Burned Alive: Bruno, Galileo and the Inquisition
Page 45
Plutarch, ‘Quare Expirauerint Oracula’, in Plutarchi Chaeronei, Ethica,
sive Moralia, Opera quae extant, omnia (Basel, 1573), p. 533.
230 Thomas Gaisford, ed., Theodoreti Episcopi Cyrensis Graecarum Affectionum Curatio (Oxford, 1839), iv, p. 162.
319
burned alive
231 Inchofer, Vindiciarum S. Sedis Apostolicae, p. 36.
232 Siméon bar Yohay, K’abbalae Denudatae, ii: Liber Sohar Restitutus (Frankfurt, 1684), pt 2, Third Treatise: ‘Idra Suta, seu Synodus Minor’,
sec. 19: ‘De Labiis Microprosopi & ore ejus’, p. 588.
233 Inchofer, Vindiciarum S. Sedis Apostolicae, p. 37.
234 Ibid., p. 36. Tertullian, ‘Annotationes Iacobi Pamelii in librum de pallio’, in Tertullian, Opera quae hactenus reperiri potuerunt omnia (Paris, 1616), chap. 2, p. 11.
235 Hieronymus, ‘Epistola ad Avitum’, quoted in Ludovicus Lucius, Historiae ecclesiasticae, i (Basel, 1624), p. 185. Jerome there referred to Origen’s Peri Archon, in Origenis Adamantii Opera (Paris, 1619), ii, pp. 436–7, iii, p. 463.
236 Inchofer, Vindiciarum S. Sedis Apostolicae, p. 37.
237 Ibid.
238 Ibid., p. 39.
239 Ibid., p. 42.
240 Ibid., p. 43.
241 Ibid., p. 45.
242 Ibid., p. 46.
243 Ibid., p. 51.
244 St Augustine, The Manichean Debate, i (New York, 2006), pp. 20, 48, 108, 118.
245 St Augustine, ‘Answer to Felix, a Manichean’, in ibid., p. 286.
246 Inchofer, Vindiciarum S. Sedis Apostolicae, p. 56.
247 Ibid., p. 81.
248 Ibid., p. 84.
249 Ibid., p. 98. Friedrich Marx, ed., Sancti Filastrii episcopi Brixiensis Diversarum hereseon liber, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum
Latinorum 38 (Vienna, 1898), p. 76.
250 Inchofer, Vindiciarum S. Sedis Apostolicae, pp. 110–22.
251 Ibid., p. 125.
252 Ibid., pp. 128–9.
253 Ibid., p. 137.
254 Ibid., p. 149.
255 Ibid.
256 Diogenes, ‘Anaxagoras’, in Lives of Eminent Philosophers, ed. Hicks, ii: 3, secs 6–8, pp. 153–4.
257 Guilielmi Gilberti, De Mundo nostro Sublunari Philosophia Nova. Opus posthumum (Amsterdam, 1651), pp. 165, 199–201. See Hilary Gatti,
Giordano Bruno and Renaissance Science (Ithaca, ny, 1999), pp. 33–7.
258 Gilberti, De Mundo nostro Sublunari Philosophia Nova, pp. 84, 124–6, 158, 165, 217–18, 246.
259 Galileo, Dialogo, pp. 393–406; Drake, ed., Dialogue, pp. 467–71, 477–9.
260 Galileo, Dialogo, pp. 396–7; Drake, ed., Dialogue, pp. 467–8.
261 Gilbert, De Magnete (1600), p. 209.
262 Inchofer, Vindiciarum S. Sedis Apostolicae, p. 156.
263 Ibid.
264 John of Damascus, De Fide Orthodoxa ( c. 730), in Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, eds, St Hilary of Poitiers / John of Damascus, Select Library 320
References
of Nicene and PostNicene Fathers of the Christian Church, 2nd ser.,
vol. ix (Oxford, 1899), ii, chap. 6, p. 22.
