Burned Alive: Bruno, Galileo and the Inquisition

by Alberto A. Martinez

  arse, that is,

  ‘To Bruno – The

  century predicted by

  him – Here where

  the pyre burned.’

  The statue was set

  in place in 1889,

  facing towards the

  Vatican.

  and Rome. Moreover, the accusation against ‘diverse worlds’ was the

  single disciplinary admonition given to Bruno on his first meeting

  with Bellarmine. In the seventeenth deposition the Inquisitors noted

  that Bruno had ‘relapsed’ ( reincidit) into this belief. This meant that

  he had remained obstinate in his heresy. 313 It was also included in the Summary of ten censures extracted from his books.

  Schoppe pointed out the issue of innumerable worlds four times.

  His first letter describes Bruno’s belief in the precise wording in

  which it was known as a heresy in Latin: ‘Mundos esse innumerabiles.’ In ancient times Cicero and Lactantius had disdained the claim ‘mundos esse innumerabiles’ as insane. Valerius Maximus

  and Seneca quoted the expression, attributing it to Democritus.

  Philaster declared that ‘mundos esse infinitos et innumerabiles’ was

  a heresy. Jerome too criticized Origen for asserting ‘mundos esse

  innumerabiles’. Augustine described this heresy as ‘Alia dicit esse

  innumerabiles mundos.’ Likewise, Praedestinatus denounced the

  heresy of ‘innumerabiles esse mundos’. Echoing Valerius Maximus,

  Ficino and Erasmus quoted the expression ‘mundos esse innumerabiles’. Among various critics, Jacob Schegk ‘refuted’ this belief in 95

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  1550. Meanwhile, other writers often used other expressions, when

  writing about worlds but not writing about heresies.314

  This was the first ‘utterly horrific’ doctrine listed by Schoppe,

  and again when he sarcastically said Bruno would go to such other

  worlds. Schoppe’s letter to Wackher repeats this point. Moreover,

  the recently discovered document about another clergyman who

  was apparently burned for positing many suns seems to suggest that

  Bruno too was in that category: ‘The Proceedings were burned, those

  in which the curate already noted had specified so many ¤ [suns]

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

  relapsed [heretic]’, Bruno.

  Is there any evidence that Schoppe’s list of doctrines or accusations echoes the reasons why Bruno was executed? Yes. In his letter, Schoppe argued: ‘But perhaps you might add: the Lutherans neither

  teach nor believe such things, and therefore should be treated otherwise. I agree with you, & therefore, precisely no Lutherans do we

  [Catholics] burn.’ This means that if only the Lutherans ‘taught

  or believed’ what Bruno did, ‘docere neque credere’, they would be

  burned. It also means that Bruno was burned for his teachings and

  beliefs. And Schoppe listed the horrendous absurdities that Bruno

  ‘teaches’: ‘quibus horrenda prorsus absurdissima docet’.

  The convergence of evidence makes it preposterous to imagine

  that Schoppe interpolated whichever notions bothered him personally in Bruno’s writings. He was echoing recurring accusations against Bruno. Schoppe’s main point was to explain why Bruno

  was really burned. Importantly, he was an eyewitness on the day

  the Inquisitors condemned Bruno. Schoppe explained: ‘Perhaps I

  too would believe the vulgar rumours that Bruno was burned for

  Lutheranism, but I was present at the Holy Office of the Inquisition

  when the sentence against him was pronounced, & so I know what

  heresy he professed.’315 Schoppe specified the site of the condemnation: ‘the Palace of the supreme Inquisitor’, and indeed it was Cardinal Madruzzo’s home, where Schoppe lived. His patron was

  the first to sign Bruno’s condemnation on that very day.

  Therefore I conclude that Bruno was burned for the heretical teachings that Schoppe listed, or for most of them. I cannot imagine that although Schoppe actually heard the heresies for which

  Bruno was condemned, and specified Bruno’s ‘horrific’ teachings, and

  specified that anyone would be burned for such teachings, that yet

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  The Crimes of Giordano Bruno

  Bruno was burned for some other teachings that Schoppe chose not

  to specify. Bruno died for affirming that there exist many worlds,

  souls migrate into bodies, the soul of the world is the Holy Spirit

  and so forth.

