swan. (Interestingly, Plato’s Republic said that Orpheus had chosen
to be reborn as a swan.) In his trial depositions and his replies
to book censures, apparently Bruno boldly asserted or defended
thirteen of those fifteen censured claims. Fourteen of the fifteen accusations were Pythagorean; again, without counting the one
about stars being angels.
Someone might guess that by August 1599 Bruno recanted some
beliefs about substance, worlds and souls, since he reportedly maintained only the Novatian heresy and the belief that souls resemble sailors. However, no direct evidence shows Bruno having denied
such beliefs, as we do not know the six propositions that he recanted
then, only the two that he did not.
At the time any Catholic person who was confronted by an
Inquisitor was expected to deny or renounce any errors, blasphemies
or heresies. If the accused admitted that such beliefs were mistaken,
the Roman Inquisitors were often lenient, because they understood
that their function was not merely punitive. For example, in the
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Relief of Giordano Bruno’s execution. Sculpted by Ettore Ferrari, on the base of Bruno’s statue at the Campo de’ Fiori.
fourth deposition in Venice, in 1592, the Inquisitors asked Bruno
‘whether the miracles that were done by Christ and the apostles
were apparent miracles and made by magical arts and not true’.
Bruno replied: ‘What is this thing? Who is it that has contrived
such devilry? I have not said any such thing, nor did any such thing
pass through my imagination. Oh God, what is this thing? I would
rather sooner be dead than to have such a thing proposed to me.’
Afterward, the Inquisitors in Rome and Venice did not ask Bruno
about that accusation again.
Bruno’s reactions to being accused of believing in many worlds
were the opposite. It was one of the few doctrines that Bruno
asserted as true. He repeatedly refused to recant this opinion. He
refused at least four times, in four of the seventeen depositions:
in the third (in 1592 in Venice), the twelfth (in 1593 in Rome),
the fourteenth (also in 1593) and the seventeenth (in 1598). Bruno
repeatedly insisted that the Earth is a star (what we call a heavenly
body), the Sun is a star, radiant stars are orbited by planets such
as the Earth, which are all worlds made of the same elements as
the Earth. He insisted that ‘innumerably many worlds’ exist. And
he was right.
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In order to find out how unusual Bruno’s execution was, we should
compare it to other executions in Rome. The Archbrotherhood of St
John the Beheaded carried out the duty of accompanying all convicts
to their deaths, and it kept records of such events. Consider, for
example, the executions carried out from 1598 until 1604. The time
frame is arbitrary: I considered counting how many persons were
executed in Rome only during the rule of Governor Taverna: April
1599 until June 1604. However, since Bruno was executed soon after
Taverna was appointed governor, I expanded the scope a bit more,
from January 1598 until December 1604. During those seven years,
189 persons were executed in Rome.294 Table 1 conveys the numbers and methods of execution.
By far the majority of executions in Rome were by hanging,
while other convicts were executed by decapitation or bludgeoning.
Most convicts were executed at the Piazza di Ponte, and then their
corpses were exhibited at the Sant’Angelo bridge. The death records
do not specify whether bodies were quartered only after death, or
whether some individuals were still alive when their bodies were
136 Hanged
24 Hanged and quartered
}
8 Hanged and burned
169
1 Tortured with pincers, hanged and quartered
5 Decapitated
}
2 Decapitated and quartered
8
1 Decapitated and burned
5 Bludgeoned and quartered
3 Tortured with pincers, bludgeoned
}
and quartered
10
2 Pincers, bludgeoned, decapitated and quartered
2 Burned alive
2
Total executions 189
Table 1. Executions in Rome, from 1 January 1598 until 31 December 1604.
Nearly all were executed for crimes, not for heresies.
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torn to pieces. In any case, the rarest kind of execution was being
‘broiled and burned alive’. It was feared as the most painful type of
punishment, inflicted for the gravest offences.
The most surprising point about the records of executions, over
those years, is that only two men were killed as ‘heretics’: Celestino
and Bruno. Only the two of them were burned alive. Both were
executed at the Campo de’ Fiori. Both of them were described as
‘heretics’, both ‘obstinate and impenitent’. Bruno had asserted to
the Inquisitors that many suns exist, and apparently Celestino too.
Why did the Inquisition kill Bruno? In 1942 Angelo Mercati
argued that the ‘Summary’ of Bruno’s trial shows he was not prosecuted
for scientific claims. In Bruno’s writings, a topic such as the Earth’s
motion was not defended on the basis of experiments, mathematics or astronomical observations, but on philosophical arguments, for example that the Earth must orbit the Sun to partake of the seasons.