265 Inchofer, Vindiciarum S. Sedis Apostolicae, p. 158.
266 Nicephori Callisti, Ecclesiasticæ historiæ libri decem & octo (Basel, 1553), p. 893.
267 Inchofer, Vindiciarum S. Sedis Apostolicae, p. 159.
268 Ibid.
269 Ibid.
270 Ibid., p. 162.
271 Ibid., p. 168.
272 Ibid., p. 188. Martiani Capellae, De nuptiis philologiae et Mercurii et de septem artibus liberalibus, bk 8, ed. Ulrich Friedrich Kopp (Frankfurt am Main, 1836), p. 670.
273 Inchofer, Vindiciarum S. Sedis Apostolicae, p. 184.
274 Ibid., p. 186.
275 Ibid., p. 187.
276 Ibid., p. 190.
277 Ibid., p. 194.
278 Ibid., p. 195.
279 Franciscus Magdalenus, ‘Monitum S. Congregationis ad Nicolai Copernici Lectorem, eiusque emendatio, permissio & correctio’ (1620),
reissued in Antonio Schyrleo de Rheita, Oculus Enoch er Eliae sive
Radius sieromysticus (Antwerp, 1645), Preface: unnumbered pages [p. xxi].
280 Inchofer, Vindiciarum S. Sedis Apostolicae, p. 197.
281 Ibid., p. 198.
282 Ibid., p. 200; Fromondi, AntAristarchus, sive Orbisterrae Immobilis, pp. 28, 29.
283 Inchofer, Vindiciarum S. Sedis Apostolicae, p. 209.
284 For example, see the work by another Jesuit theologian, Adami Tanneri, Theologiae scholasticae, iii (Ingolstadt, 1627), col. 465 [p. 294].
285 Inchofer, Vindiciarum S. Sedis Apostolicae, p. i.
286 Beretta, ‘Melchior Inchofer et l’hérésie de Galilée’, p. 42.
287 Inchofer, Vindiciarum S. Sedis Apostolicae, p. 210.
288 Melchiore Inchofer, Epistolae B. Virginis Mariae ad Messanenses Veritas vindicata (Messina, 1629), p. 205. This book was republished in 1631 and 1632.
289 Ibid., p. 205.
290 Ibid., e.g. pp. 22–4, 46, 48, 145.
291 Inchofer, Vindiciarum S. Sedis Apostolicae, p. 43.
292 Ibid., p. 165.
293 Tommaso Campanella, Sensu rerum et magia, p. 168.
294 [Giordano Bruno] Nolano, Cabala del cavallo Pegaseo. Con l’aggiunta dell’Asino Cillenico (Paris, 1585), Second Dialogue [unnumbered pages].
295 Inchofer, Vindiciarum S. Sedis Apostolicae, p. 168.
296 See Zachariae Pasqualigi, Disputationes metaphysicae, 2 vols (Rome, 1634–6), i, p. 11; ii, col. 352.
297 Enrico Carusi, ‘Nuovi documenti del processo di Giordano Bruno’, Giornale Critico della Filosofia Italiana, vi (1925), p. 134. Carusi notes that the statement on the slip of paper was apparently written by the same
hand that wrote this copy of that ‘Decreto della Congregazione’.
321
burned alive
298 Firpo, Il processo di Giordano Bruno, p. 337.
299 Rietbergen, Power and Religion in Baroque Rome, p. 125.
300 Royal Letter to Ambassador Cardinal Borgia, 2 April 1635, in Luigi Amabile, Fra Tommaso Campanella ne’Castelli di Napoli, in Roma ed in
Parigi, ii (Naples, 1887), p. 217.
301 See the correspondence between Francesco Barberini and Giorgio Bolognetti, and between Cardinals Antonio and Francesco Barberini
with Giulio Mazarini; in Amabile, Fra Tommaso, ii, docs 255–98,
pp. 218–32.
302 Cardinal Francesco Barberini to Giorgio Bolognetti, 23 October 1634, in ibid., p. 218.
303 Barberini to Bolognetti, 6 November 1634, in ibid., p. 218.
304 Amabile, Fra Tommaso, p. 96.
305 Ibid., p. 124.
306 Thomas Campanella, De sensu rerum, et magia, 2nd edn (Paris, 1637), p. iv.
307 Thomæ Campanellæ, Defensio libri sui De sensu rerum, in ibid., p. 33.
308 Ibid., p. 21.
309 Ibid., p. 51.
310 Ibid., p. 34.
311 Ibid., pp. 21–2.
312 Ibid., pp. 94–5.
313 Ibid., p. 22.
314 Most English translations of the Latin Vulgate Bible do not convey the literal words of Genesis, which Campanella repeatedly quoted as
‘Producant aquæ reptilia animæ viventis, et volatilia’, and ‘Producat
Terra animam viventem’. See Campanella, Defensio, pp. 13, 37, 46, 56, 67; and De sensu rerum, 2nd edn, p. 2.