  For years, some historians, writers and astronomers have said

  that it’s a myth that Giordano Bruno was burned for believing in

  many worlds. 316 But their claims did not take into account most of the present evidence. It shows the apparent myth was not a myth.

  I have found more evidence showing that in 1600 the Church in

  Rome did condemn the thesis of the plurality of worlds. First, while

  the Inquisitors were deliberating Bruno’s final fate, Cardinal Baronio

  was finishing a volume of his Ecclesiastical Annals. It was published

  in 1600 and it discusses, among many things, how Pope Zacharias

  reacted against Virgilius in the year 748. Baronio paraphrased

  Zacharias’s critique:

  Regarding the perverse doctrine, which he [Virgilius]

  has spoken against the Lord & his own soul, namely that

  there is † another world, and other men beneath the earth,

  another sun & moon, if he is convicted of confessing this:

  the summoned Council will deprive him of the honour of

  being a priest of the Church. But we also communicate

  with the Duke mentioned above, regarding the aforementioned Virgilius we send a letter as we have presented this, & request a thorough investigation, [and] if an error is found,

  [we will] condemn it in canonical decrees.317

  In the margin Baronio added a note corresponding to the dagger

  he placed next to the expression ‘another world’: ‘To doubt the

  Antipodes is not heresy, but to posit many worlds is repugnant to

  divine scriptures, and therefore is proven to be a heresy.’ Cardinal

  Baronio was librarian of the Vatican and held a privileged position

  as one of the closest clergymen to Clement viii: he was the Pope’s

  personal confessor.

  Next, Johann van Heck was a Catholic physician, from the

  Netherlands, who lived in Rome at the time. In 1600 or 1601 Heck

  drafted a manuscript commentary on Pliny’s Natural History. It

  should be remembered that Pliny had discussed, from the outset,

  the question of whether many worlds exist; Pliny had written that it

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  was ‘madness’ to believe that there are innumerable stars and worlds.

  Hence Heck too discussed ‘whether the world is infinite and [whether

  it is] one’. 318 He rejected the notion that the universe is infinite, and he attributed the thesis of the plurality of worlds to several writers: Democritus, followed by ‘Archelaus, Metrodorus, Anaximenes, Diogenes, Leucippus, Epicurus and some others.’ Heck did not specify it, but his list echoed an account by Stobaeus ( c. 425 ce).319 Heck quoted critical statements by St Albertus Magnus against the belief

  in many worlds. Heck added that this false belief was also asserted

  by the Manichaeans, ‘truly heretics’. The Kitâb al Fihrist ( c. 987), a history of Arabic literature, attributes to the Manichaeans a belief in

  the existence of ‘five worlds’ inhabited by devilish, lustful creatures. 320
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  And here’s the most significant point: Heck then wrote a timely

  remark that echoes the outcome of Bruno’s trial some months prior:

  ‘to posit a plurality of worlds is totally condemned by the Holy Roman

  Church. ’321 I’ve added the emphasis.

  Furthermore, Heck also noted that the notion that the stars are

  animated ‘contradicts the Catholic faith no less than [it contradicts]

  the Aristotelian philosophy’.322 In 1603 Heck became one of the four founders of the scientific Academy of the Lynx in Rome, of which

  Galileo later became a member.

  Final y, I discovered another piece of evidence regarding Bruno’s

  condemnation. In 1626 a book was published by a ‘Lucius Verus’ that

  replied to critiques against Catholics by the prominent Calvinist

  politician Ludwig Camerarius. In response to a remark about Bruno,

  the pseudonymous ‘Verus’, an advocate for the Catholic emperor,

  wrote: ‘for those who are interested, there are documents; & the

  records show, those which are available: Regarding the execution

  of Bruno of Nola it states: He was not a Lutheran, instead he was

  infected partly with Calvinism, even by Manichaeus, Borborites,

  Arian and Eutychian heresies, and he was convicted of those

  crimes. ’323 Rather than explaining all the possible connotations of these five kinds of heresies, we can answer a narrower question: did

  any of these heretical groups believe in the existence of many worlds?

