Burned Alive: Bruno, Galileo and the Inquisition

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by Alberto A. Martinez

argument, which requires only that readers recognized support for some

  kind of transmigration in Bruno’s writings, and he repeatedly credited

  Pythagoras. Also, there did not exist a single version of Pythagorean

  metempsychosis as Mendoza implies, which results from not reviewing,

  in his article, the various Pythagorean sources over the centuries; see

  Mendoza, ‘Metempsychosis and Monism’, pp. 272–97.

  51 Giordano Bruno, De gli heroici furori (Paris, 1585), n.p. (end of the Fourth Dialogue).

  52 Giordano Bruno, Articuli centum et sexaginta adversus huius temporis mathematicos atque philosophos (1588), trans. William Boulting, in

  Giordano Bruno: His Life, Thought, and Martyrdom (London, 1914),

  p. 212.

  53 Iordani Bruni, De monade, numero et figura liber consequens quinque de minimo magno & mensura: item de innumerabilibus, immenso, &

  infigurabili, seu, De universo & mundis libri octo (Frankfurt, 1591).

  54 Ibid., in Bruno, Opere Latine, ed. C. Monti (Turin, 1980), p. 305.

  55 Jordani Bruni, De triplici minimo et mensura (Frankfurt, 1591), chap. 3, p. 13.

  56 ‘Denuncia di Giovanni Mocenigo all’Inquisitore di Venezia Giovan Gabriele da Saluzzo’, 23 May 1592, in Firpo, Il processo di Giordano Bruno, pp. 143–5. See also Giulio Monterenzi [apparent author], ‘Sommario’

  (2 July 1597), in Luigi Firpo, ‘Il Processo di Giordano Bruno’, Rivista

  Storica Italiana, lx (Naples, 1948), pp. 542–97, and lxi, pp. 5–59.

  57 Christopher Black, The Italian Inquisition (New Haven, ct, 2010), p. 57; and regarding denunciations, see p. 54.

  58 Thomas Mayer, The Roman Inquisition on the Stage of Italy, c. 1590–1640

  (Philadelphia, pa, 2014), p. 117.

  59 Bruno’s 3rd Deposition to the Venetian Inquisition, 2 June 1592, in Firpo, Il processo di Giordano Bruno, pp. 167–8.

  60 Bruno, 3rd Deposition, 2 June 1592, in Firpo, Il processo di Giordano Bruno, p. 254.

  61 Virgil, Aeneid ( c. 20 bce), vi, 724–7.

  62 Firpo, Il processo di Giordano Bruno, p. 169.

  63 Virgil, Aeneid, vi, 685–755.

  64 Giordano Bruno, De la causa, principio et uno (London, 1584), Dialogue 5, p. 124; reissued in Giovanni Gentile, ed., Opere Italiane di Giordano

  Bruno, i (Bari, 1908), p. 253.

  65 Dilwyn Knox, ‘Bruno: Immanence and Transcendence in De la Causa, Principio et Uno, Dialogue ii’, Bruniana & Campanelliana, xix/2 (2013), pp. 466, 473. See also Émile Namer, Les aspects de Dieu dans la philosophie

  de Giordano Bruno (Paris, 1926), pp. 35–7, 52–5, 63–4, 70, 87–91, 98.

  66 Bruno, De magia mathematica, in Bruno, Opere Magiche, ed. M. Ciliberto et al. (Milan, 2000), p. 22. All the texts recently republished as Opere

  Magiche remained in manuscript, presumably among the papers of

  Bruno’s pupil and secretary Jerome Besler (1566–1632), until their

  publication from 1891 and therefore were not available to Bruno’s critics

  in the 1590s. See Iordani Bruni, Opera latine conscripta, ed. F. Tocco and H. Vitelli, iii (Florence, 1891).

  285

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  67 Bruno, Camoeracenis Acrotismus, in Jordani Bruni, Opera latine conscripta, ed. F. Fiorentino, vol. i/1 (Naples, 1879), Article lxv, p. 177.

  68 Bruno, De gli heroici furori, ‘Argomento’ and Dialogues 2 and 4

  [unnumbered pages]. See also Bruno, Gli eroici furore (Milan, 1864),

  pp. 19, 44, 90.

