Burned Alive: Bruno, Galileo and the Inquisition
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distortion of an ancient story by the historian Herodotus ( c. 430 bce),
who mentioned that Salmoxis, a deceitful man who claimed to have
returned from death, had originally been a slave of Pythagoras of Samos.
78 Ernst, Tommaso Campanella, pp. 76–7.
79 Ibid.
80 Campanella, ‘Proemio. A Gasparo Schioppo’ (1608), Oeuvres choisies, p. 24.
81 Mayer, The Roman Inquisition on the Stage of Italy, p. 52.
82 Ibid., p. 55.
83 [Gian Vittorio Rossi], ‘Frater Thomas Campanella’, in Jani Nicii Erithraei [pseudonym], Pinacotheca imaginum, illustrium, doctrinæ vel
ingenii laude, virorum (Cologne, 1643), p. 43.
84 Tommaso Campanella, ‘Madrigal vi’, ( c. 1608), in Alessandro D’Ancona, ed., Opere di Tommaso Campanella, i (Turin, 1854), p. 159.
85 Christopher Black, The Italian Inquisition (New Haven, ct, 2010), p. 86.
86 Peter Godman, The Saint as Censor: Robert Bellarmine between Inquisition and Index (Leiden, 2000), p. 175. Luigi Firpo, I processi di Tommaso Campanella, ed. E. Canone (Rome, 1998), pp. 256–8.
87 For discussion, see Eugenio Canone, ‘L’editto di proibizione delle opere di Bruno e Campanella’, Bruniana & Campanelliana, i/1–2 (1995),
pp. 43–61.
88 Io. Brisichellen, ‘Magistri Sacri Palatij’, 7 August 1603, in Alexandri vii, ed., Index librorum prohibitorum (Rome, 1664), pp. 321–2.
89 Jill Kraye, ‘Teaching Stoic Moral Philosophy: Kaspar Schoppe’s Elementa philosophiae moralis (1606)’, in Scholarly Knowledge: Textbooks in Early Modern Europe, ed. Emidio Campi (Geneva, 2008), p. 250.
90 Campanella, ‘Proemio. A Gasparo Schioppo’ (1608), in Oeuvres choisies, p. 23.
91 Ludovico delle Colombe, Discorso contro il moto della terra (1611), repr. in Opere di Galileo Galilei, Prima edizione completa, ii, p. 370.
92 Ibid., p. 373.
93 Ibid.
94 Ibid., p. 378.
95 Tommaso Campanella to Galilei, Ides of [13] January 1611, in Campanella, Lettere, ed. Vincenzo Spampanato (Bari, 1927), p. 165.
96 Ibid., p. 167.
97 Origen, De Principiis, in The Writings of Origen, x of AnteNicene Christian Library (Edinburgh, 1869), ii, chap. 1, sec. 3.
98 Ibid., chap. 7, secs 2–4.
99 Origen, Contra Celsum (248 ce), ed. Henry Chadwick (Cambridge, 1965), vi, sec. 9, p. 322; i, sec. 20, p. 21; vi, sec. 21, pp. 333–4.
100 ‘The Anathemas against Origen’, in the 5th Ecumenical Council, 302
References
the 2nd Council of Constantinople (553 ce), in Nicephori Callisti,
Ecclesiasticæ historiæ libri decem & octo (Basel, 1553), p. 893.
101 Marco Antonio Genevese, Praxis archiepiscopalis curiae Neapolitanae (Naples, 1602), p. 208; Roberto Bellarmino and Valenti Gozanga, Riposta
del Car. Bellarmino all difesa delle otto propositioni di Giovanni Marsilio
Napolitano (Naples, 1606), p. 16.
102 Andrea Vega, Tridentini decreti, de iustificatione expositio, et defensio, libris xv (Alcalá de Henares, 1564), Question 6, p. 709.
