“Now what customs have I named”: Bruno, Cause, Principle, and Unity, dialogue 1.
Alexander Dicson: Clucas, “In Campo Fantastico.”
“As I was studying”: Bruno, Cause, Principle, and Unity, dialogue 2.
“You humanists”: Ibid.
19: THE ART OF MAGIC
“the Academic of no Academy”: The self-identification comes from the Candlemaker’s act 1, scene 2. We do not know the source of the poem.
“The point on which we should fix”: Bruno, Ash Wednesday Supper, dialogue 2.
These Hermetic books: Festugière, La révélation d’Hermès Trismégiste; Fowden, Egyptian Hermes; Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition; Gentile, Marsilio Ficino e il ritorno di Ermete Trismegisto.
“Do you not know”: Bruno, Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast, dialogue 3.
“And the devil that deceived them”: Revelation 20:10, 21:1.
This is not to say: In Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, Frances Yates argued that Bruno was trying to resurrect a kind of Egyptian religion, whereas most contemporary Bruno scholars regard the Nolan philosopher as a philosopher rather than a religious reformer.
“The stupid, insensitive idolaters”: Bruno, Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast, dialogue 3.
“You can see, then, how a simple divinity”: Ibid.
Elizabeth fought back: Elizabeth wrote in Spanish, French, Italian, Greek, and Latin as well as English; see Mueller and Marcus, Elizabeth I.
“How can my Muse”: William Shakespeare, Sonnet 38.
“Here Giordano speaks”: Bruno, Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast, dedication.
20: CANTICLES
“It is truly, O most generous Sir”: Bruno, Heroic Frenzies, dedication.
Penelope Devereux: Spampanato, Vita, pp. 385, 386.
“I mean for the world”: Bruno, Heroic Frenzies, dedication.
Tansillo: Rubino, Tansilliana; Erasmo Pércopo, introduction to Canzoniere, by Tansillo.
“With pretty blazes”: Bruno, Heroic Frenzies, pt. 1, dialogue 3.
“Felonious child of Love and Rivalry”: Ibid., dialogue 1.
“Finally, I mean to say”: Ibid., dedication.
“In this poetry, however”: Ibid.
“because two women are introduced”: Ibid., dedication.
“These are the lesser mysteries”: Plato, Symposium, 210A.
Marcantonio Epicuro’s poem: Gentile, in Bruno, Dialoghi italiani, p. 973 and passim.
Seripando’s library: An inventory of the library is preserved in the Biblioteca Corsiniana in Rome, MS 671 (34B15), 132–69, with an “extremely inaccurate” copy in the Vatican Library, MS Vat. Lat. 11310. See Giovanni Mercati, Prolegomena, pp. 120–23.
The fact that there are two eyes: Canone, “Le ‘due luci.’”
“But here contemplate”: Bruno, Heroic Frenzies, dedication.
“As day and night”: Ibid., pt. 2, dialogue 5.
“‘O Jove, I envy not your firmament’”: Ibid., “Song of the Illuminati.”
“like those Irish exiles”: Spampanato, Vita, p. 387.
21: SQUARING THE CIRCLE
a menacing, unstable place: Ricci, Giordano Bruno, pp. 373–76.
“[I presented myself to a confessor]”: Firpo, Il processo, pp. 176, 196–97.
Sixtus V: Fagiolo and Madonna, Sisto V.
Jacopo Corbinelli: Ricci, Giordano Bruno, pp. 382–97.
“December 7: Jordanus came back again”: Spampanato, Vita, pp. 650–51.
Harold Urey: As a high school student, I heard Urey make this statement in the question period following a lecture at the University of California, Irvine, in the late 1960s.
Mordente came originally: Aquilecchia, Due dialoghi sconosciuti, pp. vii–xxiii; Ricci, Giordano Bruno, pp. 380–90.
his friendship with John Florio: Wyatt, Italian Encounter with Tudor England.
“I’d gladly have them translated”: Bruno, Cause, Principle, and Unity, dialogue 1.
“Is it not then possible”: “A Dream,” cited from Aquilecchia, Due dialoghi sconosciuti, p. 57.
Giovanni Botero: Spampanato, Vita, pp. 328–29.
“Why don’t you think it right”: Bruno, The Triumphant Idiot, cited from Aquilecchia, Due dialoghi sconosciuti, p. 5.
“This man who mentions”: Ibid., p. 16.
The reports of that debate: Ricci, Giordano Bruno, pp. 390–97.