  69 Bruno, 4th Deposition, Venice, 2 June 1592, in Firpo, Il processo di Giordano Bruno, pp. 176–7.

  70 Giulio Capaccio, Del trattato dell’impresse (Naples, 1592), p. 5.

  71 Gasparo Contarini and Donato Giannotti, Della Republica et Magistrati di Venetia: Libri v (Venice, 1591), p. 243. Giulio Valentino, Trattato del Conseglio et de’ Conseglio, et de Conseglieri de Prencipi (Venice, 1599), p. 188.

  72 Ferdinandi de Mendoza, De confirmando Concilio Illiberritano ad Clementem iix Sanctae Romanae et Catholicae Ecclesiae Pont. Opt. Max.

  Libri iii (Madrid, 1594), p. 42; see also pp. 34, 37, 39.

  73 Giovanni Andrea dell’Anguillara, Le Metamorfosi di Ovidio, rev.

  Gioseppe Horologgi (Venice, 1584), p. 255; see also p. 271.

  74 Bruno, 4th Deposition, Venice, 2 June 1592, in Firpo, Il processo di Giordano Bruno, p. 190.

  75 ‘Verbale di Seduta dell’Eccellentissimo Collegio di Venezia’, 28 September 1592, ibid., p. 202.

  76 ‘Verbale di Seduta’, 22 December 1592, ibid., p. 207; and ‘Verbale di Seduta’, 7 January 1593, ibid., pp. 210–11.

  77 Mayer, The Roman Inquisition on the Stage of Italy, pp. 66, 119. Firpo notes that Cardinal Francesco degli Albizzi, who published an Inquisition

  manual, Risposta alla Historia della Sacra Inquisitione (Rome, 1678),

  found only eight extraditions from Venice to Rome. Firpo, Il processo di

  Giordano Bruno, pp. 38–9.

  78 Mayer, The Roman Inquisition on the Stage of Italy, pp. 118, 120.

  79 ‘Denuncia di Fra Celestino da Verona’, in Firpo, Il processo di Giordano Bruno, pp. 47–8.

  80 Bruno, in Angelo Mercati, ed., Il Sommario del Processo di Giordano Bruno, Studi e Testi, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana ci (Vatican City, 1942), p. 85. Firpo, Il Processo di Giordano Bruno, p. 255.

  81 In September 1596 the list was submitted to three reviewers: Master

  [Garcia?] Guerra, Pedro Juan Zaragoza (a Consultor of the Index since

  1592), both Dominicans, and a Jesuit presbyter named Gallo. Firpo,

  Il processo di Giordano Bruno, p. 235; Mayer, The Roman Inquisition on the Stage of Italy, pp. 121, 289. Apparently nothing else is known about Guerra or Gallo.

  82 ‘Visita dei Carcerati nel Sant’Uffizio Romano’, 16 December 1596, in Firpo, Il processo di Giordano Bruno, p. 241.

  83 Ibid., pp. 304, 80–85.

  84 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), p. 61.

  85 Bruno, 4th Deposition, in Firpo, Il processo di Giordano Bruno, p. 284.

  86 Frances Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (London, 1964, repr. Abingdon, 2002), p. 388.

  286

  References

  87 ‘Summarium quarundam responsionum Fratris Iordani ad censuras factas super Propositionibus quibusdam ex libris elicitis’, in Mercati,

  Sommario, pp. 113–19.

  88 Bruno, De triplici minimo et mensura.

  89 Bruno, De l’infinito universo et mondi.

  90 Bruno, De la causa, principio et uno, De l’infinito universo et mondi, and Cabala del cavallo Pegaseo.

  91 Bruno, De la causa, principio et uno.

  92 Bruno, La cena delle Ceneri, and De l’infinito universo et mondi.

  93 Bruno, La cena delle Ceneri, De l’infinito universo et mondi, and De magia mathematica.

  94 Bruno, La cena delle Ceneri.

  95 Bruno, De la causa, principio et uno.

  96 Ibid. and De gli heroici furori.

  97 Bruno, La cena delle Ceneri, De l’infinito universo et mondi, De la causa, principio et uno, Spaccio de la Bestia Trionfante (Paris, 1584), De gli heroici furori, Cabala del cavallo Pegaseo, De immenso, and so on.

  98 For accounts of how notions in mathematics, astronomy, religion and alchemy were misattributed to Pythagoras over time, see Martínez,

  Cult of Pythagoras, pp. 1–28, 125–7, 201–24; Alberto A. Martínez, Science Secrets: The Truth about Darwin’s Finches, Einstein’s Wife, and Other Myths

  (Pittsburgh, pa, 2011), pp. 13–42, 55–7, 70–76, 229–30, 261–80.

