Burned Alive: Bruno, Galileo and the Inquisition

by Alberto A. Martinez

greatest sin in the whole range of human perversity.’ It was viewed

  as the act of an evil will, one who knowingly chose to oppose the

  will of God.

  In Catholicism, true believers were those who accepted all the

  dogma formulated by the Church, in its entirety – especially during

  the Reformation. Any Catholic who instead accepted only the parts

  of Catholic dogma that he or she personally selected or modified

  was a heretic. And that was what Bruno and Galileo did. They each

  selected at will the particular parts of Catholic dogma that they

  disliked: those that they thought were insufficient, ambiguous or

  misinterpreted. They philosophized as if they could rightly ascertain knowledge without the guidance of the Catholic Church. As St John Chrysostom had complained, philosophers disparaged faith

  because they obstinately tried to figure things out by themselves and

  therefore found nothing.95

  In the Renaissance it was a common practice to justify established or innovative beliefs on the basis of ancient authorities. Thus Galileo ascribed the theory of Copernicus to Pythagoras, a mystic

  philosopher that could hardly help his case. Galileo’s rhetorical

  devices failed to convince the Catholic clergy; the questionable

  pagan sage did not give enough prestige to the idea of Earth’s

  motion.

  Eventually, however, Galileo’s rhetoric had an unforeseen effect:

  it served to canonize Pythagoras as a great scientist and mathematician. In his Dialogue Galileo not only claimed that Pythagoras was a great astronomer, but he included an imaginative claim that

  Pythagoras proved the so­called Pythagorean theorem:

  There is no doubt that a long time before Pythagoras had

  discovered the proof, for which he did the hecatomb, he was

  sure that the square on the side opposite the right angle of

  the right­angled triangle was equal to the squares on the

  other two sides; and the certainty of the conclusion helps

  not a little in the discovery of the proof.96

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  In the previous two thousand years, writers mainly noted the alleged

  finding. It was not common to claim that Pythagoras proved the

  hypotenuse theorem. Galileo was not the first to make such a claim,

  but through his famous work this assertion spread and became a

  pervasive myth in scientific and mathematical education for the

  following centuries.

  Galileo’s Dialogue of 1632 stands at the middle point in the

  historical, mythical transformation of Pythagoras: the ancient philosopher’s fame as an eccentric mystic and pagan cult leader gradually diminished, while at the same time he became increasingly portrayed

  as a pioneering scientist. While Galileo inadvertently succeeded in

  canonizing Pythagoras as a mathematician and astronomer, we have

  now seen how the esoteric image of Pythagoras contributed to the

  converse: Galileo, mathematician and scientist, was converted into

  a heretic.

  In hindsight, the Pythagorean improprieties of Bruno and

  Galileo were nothing compared to the crimes of the Church. The

  God­fearing urge to create a Christian empire of souls led the Popes,

  bishops and cardinals to implement a repressive state, as if it would

  be a utopia where good Catholics would all live by piety and faith.

  We might well say that the Roman Inquisition was totalitarian inasmuch as it not only prohibited Catholics from expressing certain thoughts, or from thinking them, but it dictated what individuals

  should think. It sought to control the thoughts of its subjects by

  controlling their actions. Philosophy and science could not grow

  freely in that environment. Instead, writing became constrained by

  the kind of hypocrisies and measured silences that we see in Galileo’s

  writings and depositions.

  Totalitarian regimes treat writers as dangerous. The Catholic

  authorities seized, censored and destroyed certain books. Librarians

  such as Agostino Steuco, Cardinal Baronio, Gabriel Naudé, Lucas

  Holste and even Francesco Barberini noticed ancient heresies that

  were not known by everyone. Militant fanatics such as Bellarmine

  and Inchofer responded sternly to such beliefs. Ancient philosophical ideas became scorned as dangerous heretical novelties. The Inquisitors criminalized and persecuted such opinions, as if paranoid that such fictions might possibly overpower their own. The miracles of Pythagoras were denied as devilish lies, while the miracles of Jesus Christ were hailed as ennobling truths. Hence the 278

  Worlds on the Moon and the Stars

  Inquisition imprisoned and murdered Catholics who openly dared

  to disagree with its prescriptions for what to believe. By banning

  books and imprisoning heretics, they tried to suppress freedom of

  thought. Thus the Catholic clergymen won, in Rome, for at least a

  while. But many years later they finally lost in the court of public

  opinion, the open society, by failing to obliterate every trace of the

  arguments of Bruno, a martyr for freedom of thought.

  Bruno and Galileo earned our admiration because they dared to

  disobey the rules of the Church. No matter how deeply the clergymen were offended by relatively imaginative ideas – that the Earth is alive, that it has a soul, that it moves in the heavens, that the stars

  are worlds – the courage of heretics became an inspiration for those

  who seek to find the truth about anything, rather than obey the

  instructions of institutions.