103 Pope Clement viii, quoted in James Brodrick, Robert Bellarmine, Saint and Scholar (Westminster, md, 1961), p. 156.
104 Stefania Tutino, Empire of Souls: Robert Bellarmine and the Christian Commonwealth (Oxford, 2010), e.g., p. 280.
105 Richard Blackwell, Galileo, Bellarmine, and the Bible (Notre Dame, in, 1991), p. 46.
106 Godman, The Saint as Censor, pp. 163–4, 209–11, 301–3.
107 Justus Lipsius, Physiologia Stoicorum libri tres (Antwerp, 1604), pp. 121–2.
108 Ibid., pp. 120 and 70, respectively.
109 Ibid., pp. 126–8.
110 Ibid., p. 109.
111 Scioppii, ‘Epistola’, in Firpo, Il processo di Giordano Bruno, p. 355. This part of his letter was omitted in the version published in 1621.
112 Thomas F. Mayer, The Roman Inquisition: A Papal Bureaucracy and its Laws in the Age of Galileo (Philadelphia, pa, 2013), pp. 74, 417.
113 Ubbo Emmius to Sibrando Lubberto, 19 September 1608, in Briefwechsel des Ubbo Emmius. ed. H. Brugmans and F. Wachter, ii (The Hague,
1923), pp. 51–2. Emmius was rector of the Latin school in Groningen.
Lubbertus was a theologian. Emmius attributed the ideas in question to
Simon Stevin. Actually, Stevin had merely asked what Earth would look
like if someone were to observe it from the Moon.
114 Anton. Possevini, Apparatus sacer ad scriptores Veteris & Novi Testamenti, i (Cologne, 1608), p. 362.
115 Regarding their relationship, see Godman, The Saint as Censor, pp. 3–4, 120–21, 156–8, 230–31.
116 Possevini, Apparatus sacer ad scriptores, p. 839.
117 Petro Gregorio, Syntaxeon artis mirabilis, in libros xl digestarum, ii (Cologne, 1610), pp. 79–80. Pierre Grégoire’s encyclopaedic work
incorporated sciences and mathematics with astrology and demonology,
from a devoutly Catholic perspective, yet it was placed on the Index of
Forbidden Books.
118 Placido Padiglia, David penitente lezzioni sopra il cinquantesimo salmo di David (Rome, 1610), p. 143.
119 Bruno’s 3rd Deposition, in Firpo, Il processo di Giordano Bruno, p. 254.
See also Wisdom 1:7.
120 Bellarmine’s copy is at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma, item 6.36.E.11, which came from the Library of the Collegio Romano.
121 Bruno (14th Deposition), in Firpo, Il processo di Giordano Bruno, p. 270; also see ‘Summarium’: Sixth Censured Proposition, including Bruno’s
reply, in ibid., p. 303; Psalms 19:1, or 18:2 in the Latin Vulgate.
122 Padiglia, David penitente lezzioni, p. 143.
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123 Ibid., p. 144.
124 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), p. 43, English words
modernized.
125 Malchus [Porphyry], De Vita Pythagoræ, ed. Cunrado Rittershusio (Altdorf, 1610), n.p.
126 Gasp. Scioppii, Ecclesiasticus, auctoritati serenissimi D. Iacobi Magnæ Britanniæ Regis oppositus (Augsburg, 1611), p. 264.
127 [John Donne], Conclave Ignati: sive eius in nuperis inferni comitiis inthronisatio (n.p., 1611); this first Latin edition was recorded in the Stationer’s Register on 24 January 1611 (it was printed in London and
Europe); pp. 8, 13, italics in the original.
128 Ibid., pp. 7–9. There has been some debate as to whether Donne’s references to Copernicus and Galileo somehow suggest that Donne
appreciated their works and used them to belittle the Jesuits. But
actually, a close reading of Donne’s text shows that he disdained the
new astronomers. I agree with the systematic analysis presented by
Chris Hassel, ‘Donne’s Ignatius His Conclave and the New Astronomy’,
Modern Philology, lviii/4 (May 1971), pp. 329–37, which shows that
Donne disliked the Copernican astronomers’ arrogance and vainglory.