Marburg: Spampanato, Vita, pp. 411–14, 663, 664.
University of Wittenberg: Ibid., pp. 414–22.
22: CONSOLATION AND VALEDICTION
Alberico Gentili: Feingold, “Bruno in England Revisited,” p. 332.
“I happen to have heard”: Spampanato, Vita, p. 419.
Paracelsus: Ricci, Giordano Bruno, pp. 406–8.
“On behalf of such a university”: Bruno, The Llullian Combinatory Lamp, ed. Tocco and Vitelli, p. 230.
The Lamp of Thirty Statues: This work was finally published in Florence in 1891.
Polycarp Leyser: Ricci, Giordano Bruno, 403–4.
Nicodemus Frischlin: Canone, Giordano Bruno, 1548–1600, p. 145.
Rudolf II: Ricci, Giordano Bruno, pp. 410–15.
“Venus, third heaven’s goddess”: Bruno, Heroic Frenzies, pt. 1, dialogue 5, emblem 11.
“Hear Solomon”: Wisdom 7:8–10. Douai-Rheims version.
“Her have I loved”: Ibid. 8:2.
“I came myself”: Bruno, Valedictory Oration, pp. 21–22.
Saint Vitus: Ianneci, Il Libro di San Vito.
John Dee: French, John Dee; Woolley, Queen’s Conjuror.
Don Guillén de Haro de San Clemente: Ricci, Giordano Bruno, pp. 417, 419.
“It happens that, against every reason”: Bruno, One Hundred and Twenty Articles Against Mathematicians and Philosophers, ed. Tocco and Vitelli, p. 4.
“As for the liberal arts”: Ibid.
“On November 21”: Ricci, Giordano Bruno, p. 411.
Hieronymus Besler: Ibid., p. 410 and passim thereafter.
National Library of Moscow: MS Noroff 36. The texts contained in the manuscript have been transcribed and edited twice: by Tocco and Vitelli in 1891, and recently by Simonetta Bassi, Elisabetta Scapparone, and Nicoletta Tirinnanzi. A full study of the manuscript still needs to be undertaken.
“God flows into the angels”: Bruno, On Mathematical Magic, par. 1, cited from Opere magiche, p. 4.
“I, for the exaltation of my goal”: Bruno, Heroic Frenzies, pt. 1, dialogue 3.
“Whoever comes across this book”: The notes were discovered by Paul Richard Blum in the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel. T 1066 Helmst. 2.o, a copy of Paracelsus, Astronomia magna; oder, Die ganze Philosophia sagax der grossen und kleinen Welt (Frankfurt: Sigismundus Feyerabend, 1571). My thanks to Paul Richard Blum for pointing them out.
“The things that seem appropriate”: Bruno, On Mathematical Magic, par. 22, cited from Opere magiche, p. 72.
“This supreme concern”: Preface to Bruno, De Lampade combinatoria Lulliana et specierum scrutinio, ed. F. Tocco and H. Vitelli, Jordani Bruni Nolani Opera Latina, Vol. 2.3 (Florence: Le Monnier, 1890), p. 229 (a2r).
“That severed head of the Gorgon”: Ibid., (a2v).
23: INFINITIES
On the Immense and the Numberless: Published in Frankfurt in 1591 as De Innumerabilibus, immenso, et infigurabilis, sen, De Universo et mundis, the poem was republished in 1879 by Francesco Fiorentino as De Immenso et Innumerabilibus, which is now the usual short title for the work.
On the Immense traced a biography: Gatti, Giordano Bruno and Renaissance Science, pp. 29–37, 61–89, 100–117.
Atoms were the last piece … to fall into place: Ibid., pp. 128–42.
“I write for other than the crowd”: Bruno, On the Immense and the Numberless, 5.1.
“I hate the profane crowd and shun it”: Horace, Odes 3.1.1: “Odi profanum vulgus et arceo.”
“seeds of things”: See also Horowitz, Seeds of Virtue and Knowledge.
&nb
sp; “Principle of existence”: Bruno, On the Immense and the Numberless, 6.5.
“Never shall you see the face”: Ibid., 1.7.
“Sun and Earth are the primal animals”: Ibid., 4.9.
“Isn’t it the mother of all follies”: Ibid., 3.3.
“Now, if you please, ask me”: Ibid., 3.1.
“Past time or present”: Ibid., 1.12.
“Bacchus and Ceres are thus”: Ibid., 6.5.
“Hence, as I make my journey”: Ibid., 19–24.