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  R EFER ENCES

  Introduction

  1 Ronald L. Numbers, ed., Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion (Cambridge, ma, 2009).

  2 Maurice A. Finocchiaro, ‘Philosophy versus Religion and Science versus Religion: The Trials of Bruno and Galileo’, in Giordano Bruno:

  Philosopher of the Renaissance, ed. Hilary Gatti (Burlington, vt, 2002), pp. 51–85.

  3 Peter Godman, The Saint as Censor: Robert Bellarmine between Inquisition and Index (Leiden, 2000), pp. 214–15. See also William Shea and

  Mariano Artigas, Galileo Observed: Science and the Politics of Belief

  (Sagamore Beach, ma, 2006).

  1 The Crimes of Giordano Bruno

  1 ‘Decretum Sacrae Congregationis’, 5 March 1616, Rome.

  2 Flaminius Adrianus, ‘Decreto della Congregazione del Sant’Uffizio’, 4 February 1599, in Luigi Firpo, Il processo di Giordano Bruno (Rome,

  1993), p. 314.

  3 Galileo Galileo [Galilei], Sidereus Nuncius (Venice, 1610), p. 9. See also Galilei, Sidereus Nuncius, or The Sidereal Messenger, trans. Albert Van

  Helden (Chicago, il, 1989), p. 43.

  4 Urban viii, quoted by Francesco Niccolini to Andrea Cioli, 5 September 1632, in Antonio Favaro, ed., Le opere di Galileo Galilei: Edizione

  Nazionale, 20 vols (Florence, 1890–1909, repr. 1929–38), xiv, pp. 383–4.

  See also, for example, Maurice Finocchiaro, The Galileo Affair:

  A Documentary History (Berkeley, ca, 1989), pp. 229–30.

  5 Quoted by Galilei to Elia Diodati, 15 January 1633, in Finocchiaro, The Galileo Affair, p. 225.

  6 Jole Shackelford, ‘Myth vii: That Giordano Bruno was the First Martyr of Modern Science’, in Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science

  and Religion, ed. Ronald L. Numbers (Cambridge, ma, 2009), p. 67.

  7 Few historians have discussed Pythagorean notions in Bruno’s works.

  See Ramon G. Mendoza, ‘Metempsychosis and Monism in Bruno’s

&nbs
p; nova filosofia’, in Giordano Bruno: Philosopher of the Renaissance, ed.

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  Hilary Gatti (Burlington, vt, 2002), pp. 273–98; Hilary Gatti, ‘“The

  Pythagorean School and Our Own”: Bruno and the Philosopher from

  Samos’, in Giordano Bruno and Renaissance Science (Ithaca, ny, 1999),

  pp. 13–28; Dario Tessicini, I dintorni dell’infinito: Giordano Bruno e

  l’astronomia del Cinquecento (Pisa, 2007). My present book provides

  original contributions: tracing controversial Pythagorean beliefs

  throughout centuries, the discovery that such beliefs were denounced by

  Catholic authorities, and evidence that they were centrally important in

  Bruno’s trial.

  8 Steven Dick, Plurality of Worlds: The Origins of the Extraterrestrial Life Debate from Democritus to Kant (Cambridge, 1982); Michael Crowe, The Extraterrestrial Life Debate, 1750–1900 (Cambridge, 1986); and Michael

  Crowe, ed., The Extraterrestrial Life Debate, Antiquity to 1915: A Source

  Book (Notre Dame, in, 2008).

  9 Walter Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism, trans. Edwin Minar (Cambridge, 1972); Alberto A. Martínez, The Cult of Pythagoras:

  Math and Myths (Pittsburgh, pa, 2012).

  10 Iacobi Peletarii, In Euclidis elementa geometrica demonstrationum Libri Sex (Lyon, 1557), i, pp. 47–8.

  11 Aristotle, De caelo ( c. 340 bce), ii, sec. 13.

  12 In Apollonius of Tyana’s biography of Pythagoras, now lost, he said that Pythagoras was the son of Apollo; quoted in Porphyry, Life of Pythagoras

  ( c. 300 ce), in The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library, trans. Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie (New York, 1919), revd edn, ed. David R. Fideler (Grand

  Rapids, mi, 1987), pp. 123–36.

  13 Heraclides, quoted in Diogenes Laertius, Βίοι και Γνώμαι των εν

  Φιλοσοφίαι Ευδόκιμηεαντων και των Εκασθηι Αιρέσει Αρεσκόντων

  ( c. 225 ce), in Diogenes, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, ed. Tiziano Dorandi (Cambridge, 2013), viii:4, p. 603.