315 Campanella, Defensio, p. 21.
316 Campanella, De sensu rerum (1637), ii, chap. 32, pp. 114–15.
317 Athanasii Rhetoris, Anticampanella in Compendium redactus adversus Librum de sensu rerum et magia (1638), pp. 7–8, in Athanasii Rhetoris,
Antipatellarus, Epistola de unione Ecclesiarum ad Alexandrinum et
Hierosolymorum patriarchas, Anticampanella in Compendium Redactus
(Paris, 1655).
318 Ibid., pp. 15–16, 20.
319 Ibid., pp. 18–19.
320 Ibid., p. 28.
321 N. Chorerius, quoted in Camille Latreille, De Petro Boessatio (1603–
1662): ac de conditione litteratorum virorum in Delphinatu eadem aetate
(Vienna, 1894), pp. 46–7.
4 Worlds on the Moon and the Stars
1 John Wilkins, The Discovery of a World in the Moone; or, A Discourse tending to Prove that ’tis Probable there may be Another Habitable World
in that Planet (London, 1638), p. 80.
2 Ibid., p. 34; see also pp. 12–13.
3 Bellarmino to Foscarini, 12 April 1615, in Maurice Finocchiaro, The Galileo Affair: A Documentary History (Berkeley, ca, 1989), p. 67.
322
References
4 Federico Cesi to Galileo Galilei, 12 January 1615, in Le opere di Galileo Galilei, Prima edizione complete, viii (Florence, 1851), p. 340.
5 Attavanti, paraphrasing or quoting Caccini, in Finocchiaro, The Galileo Affair, p. 145.
6 Ximenes, in ibid., p. 143.
7 Piero Guicciardini to Grand Duke Cosimo ii, 4 March 1616, in Le opere di Galileo Galilei. Edizione Nazionale, ed. Antonio Favaro, 20 vols (Florence, 1890–1909, repr. 1929–38), xii, p. 242.
8 Alessandro Tassoni to Albertino Barisoni, 5 March 1616, in Alessandro Tassoni, Lettere, ed. Pietro Puliatti, i (Bari, 1978), p. 259.
9 Antonio Querengo to Cardinal Alessandro d’Este, 5 March 1616, in Favaro, ed., Opere di Galileo Galilei: Edizione Nazionale, xii, p. 243.
10 Liberti Fromondi, AntAristarchus, sive OrbisTerrae Immobilis. Liber unicus. In quo decretum S. Congregationis S.R.E. Cardinal. an. ciↄ.iↄc.xvi.
aduersus PythagoricoCopernicanos editum defenditur (Antwerp, 1631),
p. 29.
11 Ibid., p. 21.
12 Nicolai Caussini, De eloquentia sacra et humana, libri xvi, 3rd edn (Paris, 1630), p. 1005.
13 Dominico Gravina, Catholicarum praescriptionum adversus nostri temporis hæreticos, iii/1 (Naples, 1630), p. 38.
14 Ibid., pp. 38–9.
15 For example, he praised Pope Urban viii and the following cardinals (who participated in Galileo’s trial): Francesco Barberini, Guido
Bentivoglio, Gaspar Borgia, ‘Felici Centino’ (d’Ascoli), Desiderio Scaglia
and Laudivivio Zachia. See Dominico Gravina, Pro sacro deposito fidei
catholicae et apostolicae, fideliter à Romanis põtificibus custodito, Apologeticus.
Adversus novatorum calumnias (Naples, 1629), p. [i]; and Gravina, Vox Turturis seu de florenti usq. ad nostra tempora, S S. Benedicti, Dominici,
Francisci, et aliarum sacrarum Religionum statu (Cologne, 1627), pp. 297, 393.