  99 De placita philosophorum, iv, chap. 7, and ii, chap. 14.

  100 Porphyry, On the Abstinence of Animal Food, ii, Select Works of Porphyry, ed. and trans. T. Taylor (Lond
on, 1823), sec. 37, p. 74.

  101 Hippolytus, Ὁ κατὰ πασῶν αιρέσεων ἔλεγχος ( c. 225 ce)’, in Hippolytus, Refutatio omnium haeresium, ed. M. Marcovich (Berlin, 1986), iv, sec. 14; vi, sec. 23.

  102 Étienne Tempier, Tredecim errores a Stephano episcopo Parisiensi condemnati, 1270, Prop. 5, and Sequuntur errores annotati in rotulo, 1277, Props. 87, 98; in H. Deinfle, Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, i

  (Paris, 1889), pp. 487, 548.

  103 Tempier (1277), Prop. 109, in Deinfle, Chartularium, p. 549.

  104 Faculty of Divinity of Paris, Censures of 1 August 1553, quoted in L. Dupin, A New Ecclesiastical History of the Sixteenth Century, ii

  (London, 1706), p. 441.

  105 Sebastiano Medice, Summa omnium haeresum (Florence, 1581), p. 647.

  Sebastiano Medicis, Summa omnium hæresum (Venice, 1587), pt 1, p. 37

  rev.

  106 Justin Martyr [apocryphal?], ‘Justin’s Hortatory Address to the Greeks’, chap. xix, in Justin Martyr and Athenagoras, ii of Ante­Nicene Christian Library, ed. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson (Edinburgh, 1867), p. 305.

  107 Philostratus, The Life of Apollonius of Tyana (Cambridge, 1948), iii, chap. 34, p. 308.

  108 Augustine, De Civitate Dei, vii, chaps 6, 22.

  109 Jerome, Commentariorum Hieronymi in Matthaeum Evangelistam, Liber Primus, in Operum divi Hieronymi Eusebii Stridonensis, ix (Paris, 1534), chap. 8, p. 12 rev.

  110 Peter Abelard, Epitome theologiæ Christianæ, in Sæculum xii Petri 287

  burned alive

  Abælardi Abbatis Rugensis opera omnia, ed. J. P. Migne, Patrologia Latina 178 (Paris, 1855), chap. 18, cols 1720–21.

  111 Peter Abelard, Introductio ad Theologiam, i, in ibid., col. 1019. Original in Salvianus, De gubernatione Dei, octo libri dati ad S. Salonium Episcopum

  ( c. 440 ce), i, in Salviani Massiliensis, Opera Omnia, ed. J. P. Migne, Patrologia Latina 53 (Paris, 1859), col. 29.

  112 Petrus Abaelardus, ‘Scholarium’, Part 1, in Opera theologica, iii : Theologia

  ‘summi boni’/ Theologia ‘scholarium’, ed. E. Buytaert and C. J. Mews, Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio Mediaevalis 13 (Turnhout, 1987),

  cols 389–93.

  113 G. de Saint­Thierry to the Bishop of Chartres and Abbot of Clairvaux, late 1139, in Receuil d’études sur Saint Bernard et ses écrits, ed. J. LeClercq, iv (Rome, 1987), p. 352.

  114 J. Morrison, The Life and Times of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, a.d.

  1091–1153 (London, 1894), pp. 301–11.

  115 Pope Innocent ii, 1141, Conciliorum Generalium Ecclesiae Catholicae, iv (Rome, 1612), p. 23.

  116 A. de Castro, Adversus omnes hæreses. Libri xiiii (Paris, 1543), v, p. 80. See also T. Deciani, Tractatus criminalis omnium hæresum, i (Venice, 1590),

  pp. 236–7.

  117 Medicis, Summa omnium hæresum (1581), p. 647, and (1587), pt 1, p. 62 verso.

  118 Bruno, Camoeracensis Acrotismus, in Opera latine conscripta, Article lxv, p. 177.

  119 Firpo, Il processo di Giordano Bruno, pp. 169, 254; Wisdom 1:7. See also Bruno, De la causa, principio et uno, Dialogue 5, p. 124; reissued in G.

  Gentile, ed., Opere Italiane di Giordano Bruno, i (Bari, 1908), p. 253. See also Knox, ‘Bruno: Immanence and Transcendence’, pp. 466, 473; Namer,

  Les aspects de Dieu dans la philosophie de Giordano Bruno, pp. 35–98.