  Yes. Epiphanius, Augustine and Albertus Magnus all complained

  that the Manichaeans believed that multiple worlds exist.324 As for the ‘Borborites’, that was a name given to the Gnostics. Epiphanius

  accused the ‘filthy’ Gnostics of believing that, after death, a person’s soul travels successively to multiple inhabited heavens, and can 98

  The Crimes of Giordano Bruno

  sometimes be reborn in ‘this world’ as animals.325 It is significant that although books of heresies gave the names of hundreds of sects

  with various beliefs, the few groups that ‘Lucius Verus’ linked with

  Bruno include two that said many worlds exist.

  There are other links between such sects and Bruno’s heresies.

  Epiphanius complained that ‘all the Gnostics and Manichaeans’

  believed in the transmigration of souls. Reportedly they thought

  that soul is dispersed in all things, and that the human soul is a fragment of God, imprisoned in the body.326

  The Catholics who denounced, feared and hated the Christian

  reforms of Luther and Calvin likewise rejected Bruno’s more eccentric efforts to reinterpret biblical scriptures and Catholic doctrines on the basis of pagan Pythagorean beliefs. Therefore, the Romans

  finally gagged him and burned him alive.

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  two

  ALIENS ON THE MOON?

  Giordano Bruno was not alone. Like him, Kepler and Galileo

  praised Copernicus and Pythagoras. In time, the less severe

  confrontations between Galileo and the Inquisition became

  more infamous than Bruno’s deadly trial. For decades, historians

  have distinguished sharply between the proceedings against Bruno

  and Galileo. They have argued that Bruno was not prosecuted for

  the same transgressions as Galileo. It’s true: Bruno’s main crime was

  not that he claimed that the Earth moves. However, I will argue that

  Galileo’s problems in 1616 were linked to the proceedings against

  Bruno.

  This will not be a comprehensive portrayal of the Copernican

  Revolution, or of the Galileo affair. 1 But we will investigate the surprising links between Bruno and Galileo.

  Prior to Bruno’s works, some ancient sources told stories about

  life in other worlds. Lucian and Plutarch discussed the Moon, saying

  that it was inhabited by beings or souls. Iamblichus mentioned that

  some people believed that Pythagoras had lived on the Moon as a

  demon. St Augustine repudiated the idea of sacrificing to demons

  living on the Moon. Then Copernicus triggered the question: was

  it true that there exist worlds other than our Earth?

  In 1597 a prominent professor of philosophy at Padua, Francesco

  Piccolomini, published a book discussing, among other questions,

  whether many worlds exist. He said this idea had been asserted

  by some Greek philosophers, including ‘Democritus, Leucippus,

  Epicurus, Lucretius and others’, who had posited in the immense

  vacuum atoms that randomly formed innumerable worlds.2

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  Aliens on the Moon?

  Piccolomini noted that Empedocles too asserted the plurality of

  worlds, and that ‘Pythagoras said that the Moon is a Celestial

  Earth. ’3 Piccolomini discussed arguments for and against the plurality of worlds. For example, if such worlds are all similar then it’s pointless that there be many. But if they are dissimilar then the

  universe is not really a universe or perfect. He also quoted authorities such as Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that our world is unique.

  Piccolomini also discussed related questions. Is the world eternal? He discussed the opinion that the world has a soul, which he attributed to ‘Orpheus and the most ancient theologians’.

  Interestingly, Piccolomini used brief expressions very similar to those

  of Bruno, whom he did not name: ‘to understand their propositions,

  Spirit nourishes within: and moreover, the spirit hovers over the waters, and this spirit is the life of lives, and the Heaven of Heavens. ’4 This

  notion had been advanced by Orpheus, the Pythagoreans and the

  Stoics, Piccolomini said, and he quoted Virgil’s words from the sixth

  book of the Aeneid, at greater length. 5 But this professor denied that the soul of the world is God.