16 Ioannes de Solorzano Pereira, Disputationem de Indiarum Iure sive De iusta Occidentalium Indiarum inquisitione, acquisitione, et retentione
(Madrid, 1629), pp. 158–9.
17 For example, Jerome, ‘Ad Pammachium et Marcellinum Apologia Hieronymi adversum Ruffinum’, ii (402 ce), in Sancti Hieronymi
Stridoniensis, Opera Omnia, ed. Mariani Victorii (Paris, 1624), p. 511.
18 Gabriele Vazquez, Commentariorum ac Disputationum in Primam Partem Sancti Thomæ, i (Lyon, 1631), p. 107. Vazquez was a Jesuit theologian.
19 Philaster, ‘Catalogus Haereseon ex Epiphanii Eusebijque commentarijs collectus’, in Divi Aurelii Augustini liber de haeresibus ad Quodvultdeum.
Item S. Philastrii ejus coætanei Catalogus hæresium pœnè omnium
(Helmstedt, 1621), heresy 77 [unnumbered pages].
20 Decretum Gratiani emendatum et notationibus illustratum, Unà cum glossis, Gregorii xiii. Pont. Max. iussu editum (Rome, 1582) pt 2, Causa 24, Question 3, col. 1895 [unnumbered p. 1011]; Corpus Iuris Canonici
emendatum et notis illustratum: Gregorii xiii. Pont. Max. iussu editum,
with new indices and appendices by Pauli Lanceloti (Lyon, 1591 [‘Cum
Licentia’]), pt 2, Cause 24, Question 3, col. 877 [unnumbered pages];
323
burned alive
Corpus Iuris Canonici (Lyon, 1605), col. 877; Corpus Iuris Canonici
(Lyon, 1622), col. 877.
21 Antonii Ruvio, Commentarii in libros Aristotelis Stagiritæ de coelo & mundo (Cologne, 1617); repr. in Lyon (1620 and 1625), and Brescia and
Cologne (1626).
22 Johann Heinrich Alsted, ‘Chronologia, hæresium, sectarum, schismatum’, in JohannisHenrici Alstedii, Thesaurus chronologiæ, in quo
Universa temporum & historiarum series in omni vitae genere ita ponitur ob oculos, 2nd edn, rev. and augmented (Herborn, 1628), p. 380.
23 Johannis Henrici Alstedii, Theatrum Scholasticum, in quo consiliarius philosophicus proponit et exponi (Herborn, 1610), p. A iv. See
Pauli Bolduani, Bibliotheca Philosophica, sive Elenchus scriptorum
philosophicorum (Jena, 1616), p. 147: ‘Jordani Bruni artificium perorandi, communicatum à Joan. Henrico Alstedio. Francof. 1612. A. in 8.’
24 Vincentii Burgundi, Bibliotheca Mundi, seu Speculi maioris, ii (Douai, 1624), pp. 10–11, 1565.
25 Recall that in 1599 Bruno told his Inquisitors that he would revoke his propositions only ‘if the Apostolic See and the Holiness of Our
Lord held these eight propositions as definitely heretical’. The Pope
replied that Bruno should be informed that, indeed, ‘these propositions
are heretical, and not only heretical as now declared, but by the most
ancient Fathers of the Church and the Apostolic See.’ Luigi Firpo,
Il processo di Giordano Bruno (Rome, 1993), pp. 315, 340–41.
26 ‘The Anathemas against Origen’, in The Fifth Ecumenical Council, The Second Council of Constantinople (553 ce), Third Anathema.
27 Francesco Ingoli to Cardinal Bonifacio Caetani, 9 August 1613, in Archivio Caetani, Rome, Fondo Generale, no. 140664. Quoted in
M. Bucciantini, ‘Teologia e nuova filosofia. Galileo, Federico Cesi,
Giovambattista Agucchi e la discussione sulla fluidità e corruttibilità
del cielo’, in Sciences et religions de Copernic à Galilée (1540–1610), Actes du colloque international organisé par l’École française de Rome (Rome, 1999), p. 412.