As Hassel wrote, ‘To Donne the astronomers and the Jesuits are equally
foolish and equally dangerous.’ Another scholar remarks that Donne
had a ‘characteristically negative attitude to innovation’ and he thus
viewed the Jesuits as ‘guilty of innovations in religion’; see Achsah
Guibbory, Returning to John Donne (Farnham, 2015), p. 27.
129 Donne, Conclave Ignati, p. 28.
130 Ibid., p. 5.
131 Ibid., p. 8.
132 Ibid., pp. 11–13.
133 Ibid., pp. 28–9.
134 Ibid., pp. 30–32.
135 Ibid., p. 34.
136
Ibid., pp. 16–17, 22–3.
137 John Donne, ‘An Anatomy of the World’ (1611), in The Works of John Donne, ed. Henry Alford, vi (London, 1839), p. 491.
138 Did Donne know Bruno’s works? Edmund Gosse conjectured that Donne might have had some exposure to Bruno’s works during a
visit to Italy sometime between 1592 and 1596: Edmund Gosse, The
Life and Letters of John Donne, i (London, 1899), pp. 56, 269. Lindsay
conjectured that Donne’s use of the circle metaphor as well as lines
7–10 in his ‘Love’s Alchymie’ were drawn from Bruno: Jack Lindsay,
‘Donne and Giordano Bruno’, Times Literary Supplement (20 June 1936),
p. 523. Ince conjectured that perhaps Donne learned of Bruno’s works
through Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland: Richard Ince,
‘Donne and Giordano Bruno’, Times Literary Supplement (27 June 1936),
p. 544. Consequently, Yates agreed with Lindsay and Ince that Bruno
influenced Donne: Frances Yates, ‘Donne and Giordano Bruno’, Times
304
References
Literary Supplement (4 July 1936), p. 564. Furthermore, Lindsay provided additional similarities to even argue that Donne’s ‘originality’ stemmed
from the influence of Bruno’s works: Lindsay, ‘Donne and Giordano
Bruno’, Times Literary Supplement (11 July 1936), p. 580.
139 Bellarmino to the Mathematicians of the Collegio Romano, 19 April 1611, in Favaro, ed., Opere di Galileo Galilei: Edizione Nazionale, xi,
p. 87.
140 Cristoforo Clavio, Christoforo Grienberger, Odo Malcotio and Gio.
Paolo Lembo to Roberto Bellarmino, 24 April 1611, in ibid., xi, p. 93.
141 Annibale Fantoli, The Case of Galileo: A Closed Question? (Notre Dame, in, 2012), pp. 57–60.
142 Christophori Clavii, Operum mathematicorum, vol. iii: Commentarium in sphaeram Ioannis de Sacro Bosco & astrolabium (Mainz, 1611), p. 15.
143 Ioannis Kepleri, Narratio de observatis a se quatuor Iovis satellitibus erronibus, quos Galilaeus Galilaeus mathematicus Florentinus iure
inventionis Medicaea Sidera Nuncupauit (Florence, 1611), p. 1.
144 Iulio Caesare La Galla, De phenomenis in orbe lunæ novi Telescopii Usu a D. Gallileo Gallileo (Venice, 1612), p. 6. Also Galileo, Sidereus Nuncius, p. 9.
145 Ibid., pp. 5, 9, 14.
146 Ibid., p. 41.
147 Ibid., pp. 19, 21.
148 Ibid., p. 21.
149 Ibid., p. 22.
150 Ibid., p. 25.
151 Ibid., p. 27.
152 Ibid., p. 49.
153 Roberto Bellarmino, Dichiaratione del Simbolo, 2nd edn (Naples, 1605), p. 12. Previously, Bellarmine had also complained that some of the
ancients worshipped the Sun as a god; see Bellarmino, De gratia & libero arbitrio, iv/2, in Bellarmino, [ Disputationes, de controversiis Christianae Fidei] tertia Controversia generalis, de reparatione gratiae per Iesum Christum Dominum Nostrum (Ingolstadt, 1593), p. 278.