  14 Ovid, Metamorphoses ( c. 8 ce), xv.

  15 De placita philosophorum, i, chap. 3; iv, chaps 4 and 7. This work, known in Greek as Peri ton areskonton philosophois, physikon dogmaton and

  falsely attributed to Plutarch, was actually based on a work by Aetius

  ( c. 50 bce), as noted by Theodoret of Cyrus ( c. 393– c. 458/466 ce). It was also falsely attributed to Qusta ibn Luqa by Ibn al­Nadim; see Hans

  Daiber, ed., Aetius Arabus: Die Vorsokratiker in arabischer Überlieferung

  (Wiesbaden, 1980).

  16 Diogenes, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, viii:4, p. 602, and viii:21, p. 612.

  17 Jerome to Ctesiphon (415 ce), in Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, eds, St Jerome: Letters and Select Works, Select Library of Nicene and Post­

  Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., vol. vi (New York, 1893), Letter 133, sec. 1, pp.

  272–3. Ioannes Chrystostomos, Homily ii ( c. 395 ce), in The Homilies of S. John Chrystostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, on the Gospel of

  St John, i : Hom. i–xli, trans. G. Stupart (Oxford, 1848), pp. 11–14. See also Chrysostom’s Homily i, on Philippians 1:1–2, in The Homilies of

  S. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, trans. James Tweed

  (Oxford, 1843), pp. 8–9; Tertullian, ‘xiii. Adversus Hermogenem’,

  ed. E. Kroymann, in Tertulliani Opera, i, ed. E. Dekkers, Corpus

  Christianorum, Series Latina (Turnhout, 1954), p. 404, and ‘xvii.

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  References

  De Anima’ ( c. 215 ce), ed. J. H. Waszink, in Tertulliani Opera, ii, p. 785.

  18 ‘Jesuit Rules on Theology and Philosophy’, Decree 41: 3 November 1593–

  18 January 1594, in Behind the Scenes at Galileo’s Trial: Including the First English Translation of Melchior Inchofer’s Tractatus Syllepticus, ed. Richard Blackwell (Notre Dame, in, 2006), pp. 207–9.

  19 Thomæ Aquinatis, Summa totius Theologiæ ( c. 1274), 8 vols (Cologne, 1640), i, p. 29.

  20 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, part i, Quest. 47, article 3, in Opera Omnia, i (Paris, 1871), p. 315.

  21 Thomæ Aquinatis, Tertia Pars: Summæ Theologicæ ( c. 1274) (Venice, 1585), pp. 241–2; Aristotle, De Anima ( c. 350 bce), i.

  22 Dante, L’amoroso convivio ( c. 1305) (Venice, 1529), p. 49.

  23 Niceforo Callistos, Ecclesiasticae Historiae iii ( c. 1320), ed. J. P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca 145 (Paris, 1904), cols 891–976. Gianfrancesco Pico

  della Mirandola, De rerum praenotione (1507), in Joannis Francisci Pici

  Mirandulae, Opera Omnia (Basel, 1519), pp. 664–74. Porphyry, ‘On the

  Philosophy Derived from Oracles’ ( c. 270 ce), quoted in Eusebius,

  Praeparatio Evangelica ( c. 314 ce); trans. Amos Berry Hulen, Porphyry’s Work Against the Christians (Scottdale, pa, 1933), p. 16.

  24 Nicolai Copernici, De revolutionibus orbium cœlestium, Libri vi (Nuremberg, 1543), Prefatio, fol. iv reverso. Lactantius, Divine Institutes, iii, chap. 24.

  25 Copernici, De revolutionibus, fol. 3 reverso. Copernicus listed Philolaus, Hicetas of Syracuse, Heraclides and Ecphantus (who actually was not

  a Pythagorean). De placita philosophorum, iii, chap. 7. Some of the works consulted by Copernicus, such as the Pseudo­Plutarch De placita and

  Lysis’ Letter, were not genuine. See Bronisław Biliński, Il Pitagorismo

  di Niccolò Copernico (Wrocław, 1977), p. 111.

  26 Copernici, De revolutionibus, fol. 9 reverso.

  27 The writer ‘Lysis’ referred to the cult of goddesses Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis in Greece.

  28 Copernicus, quoted in Owen Gingerich, ‘Did Copernicus Owe a Debt to Aristarchus?’, Journal for the History of Astronomy, xvi/1 (1985), p. 38.

  29 Nicolas de Cusa, De docta ignorantia (1440), in Nicolai Cusae, Haec accurata recognitio trium voluminum / Operum clariss. (n.p., 1514), ii, folio 22 verso and reverso.

  30 Biliński, Il Pitagorismo, p. 111. Edward Rosen, ‘Was Copernicus a Pythagorean?’, Isis, liii (1962), pp. 504–8. Biliński and Rosen didn’t

  mention heretical dimensions of Pythagorean beliefs.

