Burned Alive: Bruno, Galileo and the Inquisition

by Alberto A. Martinez

  Pythagoras alongside the portrait of Jesus. But the Catholic Church

  required that the Bible should be interpreted in light of the writings of the ancient Church Fathers. The Copernicans thought that they could choose whichever authorities best suited their interests.

  Catholic theologians and censors had denounced this very practice

  in the Protestants.86

  Bruno and Galileo committed the kind of brazen acts that the

  Bishop of Paris had condemned in 1277 as ‘manifest and execrable

  errors, or rather vanities and false insanities’. 87 The Bishop warned that anyone trying to speak wisely should exercise great care to not

  ‘disrupt the unity of his listeners’, especially when supporting apparently convincing pagan beliefs. He complained that philosophers disguised their claims:

  For they say that these things are true according to philosophy,

  but not according to the Catholic faith, as if these were two

  contrary truths, and as if against the truth of Sacred Scripture

  were the truths voiced by the condemned pagans, of whom it

  is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise [1 Corinthians

  1:19], because true wisdom destroys false wisdom.88

  Bruno and Galileo both claimed that philosophers and mathematicians had a special dispensation from theologians’ authority, that as 270

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  experts on nature they could ascertain the true meaning of scriptures.

  Thus Bruno interpreted the Holy Spirit as the soul of the world,

  in accord with what he called ‘the Pythagorean doctrine’. Such

  temerity offended the Inquisitors who required that all Christians

  should submit to Catholic authority on any subject. Bruno wilfully transgressed the limits of philosophy to make pronouncements about God’s creation, scriptures and souls. Galileo wilfully transgressed the limits of mathematics and astronomy to subvert the literal meaning of scriptures, in favour of Pythagorean interpretations. By refusing to abandon their beliefs after such notions had been pinpointed as serious ‘errors’ by Catholic authorities, both

  men became heretics.

  Regarding the Galileo affair, a traditional story is that: ‘In ancient

  times, Pythagoras argued that the Earth and the planets orbit the

  Sun; his theory was later adopted and refined by Copernicus, and it

  led Galileo to clash with the Church.’ This story is wrong because

  half of it is fictitious. Instead we can say that Galileo attributed the

  heliocentric theory to Pythagoras – but this association entailed

  pagan connotations that increased its offensiveness among Catholics.

  For centuries theologians construed the Pythagorean outlook as

  overtly anti­Christian. In 1616 the Index ‘completely prohibited and

  condemned’ Foscarini’s scriptural defence of the ‘New Pythagorean

  System of the World’, a rejection more forceful and damning than

  the injunctions against Copernicus, Zúñiga and Galileo. Thus it is

  understandable that some Jesuits decried Galileo’s Dialogue as more

  vile and harmful than the writings of Luther and Calvin. At least the

  Protestants did not defend a heretical, pagan cosmology. The ancient

  Pythagoreans offered a polytheistic or pantheistic world view.

  Pope Urban viii bitterly complained that Galileo dared entering

  into ‘the most severe and dangerous matters’ involving ‘great harm

  to religion’, ‘the most perverse subject­matter that one could ever

  handle’. The Pope specified that he did not refer to mathematical

  theories about astronomy, so his words make sense if he worried

  about the implications of supporting a pagan world view at the

  time of the Reformation, the splintering of Christianity. Compared

  to Catholicism, the ancient Pythagorean cosmology was far more

  radical than any heresies by Luther or Calvin.

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  If this is the case, then some writers should have actually noted,

  explicitly, that the Pythagorean heresies, say those by Bruno, were

  worse than those of the Protestants. Some did, such as Schoppe,

  Emmius, Mersenne and Naudé. While describing Bruno’s transgressions, Schoppe explained that the Inquisitors viewed Bruno’s heresies as far worse than those of the Lutherans and the Calvinists,

  who were actually treated well by Catholics in Rome. Bruno’s un usual y ‘horrendous’ beliefs included that worlds are innumerable, souls go from body to body, souls migrate to other worlds, the world

  has a soul, the world is eternal, and magic can produce miracles such

  as those of Jesus. These beliefs had been voiced by the Pythagoreans

  and criticized by Church Fathers. Schoppe was a Catholic convert who ruthlessly criticized the Protestants, yet he explained that most people did not recognize that the impenitent Bruno was not

  ‘a Lutheran’, but something far worse, a ‘Monster’.89

  Galileo seems unaware that, by attributing the heliocentric

  theory to Pythagoras, he connected it to heresies. It is amazing that

  the one person who most strongly linked Galileo’s transgressions

  with the heresies of the Pythagoreans was not a distant commentator, gossiper or a courtesan – instead it was the Jesuit theologian and consultant for the Inquisition who had rendered the most

  damning expert testimony against Galileo: Melchior Inchofer. The

  Pythagorean thread goes right through the eye of this most prickly

  needle.

  To what extent were other clergymen in the proceedings against

  Galileo concerned with such connotations? That remains a direction

  for future research, to seek concerns such as were voiced by Inchofer.

