the official Notice of Rome announced

  Bruno’s execution. It states:

  The Proceedings were burned, those in which the curate

  [parish priest] already noted had specified so many ¤ [suns]

  and for which he was burned, and soon will be burned an

  obstinate relasso [someone who relapsed into heresy] called

  Tadeo Bruno of Nola, a famous writer who for 3 years has

  been at the Holy Office; who recently said to the Cardinal

  of Santa Severina that he knew more about doctrine and

  especially about philosophy than St Thomas, and that

  with greater happiness he had accepted his sentence to be

  burned, by comparison to the bitterness and displeasure with

  which they read it, but that he was quite disturbed when

  the Cardinal told him that he would be burned in a place

  where he would be publicly seen. And this hardened beast

  of a philosopher bears a resemblance to those of antiquity.

  They say that he is ill, but slightly, with phlegm.229

  This document is very important because it seems to say that someone else had been burned before Bruno for the belief that there are many suns. It does not specify the name of that curate. Federica

  Favino conjectures that it was actually Celestino Arrigoni, one of

  the Venetian inmates who testified against Bruno and was executed

  on 16 September 1599, shortly before Bruno, both at the Campo de’

  Fiori.230

  The document is also significant because it discusses Bruno

  immediately after specifying the objectionable claim of many

  suns, as if that too were his main crime, and because it compares

  the obstin ate Bruno to the philosophers of antiquity. We should

  note that the tenth proposition that had
been censured in Bruno’s

  books, during his Roman trial, was precisely: ‘Again he posits many

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  worlds, many suns necessarily containing similar things in kind and

  in species, as in this world, and even men.’

  A few days later, the ‘Journal’ of the Archbrotherhood of St

  John the Beheaded (S Giovanni Decollato), in Rome, notes that

  the ‘impenitent heretic’ brother Giordano Bruno was punished

  for having ‘finally always stood in his cursed obstinacy, wandering

  the brain and intellect with a thousand errors and vanities’. Bruno

  was sentenced to public execution. When executions were public

  instead of private, the intention was often to publicize the particular

  heresies, as a kind of public warning.231

  Sixteen years earlier Bruno had anticipated his fiery death at

  the end of his Ash Wednesday Supper, his book about Copernicus:

  if you do not want to accompany him [Bruno] with fifty, or

  a hundred torches (which, even if he should march at the

  middle of the day, wil not be lacking if he is to die in the

  Roman Catholic land), then at least accompany him with

  one of those, or even if this seems too much, accompany him

  with a lantern with a tallow candle inside.232

  Likewise, in his Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast, he had written

  about himself in the Dedication:

  Come now, come now, as a citizen and servant of the world

  [Bruno], son of the father Sun, and of the mother Earth;

  since he loves the whole world so much: let us see what it

  is to be hated, blamed, persecuted and expelled from it. But

  in this moment, he is not idle, nor wrongly busied during

  the expectation of his own death, of his transmigration, of

  his transformation.233

  The entry in the Journal of the Brotherhood describes what finally

  happened to Bruno: ‘And he persisted so much in his obstinacy, that

  from the ministry of justice he was taken to the Campo di Fiori, and

  there stripped naked and tied to a pole. ’234

  A crowd thus witnessed the execution on the funeral pyre, in

  front of the ruins of the ancient Theatre of Pompey. In the letter he

  wrote that day Schoppe said he saw Bruno’s execution: ‘Therefore,

  today, on being led to the funeral pyre, as he was dying they showed

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  The Crimes of Giordano Bruno

  The Campo de’ Fiori, where Bruno was taken to be publicly burned alive. Map

  by Antonio Tempesta, 1593.

  him an image of the crucified Saviour, he rejected it by throwing

  back his fierce face, so he perished miserably.’

  The records of the Brotherhood of St John the Beheaded

  state that the clergymen sang as Bruno died: ‘he was burned alive,

  accompanied throughout by our Company singing the litany, and

  the comforters up to the very end comforting him to let go of his

  obstinacy, with which finally ended his miserable and unhappy life.’235

  Among those present was Cardinal Santori as wel as the Roman

  notary Giuseppe de Angelis. A few years ago De Angelis’s document

  was discovered in a Roman city archive. The most stunning thing

  about it is a simple but extraordinary drawing. Before that discovery there were no known depictions of Bruno during his life. De Angelis summarily described the event and drew a small sketch of

  Bruno, with a thin beard and wearing a tunic, as he burned on the

  funeral pyre, his hands apparently behind his back, while flames and

  smoke rose around him.236 It is astonishing that this solitary image should precisely record the moment of Bruno’s death. The ink, which

  has decomposed across the centuries, has created cracks and holes

  in the yellowed paper as if the paper itself had been burned by the

  fire that killed Bruno.