  31 Giovanni Maria Tolosani, ‘De coelo supremo immobili et Terra infima stabili’ (1546): appendix in De Purissima Veritate Sacrae Scripturae

  (MS., Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, 1546), pp. 339 v, 340 v.

  Also in Eugenio Garin, ‘Alle origini della polemica Copernicana’,

  Studia Copernicana, vi (Wrocław, 1973), pp. 31–42; Garin, Rinascite

  e Rivoluzioni: Movimenti culturali dal xiv al xviii Secolo (Bari, 1975), pp. 283–95.

  32 Hilary Gatti, ‘Why Giordano Bruno’s “Tranquil Universal Philosophy”

  Finished in a Fire’, in Ideas under Fire: Historical Studies of Philosophy and Science in Adversity, ed. Jonathan Lavery, Louis Groarke and William

  Sweet (Madison, nj, 2012), p. 109.

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  33 Anna Foa, Giordano Bruno (Bologna, 1998), p. 37; Ingrid Rowland, Giordano Bruno: Philosopher/Heretic (New York, 2008), pp. 71–86.

  34 Desiderius Erasmus, The Apophthegms of the Ancients, ii (London, 1753), bk 8, sec. 20, p. 268; bk 7, sec. 201, p. 255.

  35 Erasmus, ‘ Adages’: iiix1/lbii 935A, in John Grant, ed., Collected Works of Erasmus: Adages, iii iv 1 to iv ii 100, trans. Denis Drysdall (Toronto, 2005), p. 356.

  36 Erasmus, The Praise of Folly and Other Writings, trans. Robert Adams (New York, 1989), pp. 34–5.

  37 Erasmus, Apophthegms, bk 8, sec. 60, p. 283.

  38 Erasmus, Adages, p. 408.

  39 Anonymous authors, late 1500s, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS.

  Marshall 15 (5266), fol. 66 v. Christofo de Cattan, La Géomance du

  Seigneur Christofe de Cattan, . . . Avec la roüe de Pythagoras, trans. Gabriel du
Preau (Paris, 1558); The Geomancie of Maister Christopher Cattan, trans.

  Francis Sparry (London, 1591).

  40 Ioanne Wiero, De praestigiis daemonum, et incantationibus, ac veneficiis, Libri v (Basel, 1563), ii, pp. 139, 153; see also pp. 98, 113, 123, 463. Johan Weyer’s treatise was also published in German (1566 and 1586), and in

  Latin (1564, 1577 and 1583).

  41 Thomas Digges, ‘A Perfit Description of the Caelestiall Orbes according to the most aunciente Doctrine of the Pythagoreans, latelye reuiued by

  Copernicus’, in Leonard Digges, A Prognostication Everlastinge of Righte

  Good Effecte, ed. Thomas Digges (London, 1576), pp. 48, 49, 51.

  42 Ibid., pp. 43, 49.

  43 Bruno, Sigillus Sigillorum (1583), sec. 36; Hilary Gatti, The Renaissance Drama of Knowledge: Giordano Bruno in England (New York, 1989), p. 80.

  44 Miguel Granada, ‘Bruno, Digges, Palingenio: Omogeneità ed Eterogeneità nella Concezione dell’Universo Infinito’, Rivista di Storia

  della Filosofia, xxxxvii/1 (1992), pp. 47–73.

  45 Giordano Bruno, La cena delle Ceneri (London, 1584), part 3, p. 165; see also Paul Henri Michel, The Cosmology of Giordano Bruno, trans.

  R. Madison (Ithaca, ny, 1973), pp. 214–15.

  46 Lucretius, De rerum natura ( c. 50 bce), in Ronald Latham, trans., On the Nature of the Universe (Baltimore, md, 1951), p. 91.

  47 Giordano Bruno, De l’infinito universo et mondi ([Venice], 1584), Dialogue 3, pp. 74–5.

  48 Giordano Bruno, Candelaio (1582), ed. A. Guzzo (Milan, 2004), p. 118; Bruno, Sigillus Sigillorum (1583), in Jordani Bruni, Opera latine conscripta, ed. F. Fiorentino, vol. i/1 (Naples, 1879), p. 181.

  49 Didaci a Stunica [Diego de Zúñiga], Erimitæ Augustiniani in Iob commentaria (Toledo, 1584), p. 206.

  50 [Giordano Bruno] Nolano, Cabala del cavallo Pegaseo. Con l’aggiunta dell’Asino Cillenico (Paris, 1585), p. 87 ( L’Asino) and end of Dialogue 2, part 2. Most scholars agree that Bruno believed in transmigration

  (metempsychosis), based on his writings, though he denied it to the

  Venetian Inquisition. However, Roger Mendoza argues that the soul/

  body dualism implied by Pythagorean transmigration is incompatible

  with Bruno’s monism, which involved corporeal matter and incorporeal

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  References

  matter, such as the soul of the world. Such distinctions don’t affect my