  Michele Ciliberto, Lessico di Giordano Bruno, ii (Rome, 1979), p. 929. For a longer discussion, see Alberto A. Martínez, ‘The Copernicans and the

  Soul of the World’, manuscript. On the Stoics, see T. Gregory, Anima

  Mundi (Florence, 1955), pp. 123–7.

  120 Bruno, De l’infinito universo et mondi, p. xxix.

  121 Bruno, De immenso et innumerabilibus, seu de universo et mundis (1591), in Bruni, Opera latine conscripta, i/2, pp. 171, 291. See also Granada, ‘Bruno, Digges’, p. 67.

  122 De placita philosophorum, ii, chap. 13.

  123 For discussion, see Granada, ‘Bruno, Digges’, p. 66.

  124 Aristotle, De Anima, i.

  125 Justin, ‘Dialogue with Trypho’, chap. 2, ii of Ante­Nicene Christian Library, pp. 87–8.

  126 De placita philosophorum, iv, chap. 7.

  127 Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio ( c. 430 ce), trans.

  W. Stahl (New York, 1952), p. 134.

  128 Tertullian, De Anima, in Tertulliani Opera, ii, chaps 28–32, 54; Lactantius, The Divine Institutes, iii, chap. 18, in The Works of Lactantius, xxi/1 of Ante­Nicene Christian Library (Edinburgh, 1871), pp. 182–3. Epiphanius,

  Panarion ( c. 374–7 ce), in The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis: Book 1, ed. Frank Williams (Leiden, 2009), sec. 7, p. 24.

  288

  References

  129 Jerome, Ad Pammachium et Marcellinum apologia Hieronymi adversum Ruffinum, iii, in Hieronymi, Opera Omnia, ed. M. Victorii (Paris, 1624), p. 537; see also pp. 20–21, 30, 380, 411–12, 444, 551.

  130 Hippolytus, Refutatio, i, sec. 14, p. 74, and i, sec. 22, p. 84.

  131 Bruno, 2 June 1592, in Firpo, Il processo di Giordano Bruno, p. 190.

  132 Bruno, c. 1587, in Firpo, Il processo di Giordano Bruno, plate 5 after p. 86.

  See also H. von Warnsdorf Family Album, 18 September [1587], in ibid.,

  pp. 169, 301, 304, plate 4, after p. 86; Eugenio Canone, ed., Giordano

  Bruno: gli anni napoletani e la ‘peregrinato’ europea (Cassino, 1992),

  pp. 121–5; F. Tocco, ‘Un nuovo autografo di G. Bruno’, La Bibliofilia, ix (1906), pp. 342–5.

  133 De placita philosophorum, i, chap. 9, p. 123.

  134 Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. F. Miller, ii (London, 1916), pp. 375–7.

  135 Porphyry, Life of Pythagoras, sec. 19.

  136 Jerome, Ad Pammachium et Marcellinum apologia Hieronymi adversum Ruffinum, iii, sec. 40.

  137 Aristotle, De caelo, ii, sec. 13.

  138 Hippolytus, Refutatio, i, sec. 15, p. 74.

  139 Porphyry, On the Abstinence of Animal Food, ii, sec. 37, p. 74.

  140 Bruno, La cena delle Ceneri, p. 51.

  141 Digges, ‘Perfit Description’, fol. 43; Bruno, De immenso, iii, p. 377; Bruno, De magia mathematica, sec. 1; F. Tocco, ‘Le opere inedite di Giordano

  Bruno’, Atti della Reale Accademia di Scienze Morali e Politiche, xxv

  (1892), p. 146; A. von Nettesheim, De occulta philosophia, ed. V. Compagni (Leiden, 1992), p. 85. Bruno also linked stars and daemons in W.

  Lutoslawski, ‘Jordani Bruni Nolani opera inedita, manu propria scripta’,

  in Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, ed. L. Stein, ii (Berlin, 1889), p. 541. See also De magia mathematica, sec. 17. Regarding Bruno’s sources for De magia mathematica, see S. Ricci, Giordano Bruno nell’Europa del Cinquecento (Rome, 2000), p. 426.

  142 Porphyry, On the Abstinence of Animal Food, ii, sec. 37, p. 74.

  143 N. Callisti, Ecclesiasticæ historiæ libri decem & octo (Basel, 1553), p. 893; Cesare Baronio, Annales Ecclesiastici, vii (Rome, 1596), p. 289.