154 Roberto Bellarmino, Explanatio in Psalmos (Rome, 1611), p. 292; 2nd edn (Lyon, 1612), p. 292.
155 Roberti Bellarmini, ‘Haeresiarchae, id est, qui haereses invenerunt vel suscitarunt, vel dices haereticorum fuerunt’ (1592); in Godman, The Saint as Censor, p. 286; see also p. 167.
156 Godman, The Saint as Censor, pp. 182, 213, 219.
157 Roberto Bellarmino, De amissione gratiae et statu peccati libri sex (Heidelberg, 1613); reissued in Bellarmino, Disputationum Roberti
Bellarmini Politiani s. j., s. r. e. Cardinalis, De controversiis Christianae Fidei adversus huius temporis haereticos, iv (Naples, 1858), iv, chap. 11, p. 161.
158 Ibid., p. 162.
159 Bellarmino, Explanatio in Psalmos, p. 775.
160 Ibid., p. 903.
161 Nicolai Mullerii, Tabulae Frisicae lunaesolares quadruplices (Alkmaar, 1611), chap. 1, p. 318.
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162 Nicolai Nancelii, Analogia microcosm ad macrocosmon; id est, relatio
& proportio universi ad hominem (Paris, 1611), p. 212.
163 Ioannis Kepleri, Dioptrice sev demonstratio (Augsburg, 1611), p. 18.
164 Joan. Fabro [Joannes Faber], Praescriptiones Lynceae Accademiae (Terni, 1624), p. [1].
165 Niccolò Lorini to Galileo, 5 November 1612, in Favaro, ed., Opere di Galileo Galilei: Edizione Nazionale, xi, p. 427.
166 Galileo to Prince Federico Cesi, 5 January 1613, in ibid., p. 461.
167 Prior to Galileo, it seems that Thomas Harriot had discovered sunspots (his manuscript was not published until 1833). Years later Fulgenzio
Micanzio noted that Galileo first mentioned sunspots in August 1610.
On March 1611 the Jesuit astronomer Christopher Scheiner, with an
assistant, also discovered the spots, as Scheiner later reported. Also
Johann Fabricius published his own independent discovery of sunspots
before anyone else, in 1611. Galileo himself did not claim to be the first
to discover sunspots, but the author of his book’s preface gave him the
credit, which led Scheiner to carry out a priority dispute and debate
about sunspots. See, for example, Fantoli, The Case of Galileo, pp. 62–7.
168 Galilei, Istoria e dimostrazioni intorno alle macchie solari e loro accidenti (Rome, 1613), p. 14. See also Galileo, ‘Letters on Sunspots’, in Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo, ed. and trans. Stillman Drake (New York, 1957), p. 94.
169 Their works were not supported by powerful patrons; see Biagioli, Galileo, Courtier, pp. 71–2.
170 Galilei, Istoria e dimostrazioni, p. 133. Also in Drake, ed., Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo, p. 137.
171 [Christopher Scheiner], De maculis solarib. Et stellis circa Iovem errantibus (Augsburg, 1612), p. 26.
172 Simone Mario, Mundus Iovialis anno m.dc.ix. detectus ope perspicilli Belgici (Nuremberg, 1614).
173 Ioannes Georgius Locher, Disquisitiones mathematicae, de controversiis et novitatibus astronomicis (Ingolstadt, 1614), pp. 16–17. The last phrase reads: ‘pro cuius rei stabilimento’.
174 Westman, The Copernican Question, pp. 324–8, 376–84, 487.
175 Galileo, Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina (1615), in Finocchiaro, The Galileo Affair, p. 97.
176 Benedetto Castelli to Galileo, 12 March 1615, in Favaro, ed., Opere di Galileo Galilei: Edizione Nazionale, xii, p. 154.
177 Paolo Foscarini to Sebastiano Fantone, 6 January 1615, in Lettera del r. p. m. Paolo Antonio Foscarini Carmelitano. Sopra l’opinione de’
Pittagorici, e del Copernico. Della mobilità della terra, e stabilità del sole, e del nuovo Pittagorico sistema del mondo (Naples, 1615); trans. in Blackwell, Galileo, Bellarmine, and the Bible, pp. 217–51.