Thus Bruno’s trial was not essentially a conflict between science and
religion. Instead Mercati concluded that the Inquisition condemned
Bruno because of transgressions against Catholic orthodoxy.295
In the 1960s Frances Yates argued instead that what led to
Bruno’s execution was that the Inquisition considered him a
Hermeticist and magician.296 More recently, however, Maurice Finocchiaro has rightly argued that the problem with Yates’s thesis
is that ‘there is little trace of Hermeticism and magic in the trial proceedings.’ Among the many accusations against Bruno, Finocchiaro fairly notes that questions of Hermeticism or magic arise only a few
times: that he practised magical arts and said the prophets, Moses,
Jesus and the apostles did too. But such charges did not stick, since
Bruno promptly and vigorously denied them.
Mercati too did not properly characterize Bruno’s trial by saying
it was about religious transgressions. Mercati overlooked the fact that
some of the important censures against Bruno had a distinctly philosophical significance, instead of religious or scientific. Finocchiaro argues that in the 1590s the discipline of philosophy had autonomy, and
that Bruno fairly questioned whether his (presumably philosophical)
statements were really heretical. He asked when suchlike notions officially were declared heretical. By September 1599 Bruno had denied or retracted the censured theological propositions, so Finocchiaro infers
that Bruno was unwilling to retract his philosophical beliefs. Then the
Inquisition became intolerant towards his obstinacy.297
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The Crimes of Giordano Bruno
There were certainly substantial conflicts between Catholicism
and Bruno’s philosophy. So Finoc
chiaro rightly characterized the
trial as involving a conflict between religion and philosophy. Yet
the present analysis reveals a neglected dimension: many of Bruno’s
main philosophical and religious heresies were directly rooted in
the ancient Pythagorean religion and its interpretations in the
Renaissance. Even seemingly scientific notions, such as the Earth’s
motion, were linked to pagan ideas: that it has a soul. The idea that
there are many worlds like Earth was connected to the Pythagorean
belief that the beings living in such worlds can embody the souls
of persons who once lived on Earth. The idea that the universe is
infinite was connected to the Pythagorean denial that the world
was created.
Again, why did the Romans kill Bruno? Since there were so many
accusations and some documents are missing, some historians claim
causal ignorance. For example, Thomas Mayer wrote: ‘The simple
fact is that we do not know why he was executed. Nevertheless,
Francesco Beretta must be right that the articles could not have
included any Copernican charges because they were al specified
in the sentence as heretical.’298 Such claims fail to recognize that charges of heresy did not need to correspond to preexisting heresies. The Pope could designate something as heretical. Consultors and cardinals could also brand something as a heresy. This is what
happened later with Galileo’s belief in the Sun’s immobility.
Also, some of Bruno’s propositions were semiCopernican (as
with Digges), pertaining to cosmology, yet were deemed heret ical.
In particular, the notion of many worlds was categorized as heret ical for centuries. Consultors and Inquisitors who mastered treatises on heresies knew that it was heretical, unlike recent historians.
For example, Bellarmine knew Augustine’s book On Heresies very
well.299 Bellarmine was also very familiar with works on heresies by Tertullian, Epiphanius, Irenaeus, Philaster and others, which he
also cited often.
Schoppe complained that in Rome some people said that ‘a
Lutheran’ had been burned, because they did not distinguish
Lutherans from other heretics. Yet he explained that actually
Lutherans and Calvinists were not really in any danger in Rome
because the Pope had requested that they be treated with extraordinary civility and exhorted to investigate the truth. Certainly, the 91
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label ‘Lutheran’ was misused in Italy for many practices and beliefs,
and it is also true that by the 1590s the Italian Inquisitions processed
fewer Protestants than previously.300
Bruno had done something worse. In one paragraph, Schoppe
complained that Bruno ‘teaches these utterly horrific and most
absurd things’, which I here render as a list, in the same sequence,
adding only numbers:
(1) ‘Worlds are innumerable’,
(2) ‘souls go from body to body, and even migrate to another
world’,
(3) ‘one soul can shape two bodies’,
(4) ‘magic is a good and licit thing’,
(5) ‘the holy Spirit is nothing other than the soul of
the world, and this is what Moses meant by writing that
it nourished the waters’,
(6) ‘the World exists eternally’,
(7) ‘Moses effected his miracles by magic, in which he
advanced more than the rest of the Egyptians, and that he
forged his laws’,
(8) ‘Sacred Scriptures are a dream’,
(9) ‘the Devil will be saved’,
(10) ‘only the Hebrews originated from Adam and Eve, other
than those two God made everyone else on the previous day
[of Creation]’,
(11) ‘Christ is not God, but was a notorious magician who
deceived men, and therefore he was rightly hanged, not
crucified’,
(12) ‘the prophets and Apostles were but men, magicians,
and many were hanged. ’301
Does Schoppe’s list match the accusations that Bruno faced in the
closed meetings with his Inquisitors? Yes, from Schoppe’s list of
twelve horrendous ‘teachings’, eleven – nearly all of them – had
been articulated against Bruno during the proceedings in Venice
and Rome, some several times.