  But at least it is clear that some individuals, such as Inchofer,

  Froidmont, Waddingus, Dormeuil and Riccardi, sensed that the

  new Pythagoreans were not just philosophers or mathematical

  astronomers – they were a dangerously heretical ‘sect’.

  Evidence has turned up far more abundantly than I ever

  imagined. I should note that in my search for sources I found

  Holste’s book on Porphyry and Pythagoras only late in my research,

  so it was startling to find not only that a work published in the

  Vatican, in 1630, discussed the old critiques of Pythagorean heresies

  by Tertullian, Eusebius, Augustine, Lactantius and others, but that

  it had been authored under the sponsorship of Cardinal Barberini,

  of all people, and that it had been approved for publication by

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  Riccardi, the same censor who one year later delayed the publication of Galileo’s Dialogue. Likewise, I afterward found Campanella’s relevant second edition of On the Sense of Things, which remarkably

  highlights and connects many of the key themes. I was finally able

  to examine Inchofer’s manuscript Against the Neo­Pythagoreans even

  later. My book ends not because I have run out of sources, by no

  means, but because it is already too big, editors told me to cut it, and

  I have told my long story.

  The evidence reviewed does not show that the Pythagorean religious notions were the major factor in Galileo’s trial of 1633, but it reveals that such connotations and concerns persisted strongly at

  the time. These associations were of crucial importance in the long

  proceedings against Bruno, and they constitute a long­suspected

  missing link between the proceedings against Bruno and Galileo.

  The connec
tion was not merely because Inquisitors censured both of

  them for affirming that the Earth moves, but because Galileo’s advocacy of Pythagorean notions seemed to support Bruno’s heretical views.

  As I have shown, there is a neglected continuity between Bruno’s

  trial and Galileo’s admonition of 1616, given the subject­matter

  and the important participation of influential Inquisitors in both:

  Bellarmine, Sfondrato, Borghese and Taverna. Bellarmine was a

  relative latecomer in the protracted proceedings against Bruno, as

  his participation seems to have begun in March 1597 (not all the

  names of the previous consultors were specified). He first served as

  Consultor and then as cardinal Inquisitor, enacting in both capacities important roles in Bruno’s trial: composing a list of principal heresies and approving his final sentence. Sfondrato, a longstanding

  cardinal Inquisitor, participated in the trial in Rome from 1594 until

  Bruno’s sentencing in early 1600. Taverna was trained as a lawyer

  and served as Consultor in the proceedings from late 1593 to early

  1595. He became governor of Rome in 1599 and therefore presided

  over Bruno’s final imprisonment and brutal execution.

  By 1616 Sfondrato had become head of the Inquisition, and it

  was he who first received the earliest complaints against Galileo. It

  was Sfondrato who initially sensed their gravity and who convened

  Inquisitors to investigate. The proceedings promptly involved Pope

  Paul v, who likewise had served for four years (1596–1600) during

  Bruno’s trial. Galileo then met with Bellarmine, Taverna and other

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  Inquisitors in 1616. Bellarmine gave him the official warning and

  order to stop believing in Earth’s motion and the Sun’s immobility,

  under threat of imprisonment.

  Thus at least four of the most important Inquisitors in the early

  proceedings against Galileo knew well the heresies that previously

  Bruno had refused to recant. They knew that Bruno had obstinately

  defended what he called the Pythagorean doctrine that the universe

  is infused by a spirit, such that the Earth itself is a soulful animal

  and therefore it moves. They knew that Bruno claimed to follow

  Pythagoras in the belief that the Earth is a wandering star, like the

  planets, and therefore such stars are worlds. Bruno defended the idea

  that there are countless stars, suns or worlds, to his death.

  Those four Inquisitors learned that Galileo entertained ‘the

  old opinion of Pythagoras that the Moon is another Earth’. They

  saw that he too rashly claimed that the Earth moves – a theory

  that he attributed to ‘Pythagoras and all his sect’. And Galileo proclaimed that he had discovered uncountably many stars with his telescope. Furthermore, Galileo declared that we must conclude that

  the planets orbit the immobile Sun ‘in agreement with the theories of the Pythagoreans’. Thus Galileo himself canonized the Sun’s immobility as a Pythagorean doctrine.

  Galileo and his readers did not distinguish clearly between

  recent conjectures and the ancient claim that Earth orbits a central fire. Clergymen such as Campanella likewise claimed that it was Pythagoras who had first taught that the Earth circles the

  Sun. Hence in 1616 the Congregation of the Index prohibited the

  ‘false Pythagorean doctrine’ that Earth moves and the Sun does

  not. The consultors of the Inquisition concluded that the ‘foolish’

  idea of Earth’s motion was ‘at least erroneous in faith’ and that the

  Sun’s immobility was ‘formally heretical’ for literally contradicting

  the Bible.

  A problem with some old interpretations of Bruno’s trial is that

  writers tried to make sense of it in terms of the subsequent trial of

  Galileo. However, we should proceed in the opposite direction, following chronology: analyse the proceedings against Galileo in terms of the previous case against Bruno. Doing so, I find that the two

  proceedings were more closely connected than I have anywhere read.