  There exists another account. Johann Wackher von Wackenfels

  was an imperial counsellor who had been a patron of Bruno in

  Prague in 1588. He was also a patron of Schoppe. On 19 February

  1600 Schoppe sent a letter to Wackher, telling him:

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  Giordano Bruno as he died in the fire. Drawing by the notary Giuseppe de

  Angelis, on 17 February 1600. Original document at the Archivio di Stato di Roma.

  Lately, on Thursday Febr. 16 [ sic], Giordano Bruno was

  adopted into the family of the Baron of Atoms. When the

  pyre was about to start, an image of the Crucifix was offered

  to him to kiss it, [but] he rejected it with a scowling face.

  Now, I think, he shall announce to the worlds of the in numerable and Simonians how things are done in this one

  [world] of ours.237

  The Simonians were a heretical Christian sect that followed Simon

  Magus, a reputed magician who was rebuked by the apostles Philip,

  Peter and John (Acts 8:9–24). The Simonians were some of the

  earliest Gnostics and predecessors of the Valentinians, who were

  denounced as Pythagoreans. The Simonians were denounced as

  heretics who believed in transmigration.238

  The same day Schoppe wrote that letter, 19 February, a ‘Notice

  of Rome’ was issued:

  Thursday morning at the Campo di Fiore a Dominican friar

  from Nola was burned alive, of whom it was already written:

  obstinate heretic, and having by his caprice formed various

  dogmas against our faith, and in particular against the most

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  Holy Virgin and Saints, he chose to die obstinately in those

  crimes; and he said that he died as a martyr and voluntarily,

  and that his soul would rise with the smoke into paradise. 239

  Why the Romans Killed Bruno

  We should summarize al the accusations against Bruno. Luigi

  Firpo counted 34 charges. Maurice Finocchiaro composed a longer

  list: forty charges, including the plaintiffs for each. However,

  Finocchiaro’s list includes a few repetitions and omissions, as well

  as one interpolation, so I have prepared a more comprehensive list.

  It consists of 54 accus ations, including self­incriminations, and it

  specifies more clearly each alleged or actual transgression. Whereas

  Finocchiaro described each charge briefly, for example that Bruno

  ‘had spoken ill of Moses’, I specify the actual accusation: what did

  Bruno say about Moses? In addition, how did Bruno defend himself? I have also grouped the accusations in five major categories.

  In the endnotes, I specify which accusers voiced each accusation.

  i. Bruno’s Alleged Departures from Catholic Practices

  and Rituals

  1. Allegedly Bruno spoke ill of Catholicism, saying ‘that the

  Catholic faith is full of blasphemies against the Majesty of

  God’, that it is ‘full of doctrines of asses’, and that he would

  create a new sect of ‘Giordanists’ in Germany called the

  New Philosophy. But in his fourth deposition, Bruno denied

  having ever spoken against the Catholic faith, and he denied

  having created a religious sect.240

  2. Reportedly, Bruno spoke ill of the breviary, the Catholic

  book of rites, by saying that it is not worthy of being read

  by good men, that it contains many confused and profane

  things, and that it was written by a ‘
foul dog, a ­­­­­­ ­ ­­­­­’.

  However, Bruno (fourteenth deposition) denied having

  criticized the breviary at all. 241

  3. Bruno habitually uttered blasphemies, and he foully gestured upwards and cursed against Heaven. Bruno (tenth 77

  burned alive

  deposition) admitted that sometimes he had said blasphemies, but nothing major, and he denied having gestured against Heaven.242

  4. Four accusers also said that Bruno entertained atheist

  ideas, did not believe in God, or had no religion. However,

  Bruno (fourth and ninth depositions) denied having

  abandoned the Catholic faith.243

  5. Bruno allegedly held holy relics in contempt, saying it

  is useless to venerate them. Yet Bruno (in an unspecified

  deposition) denied having spoken against relics.244

  6. Reportedly Bruno also disliked the veneration of sacred

  images, saying that it constitutes idolatry. However, in his

  twelfth Deposition he said he actually appreciated religious

  images.245

  7. Some accusers said that Bruno practised divination,

  conjuration and judicial astrology, and said that magic is

  good and legal. Indeed, in his fifth and fifteenth depositions, Bruno said he studied astrology only to see whether it works, but that he did not believe that fate guides events

  in the world, only God’s providence. He said he was curious

  about sciences because he was interested in medicine. In

  his tenth deposition Bruno also replied that magic is only

  illegal if it is used for evil purposes, because it is based on

  observing nature and mixing substances, purely physical

  operations.246

  8. Next, Bruno allegedly condoned and performed sexual

  sins, saying the Church sins by prohibiting sex with women.

  However, Bruno (fourth deposition) replied that he agreed

  with the Church and acknowledged often that sexual acts

  are sins.247

  9. He was also accused of apostasy, for having fled from the

  Dominican order. Bruno (fourth deposition) said he had

  not confessed sins for years, except twice, in Toulouse and

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  Paris. The confessor then said he could not absolve Bruno

  because he was an apostate priest. But nevertheless Bruno

  said he always asked God forgiveness for sins, and that he

 

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