178 Foscarini, Lettera, pp. 4–5, 8.
179 Ibid., p. 14.
180 Ibid., pp. 9–10, emphasis added.
181 Ibid., p. 27. Blackwell’s translation of this passage omits the plural of suns and moons.
182 Ibid., p. 29.
306
References
183 Bellarmino to Foscarini, 12 April 1615, Finocchiaro, The Galileo Affair, p. 67.
184 It is a common mistake to say that Sfondrato was head of the Index.
185 Lorini’s Complaint to the Inquisition, 7 February 1615, in Finocchiaro, The Galileo Affair, p. 135.
186 Ximenes, in ibid., p. 143.
187 Attavanti, paraphrasing or quoting Caccini, in ibid., p. 145.
188 Giovanni Ciampoli to Galileo, 27 February 1615, in Favaro, ed., Opere di Galileo Galilei: Edizione Nazionale, xii, p. 146; Shea and Artigas, Galileo in Rome, pp. 64–5.
189 Piero Dini to Galileo, 14 March 1615, in ibid., p. 155.
190 Fantoli, Galileo: For Copernicanism, p. 449.
191 Roberti Bellarmini, De ascensione mentis in Deum per scalas rerum creaturum opusculum (Cologne, 1615), p. 181. Bellarmine’s dedication
>
specifies September.
192 Petreto, Turris Babel, n.p., item 25, p. 165.
193 Bellarmine’s copy is at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma, item misc.b.705.1, which came from the Library of the Collegio Romano.
194 Bellarmini, De ascensione, p. 277.
195 Bellarmino, Secunda controversia generalis; De Christo capite totius ecclesiae (Ingolstadt, 1585), i, chap. 3, p. 38.
196 Galileo, 1st Deposition, 12 April 1633, in Finocchiaro, The Galileo Affair, p. 256. See also ibid., p. 359, and Thomas F. Mayer, The Trial of Galileo,
1612–1633 (Toronto, 2012), p. 157.
197 In some records Taverna also appears as Consultor of the Inquisition on 4 June 1596, and on January 1602. See Mayer, The Roman Inquisition, p. 270.
198 Lorenzo Cardella, Memorie storiche de’ Cardinali della Santa Romana Chiesa, vi (Rome, 1793), pp. 110–11; Niccolò del Re, Monsignor
Governatore di Roma (Rome, 1972), p. 97.
199 Some writers give vague or erroneous dates for when Sfondrato became an Inquisitor, as explained by Mayer, The Roman Inquisition, pp. 61, 270. Mayer said Sfondrato ‘was an Inquisitor by 17 February 1600’,
which seems wrong since he appeared alongside other cardinals earlier,
apparently all as Inquisitors, during the Roman proceedings against
Bruno.
200 Danielle Bartoli, Della vita di Roberto Cardinal Bellarmino (Rome, 1678), p. 329. Note also that Sfondrato had unsuccessfully supported
Bellarmine to become Pope in 1605, instead of Borghese.
201 There exists some confusion. Godman remarks that Sfondrato is ‘often (and wrongly) described in the secondary literature as prefect of the
Congregation for the Index’. Godman, The Saint as Censor, p. 216.
202 Records of these four meetings are reproduced in Sergio Pagano, ed., I documenti del processo di Galileo Galilei (Vatican City, 1984), pp. 219–22.
203 These complaints were by Lorini, Caccini, Ximenes, Attavanti and the Consultor’s Report on Galileo’s Letter to Castelli; Finocchiaro, The
Galileo Affair, pp. 134–44.
204 Thomæ Campanellæ, Apologia pro Galileo, mathematico Florentino (Frankfurt, 1622), p. 5. Richard J. Blackwell, ed., Defense of Galileo (Notre Dame, in, 1994), pp. 19–24, 39, 133–4.
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205 Thomæ Campanellæ, Disputationum in quatuor partes suæ Philosophiæ Realis, Part 1: Quæstiones Physiologicæ (Paris, 1637), Question 11, Article 4, p. 106. See also Blackwell, ed., Defense of Galileo, p. 24.