Among these twelve ‘horrors’, five of the first six are Pythagorean.
Others might be related to Pythagorean beliefs, for example, if we
infer that the alleged critiques of the powers of Moses, Jesus and the
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The Crimes of Giordano Bruno
apostles involved partly a belief that certain men, such as Pythagoras
and Apollonius, had also performed similar feats, as Bruno said in
some of his works. Anyhow, some of the latter claims in the list were
hardly justified, since Bruno either denied them under interrogation
or because apparently he said no such thing (as far as I know): that
scriptures were a dream.
Schoppe was closely affiliated to one of the Inquisitors in
Bruno’s trial: Cardinal Lodovico Madruzzo. In 1598 Schoppe had
initially met Father Bellarmine and Cardinal Baronio at Ferrara, on
his way to Rome.302 Once there, he promptly won the favour of Pope Clement viii, thanks to Schoppe’s writings and his emphatic abjuration of Protestantism. Schoppe’s nemesis, Joseph Justus Scaliger, remarked that Schoppe had ‘gone to Rome to lick the plates of the
Cardinals’.303 The Pope honoured Schoppe with the titles of Knight of St Peter and Apostolic Count of Clarvalla. In Rome Schoppe was
honoured to live in the palace of Cardinal Madruzzi, who had been
a papal nuncio to Germany, and was head of the Inquisitors who
judged Bruno.304 Thanks to the efforts of Baronio, Schoppe even received a pension from the Pope in May 1600.
One puzzle needs explanation. Schoppe said that, for Bruno,
‘nourished the waters’ meant the Holy Spirit is the Soul of the World.
In Schoppe’s account, the words in Latin are fovisse aquas, which
may be translated literally as ‘nourished the waters’. Historians have
construed this as referring to Genesis 1:2, ‘et spiritus Dei ferebatur
super aquas’ (‘and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters’). 305
Bruno had learned this from Ficino:
Hence the saying [by Virgil]: the Spirit nourishes within.
Likewise again and containing the soul power, insofar as
with itself it is glued (so to speak), like oil that swims on and
surrounds the other. Perhaps here this tends to ‘the Spirit of
God hovered over the waters’, or infused in the waters.306
During his interrogations Bruno used other lines from the Bible
and by Virgil, his ‘Pythagorean poet’, to interpret the Holy Spirit
as the universal Soul.307
Another strange accusation was that ‘the Devil will be saved.’
Three witnesses had accused Bruno of saying demons would be
saved, though he denied it in a deposition. A similar claim had been
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denounced by St Irenaeus ( c. 180 ce). Irenaeus denounced men who
believed in the transmigration of souls, and he rejected the idea
that souls are imprisoned in bodies, and that eventually ‘all souls are
saved’.308 Subsequently Origen argued that the Bible (Paul’s letters) taught that everyone would be saved: even the Devil wo
uld ultimately gain redemption. Later Christians disagreed, saying instead that most of humanity is eternally condemned. Augustine, for
example, argued that even unbaptized babies go to Hell.309 Jerome complained that Origen said ‘the Devil himself, after a certain time,
will be as well off as the angel Gabriel.’310 Thus, although Origen promulgated Christianity, long after his death some Christians
declared him a heretic:
If anyone says, or thinks, that the punishment of demons &
of impious men is temporary, and will have ended at some
time, or that a future restoration ( apocatastasis) of demons
or impious men will happen, he is anathema [a heretic].
Anathema to Origen, who is called Adamantius, who
promulgated all this, along with his hateful and execrable
doctrines & to every man who dares to think or assert this,
or any part at any time forever and ever: In our lord jesus
christ, glory to him forever and ever, Amen.311
For this reason too Bruno was declared a heretic.
Schoppe summarized and exaggerated Bruno’s crimes: ‘In
a word, whatever was affirmed by the pagan philosophers or by
ancient and recent heretics, he defended it all.’ Therefore Schoppe
concluded that Bruno ‘perished miserably by burning, departing, I
think, so that he might tell them in the other worlds, imagined, the
manner in which blasphemous and impious men are usually treated
by the Romans’.312
This striking last sentence highlights the importance of Bruno’s
pagan heresy of the plurality of worlds. It appeared from the start,
in Mocenigo’s initial accusations against Bruno. Next, it was re iterated by five other witnesses against him. In sum, six witnesses accused Bruno of believing in many worlds on no fewer than
thirteen separ ate instances, in ten depositions. In fact, it was the
one accusation levelled more often than any other against Bruno
throughout the protracted sevenandahalfyear trial in Venice
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The Crimes of Giordano Bruno
Statue of Giordano
Bruno where he
was burned alive,
at the Campo de’
Fiori. Sculpted by
Ettore Ferrari. The
inscription reads:
a bruno – il
secolo da lui
divinato – qui
dove il rogo
Burned Alive: Bruno, Galileo and the Inquisition Page 12