  If we disregard the many sundry accusations against Bruno that he

  denied, along with the many spurious accusations against Galileo

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  that the Inquisitors promptly dismissed, it turns out that the doctrine of Earth’s motion as censured in 1616 was essentially a subset of Bruno’s heretical beliefs.

  There is an interesting phrase in the Decree of the Index of

  1616: the books of Copernicus and Zúñiga would be suspended and

  Foscarini’s work would be banned ‘in order that such an opinion

  [the “false Pythagorean doctrine”] does not slither further to harm

  Catholic truths’.90 This phrase makes sense if the car dinal Inquisitors feared that the potential harm of allowing one or two Pythagorean

  claims might entail the proliferation of others, such as those advocated by Bruno. By 1635 Inchofer quoted, in his Vindication, this complaint against Galileo: that the Pythagorean opinion was

  ‘ slithering perniciously into the Catholic truth’. Thus I suggest that the strong critiques against Galileo’s claims in 1616 and 1633 were partly

  motivated by the knowledge that such claims had arisen before. They

  were part of the ‘philosophical’ and heretical world view of Bruno.

  It makes perfect sense that the Inquisitors in 1616, some of whom

  had served in Bruno’s trial, judged that it was necessary to censure

  the Pythagorean doctrine that the Earth moves, so that such errors

  would not creep or ‘slither’ towards other related, graver Pythagorean

  heresies, such as that the Earth is a rational, soulful animal, that its

  soul is the Holy Spirit, that the stars too have rational souls, that

  the universe was not created, and human souls are reborn in other

  worlds (such as the Moon or Jupiter), and that worlds are innumerable. For years, when Bel armine systematical y attacked the

  ‘horrendous, terrible effects’ of the plague of heresy, he had stressed

  ‘the great speed with which this venom diffuses into the heart’, and

  ‘how rapidly it slithers; what invades one home today, soon fills an

  entire city with corpses’.91

  Bellarmine instructed Galileo to not hold or defend the

  Pythagorean ideas. Galileo promised that he would acquiesce.

  Nonetheless, he patiently waited and schemed until he finally

  betrayed the agreement, subverting his promise. But as St Thomas

  Aquinas had argued, ‘It is a more serious sin not to perform what

  one has promised.’

  In 1633 Galileo lied to the Inquisition. He said that he had written his Dialogue to demonstrate that the Earth does not move, and that he had never believed in Earth’s motion – whereas his own writings and letters admitted that he did. His judges were unconvinced.

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  His behaviour was visibly short of what they expected from a pious

  Catholic. To show this, we can try to characterize Galileo’s transgressions in terms of the sins of which clergymen were mindful.

  The Book of Proverbs 6:16–19 specifies seven things or sins that

  are ‘an abomination’ unto God. Of these, we might say that Galileo

  had committed five: pride, lying, having ‘a heart that devises wicked

  plots’, being ‘a deceitful witness that utters lies’, and sowing discord

  among others. The Epistle to the Galatians 5:19–2
1 specifies more

  sins, including four more that Galileo committed: variance, emulation, sedition and heresy. The apostle Paul there warned, allegedly, that persons who enact such sins ‘shall not inherit the Kingdom

  of God’. Yet Galileo pretended to surpass or emulate the Church

  Fathers in the ability to understand scriptures. He wilfully departed

  from the intellectual unity of the Church. Galileo excelled at boasting and hubris; his self­esteem led him to ridicule those whose intellects he deemed inferior. His friends admired Galileo as brilliant, bold and sincere, but to his enemies he seemed arrogant and full of vainglory. Among the ‘seven deadly sins’, pride was often

  regarded as the worst one, the root of the others. In his Defence of

  Galileo, Campanella said that one critique against Galileo was that

  those who taught unusual ideas were viewed as guilty of ‘pridefully

  placing themselves above others’, whereas Proverbs 22:28 cautioned:

  ‘Do not go beyond the limits set by your fathers. ’92

  The Inquisitors recognized these underlying motives: intellectual

  pride and excessive reliance on individual insight, the exaggerated

  pretence of religious zeal. Thus in 1616 Galileo grandiosely bragged:

  ‘my own behaviour in this affair has been such that a saint would

  not have handled it either with greater reverence or with greater zeal

  toward the Holy Church. ’93 Likewise in 1635 Galileo wrote:

  I have two sources of perpetual comfort: first, that in my

  writings there cannot be found the faintest shadow of anything to diminish piety and reverence for the Holy Church; and second, my own conscience, which only I completely

  know on Earth, as God in Heaven, for He well knows that

  in this cause for which I suffer, many may have been learned,

  but none, not even the Saintly Fathers, have spoken or proceeded with more piety or with greater holy intention for the Holy Church than me.94

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  Most of his indiscretions were minor compared to Galileo’s

  greatest sin, for which he was judged: the sin of heresy. According to

  most authorities, any Christian who wilfully departed from Catholic

  dogma, especially after having been instructed not to do so, was a

  heretic. As St Thomas Aquinas emphasized, ‘the sin of heresy is the