  144 Plato, Timaeus ( c. 360 bce), in The Dialogues of Plato, trans. B. Jowett, ii (Oxford, 1871), paragraphs 30–31, pp. 525–6.

  145 Hippolytus, Refutatio, vi, sec. 21, p. 229.

  146 De placita philosophorum, ii, chap. 9, pp. 136–7.

  147 Plotinus, The Six Enneads ( c. 255–70 ce), trans. S. MacKenna (London, 1917–30), 4th Ennead, Treatise 4, chap. 27.

  148 Philostratus, Life of Apollonius, iii, chap. 34, p. 308.

  149 Iamblichus, De mysteriis Aegyptiorum, Chaldæorum, Assyriorum, ed. M. Ficinus (London, 1549), pp. 108–9, 114.

  150 Gregory, Anima Mundi, pp. 123–7.

  151 Augustine, De Civitate Dei, vii, chap. 23.

  152 Tempier (1277), in G. Klima et al., Medieval Philosophy: Essential Readings (Malden, ma, 2007), p. 184.

  153 Ovid, Metamorphoses, ii, p. 389.

  154 Dell’Anguillara, Metamorfosi, pp. 255 rev., 271 verso.

  155 R. Bellarmini, �
��Auctores addendi ad tertiam classem Indicis Pii iv, 289

  burned alive

  1592’, in Peter Godman, The Saint as Censor: Robert Bellarmine between

  Inquisition and Index (Leiden, 2000), p. 273.

  156 Firpo, Il processo di Giordano Bruno, p. 284.

  157 Bruno, Spaccio de la Bestia Trionfante, p. 20; Cabala del cavallo Pegaseo, p. 52; De gli heroici furori, 3rd Dialogue, p. 80.

  158 Bruno, Spaccio de la Bestia Trionfante, p. 20.

  159 Bruno, De triplici minimo et mensura, i, chap. 3. See also Hilary Gatti, Essays on Giordano Bruno (Princeton, nj, 2011), pp. 76–7.

  160 Aristotle, De anima, i, p. 8 reverso; Tertullian, De anima, chaps 34–5, pp. 835–7. Epiphanius, Panarion, sec. 7, p. 24; Augustine, De Civitate Dei, x, chaps 24, 29–30; xiii, chap. 19; xxii, chaps 12, 26–8; Thomae Aquinatis,

  Tertia Pars: Summæ Theologicæ ( c. 1274) (Venice, 1585), p. 241.

  161 Firpo, Il processo di Giordano Bruno, p. 285.

  162 For discussion, see Eugenio Canone, Il dorso e il grembo dell’eterno: percorsi della filosofia di Giordano Bruno (Pisa, 2003), pp. 7, 54, 65, 242–3.

  163 ‘Summarium’: 8th Censured Proposition with Bruno’s reply, and 5th Deposition, in Firpo, Il processo di Giordano Bruno, pp. 304, 285. Aristotle, De anima, ii, pt. 1.

  164 For example Philostratus, Life of Apollonius, ii, bk 7, chap. 26, p. 222.

  165 Lactantius, Divine Institutes, vi, chap. 8, p. 447. Jerome, Adversus Ruffinum, in Hieronymi, Opera Omnia, ed. Erasmus (Paris, 1534), p. 88.

  166 Irenaei, Adversus haereses libri quinque [ c. 180 ce], ed. Ubaldo Mannucci (Rome, 1907), i, chap. 25, sec. 4, pp. 264–5.

  167 Philostratus, Life of Apollonius, ii, bk 7, chap. 26, p. 222.

  168 Basilii, Oratio viii: De temperantia & incontinentia, in Omnia quae in hunc diem latino sermone donata sunt opera (Antwerp, 1570), p. 819.

  169 Erasmus, Apophthegms, viii, sec. 60, p. 283. Erasmus, Apophthegmatum, viii, in Erasmi, [ Opera Omnia] Quartos tomus quae ad morum

  institutionem pertinent complectens (Basel, 1560), p. 340.

  170 Callisti, Ecclesiasticæ historiæ, p. 893.

  171 Tempier (1277), in Chartularium, i (1889), p. 544 (Prop. 7), and p. 554

  (Prop. 193).

  172 Censures of 1 August 1553, in Dupin, New Ecclesiastical History, ii, p. 441.

  173 Bruno, De la causa, principio et uno, 5th Dialogue, p. 90.

  174 Bruno, De gli heroici furori, 2nd Dialogue.

 

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