28 Livio Galante, Christianae theologiae cum Platonica comparatio (Bonn, 1627), p. 269. Galante credited Augustine for reproving this heresy, and
he attributed it to the Manichaeans and to the men ‘who committed
wicked errors and were excommunicated and condemned in Paris’.
29 Cardinal Carolus Pius and Franciscus Magdalenus Capiferreus, ‘Sacrae Congregationis Indicis. Decreto’, 4 February 1627, reproduced in [Pope]
Alexandri vii, ed., Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Rome, 1664), p. 333.
30 Roberto Fludd, Utriusque cosmi maioris scilicet et minoris metaphysica, physica atque technica historia, i (Oppenheim, 1617), pp. 51, 121–2, 146, 167; see also pp. 25, 39, 98, 107. In another book, Fludd argued that Jesus
Christ is the ‘Platonic soul of the world’, a soul contained in a divine
spirit that emanates from the Sun and which is infused in all bodies,
and vivifies them; see Roberto Fludd, Anatomiae amphitheatrum effigie
triplici (Frankfurt, 1623), pp. 36, 254–6, 304.
31 For example, the Jesuit professor Cornelius Lapide commented:
‘Pythagoras decided that souls transmigrate from one body to another;
this error also spread among the Hebrews.’ See Cornelio Lapide,
324
References
Commentaria in Acta Apostolorum, Epistolas canonicas et Apocalypsin
(Antwerp, 1627), p. 88. Consider another example: ‘Christ refuted two
errors, one by the Gentiles, the other by the Jews. The Gentiles believed
the error of the transmigration of souls, which were placed by God as
in prisons, in ugly bodies for previous sins, and therefore he said that he
did not sin. Because given that God raised the soul in that very subject,
and previously it had no b
eing, He could not imprison them there
for previous faults.’ See Geronimo de la Cruz, Defensa de los estatutos
y noblezas españolas: destierro de los abusos, y rigores de los informantes
(Zaragoza, 1637), ii, p. 166.
32 One example: ‘some heretics believed in the transmigration of souls, that those of the ones who died returned and were placed in other
bodies, and were born, that the soul of Adam had entered the body
of St Paul, thus he could say that he was the first sinner. But this is
a manifest heresy.’ According to the Bishop of Barbastro, Geronymo
Batista de Lanuza, Las Homilias sobre los Evangelios de la Quaresma, iii (Zaragoza, 1636), Homily 38, p. 638. Another example: ‘it was opportune
to remove a pernicious heresy: it was the error of Pythagoras, followed
by malicious people, saying that souls exited their bodies, and entered
into others.’ Bartolomé Cayrasco de Figueroa, Tercera parte del Templo
militante, flos santorum, y triumpho de sus virtudes (Lisbon, 1618), p. 145; published previously in 1600 and 1609.
33 Likewise, in 1627 Galante noted that ‘what Pythagoras said’ about transmigration ‘is utterly deceptive and condemned by all as legally
deserved’. Galante, Christianae theologiae, p. 25.
34 Corpus Iuris Canonici (1622), col. 876 [unnumbered pages]. Not everyone thought that Tertullian himself should be considered a heretic. For
example, Augustine argued that by declaring that the soul is immortal
and that it is corporeal, and even that God is corporeal, Tertullian did
not deserve to be considered a heretic because he might have merely
been using the word corporeal as a way to describe that which is not
nothing.
35 Gabriel Naudé to Ismaël Boulliau, 15 August 1640, in René Pintard, Le libertinage érudit dans la première moitié du xviie siècle (Geneva, 2000), pp. 473–4.
36 Gabriel Naudé, Apologie pour tous les grands personnages qui ont esté faussement soupçonnez de magie (Paris, 1625); 2nd edn (The Hague, 1653), p. 331.
37 Bellarmino, De aeterna felicitate sanctorum, libri quinque (Cologne, 1616), iv, p. 240.
38 Giordano Bruno, De l’infinito universo et mondi ([Venice], 1584), p. [xxix].
39 Bellarmino, De aeterna felicitate sanctorum, iv, pp. 227–8; the margin cites
‘Psalm 57’, presently known as Psalm 58:10.
40 John Donnelly and Roland Teske, eds, Robert Bellarmine, Spiritual Writings (New York, 1989), p. 26.