  Thus while Bruno defended such ideas against the Roman

  Inquisition, they were also criticized by Catholic professors of

  philosophy. Soon, the news of Bruno’s death reached Protestant

  England. Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, received this report:

  One named: Nolanus, Jordanus, politanus [from Naples], a

  notable, learned, and fantastical fellow, who with [Michel de

  Castelnau] Mauvissier the Ambassador was here in England,

  fell into the Inquisition’s hands at Venice, and from thence

  sent to Rome, and there proceeded against by that holy

  order, disgraced, excommunicated and to avoid the spilling

  of blood, committed over to the secular power to be but

  burned.6

  In England a prestigious physician, William Gilbert, voiced opinions very close to those of Bruno. In 1600 Gilbert published his book On the Magnet, Magnetic Bodies, and the Great Earthly Magnet.

  From experiments, Gilbert concluded that the Earth is really a great

  magnet. Like Copernicus and Bruno, he argued that the Earth

  moves. Citing Thales and Anaxagoras, Gilbert argued that magnets

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  seem to be endowed with some kind of soul, because they have

  the power of moving iron. Since the Earth is magnetic and moves

  things and itself, Gilbert argued that it too has a soul, and that it

  is a living being, just as Bruno had argued, though Gilbert did not

  cite him in his book.

  Gilbert credited ancient thinkers with the belief that the stars,

  Sun, Moon and the entire universe are alive and infused with a

  soul. He cited Thales, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, Archelaus, Hermes,
>
  Orpheus, Pythagoras, Empedocles and Plato. 7 But Gilbert argued that life was not quite in the entire universe, only in the heavenly

  globes themselves, and to various degrees. He said: ‘the whole world

  is animated, all the globes, all stars, and Earth’, each having individual souls. He said God himself is a soul. 8 He said that living creatures arise and receive their life from Earth and the Sun. Like

  Bruno, Gilbert argued that Earth itself is a great animal:

  The Stoics attribute a soul to the Earth, hence they proclaim (while the learned laugh) that the Earth is an animal.

  This magnetic form is astral, whether it be a vigour or soul.

  The learned mourn & weep, since none of the foremost

  Peripatetics, nor even the popular philosophers, nor Joannes

  Costeus who laughs at this, were able to acknowledge and

  see the nature of this.9

  Since the Earth was a soulful animal, it gave soul to some of its

  offspring, including magnets. It gave life to humans and animals by

  emitting a kind of breath ( spiritu), and then souls lived in bodies

  almost as if in ‘prisons’, until they departed again.10

  Since the world was a living animal, it also moved. In the Preface

  of Gilbert’s book, Edward Wright argued that the words of Psalm

  104:5 (103:5 in the Latin Vulgate), that God ‘established the Earth

  on its foundations, it cannot be moved forever and ever’, could not

  be used to prove that the Earth does not move. This was because

  the Earth could remain forever, ‘resting on its centre’, while moving

  in a circular motion, without wandering aimlessly.

  In Spain, the Jesuit Juan de Pineda wrote a commentary on Job

  in which he complained about Zúñiga’s support of ‘the Pythagorean

  opinion of the Earth’s motion’. Pineda declared: ‘it is plainly false

  (some others call it delirious, worthless, temerarious, & dangerous

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  to the faith; and taken from the hell of ancient philosophers by

  Copernicus & Caelio Calcagnino . . .).’11 Living in England, however, Gilbert suffered no consequences for flirting with pagan heresies: on the contrary, in 1601 he became the personal physician

  of Queen Elizabeth.

  Also in 1601 a book published in the Italian city of Reggio

  nell’Emilia listed and criticized the heretical beliefs of the contemporary ‘Tower of Babel’. The author, the Dominican preacher Augustino Petreto, included the errors, confusions and blasphemies