24: RETURN TO ITALY
Padua: Grendler, Universities of the Italian Renaissance, pp. 3–40, 366–71, 408–19.
Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia: Maschietto, Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia; Guernsey, Lady Cornaro.
Giovanni Vincenzo Pinelli: Ricci, Giordano Bruno, pp. 383–85.
Readings on Geometry and The Art of Deformations: Aquilecchia, Praelectiones geometricae, e Ars deformationum.
Giovanni Mocenigo: Ricci, Giordano Bruno, pp. 480–88.
Andrea Morosini: Ibid., pp. 478–80.
he began to hear Mass: Firpo, Il processo, p. 174.
Fra Domenico da Nocera: Ibid., pp. 21, 164–65.
“I was going to go to Frankfurt”: Ibid., p. 163.
“It seems to me that I had done enough”: Ibid., p. 155.
“I, Zuane Mocenigo”: Venice, Archivio di Stato, Sant’Uffizio 69, Case 19, May 23, 1592, 1r–3r; Firpo, Il processo, pp. 143–45.
“On that day, when I kept Iordano Bruno”: Il processo, p. 145.
New Prisons: The Dominican convent of San Domenico a Castello, which contained the inquisitorial prison, was demolished by Napoleon, along with forty-seven other parish churches.
“I was born and brought up among heretics”: Deposition of Marcantonio Pestalozzi, Venice, Archivio di Stato, Sant’Uffizio 68, Case 59, July 11, 1591.
“In this book I have found the following”: Deposition of the Reverend Father Sebastiano Taiapetra, professor of Hebrew, Venice, Archivio di Stato, Sant’Uffizio 69, Case 25, June 9, 1592.
“Traitor! Take that”: Firpo, Il processo, pp. 282–83.
Fra Celestino Arrigoni: Firpo, Il processo, pp. 42–49.
Giovanni Battista Ciotti: Ciotti would also publish the third edition of Christoph Clavius’s commentary on Euclid (with a false Cologne imprint), Euclidis Elementorum libri XV.
“I know this Giordano Bruni”: Firpo, Il processo, pp. 149, 151.
“Said Giordano … in Frankfurt”: Ibid., pp. 152–53.
“Matteo Silvestri”: Ibid., pp. 263–64.
“When the prisoners who were friars”: Ibid., p. 281.
“He replied”: Ibid., pp. 198–99.
25: THE WITNESS
“Ut essent duo testes”: “So that there would be two witnesses.”
Lepanto lay nearly a generation in the past: Ricci, Giordano Bruno, pp. 480–88.
On February 20, 1593: Firpo, Il processo, p. 40.
A later report criticizes those cells: Ibid. Visits to the cells are recorded in ibid., pp. 217–346.
Bruno was issued a warm mantle: Ibid., p. 217.
Fra Celestino … wrote a letter to the Roman Inquisition: Ibid., pp. 42–47.
“He [Fra Celestino] says that he deposes”: Ibid., pp. 47–48.
“he gave the finger”: The usual Italian gesture, the fica (vulva), is made by inserting the thumb between index and middle finger. In this case, the inquisitors literally call the act digitum ostendere, “showing the finger,” a gesture that was already known in ancient Rome; see Suetonius, Life of Augustus, 45.4.
“When Giordano was discussing”: Firpo, Il processo, p. 263.
no idea what he had written, nor how much: Canone, “L’editto di proibizione,” p. 57.
in possession of their souls: See Onians, Origins of European Thought.
26: THE ADVERSARY
Cardinal Santori: Ricci, “Giovinezza di un inquisitore.”
Robert Bellarmine: Godman, Saint as Censor; Galeota, Roberto Bellarmino arcivescovo di Capua; Baldini, Legem impone subactis, pp. 285–346.
Those first Jesuits: O’Malley, First Jesuits.
great personal modesty: The shrewd seventeenth-century cardinal Decio Azzolini would say that Bellarmine’s autobiography “has many signs of vanity”—“hà molta apparenza di vanità.” See Godman, Saint as Censor, p. 50 n. 8, where he cites Voto del Cardinale Decio Azzolini … nella Causa Romana di beatificazione e canonizzazione del Roberto Cardinale Bellarmino (Rome, 1749), pp. 54, 65.
“The censor is wrong to say”: The text is quoted in Godman, Saint as Censor, p. 301.
Bellarmine’s liquid space: A concise summary of Bellarmine’s cosmological views is provided in Blackwell, Galileo, Bellarmine, and the Bible, pp. 40–45.
the first Jesuit inquisitor: The prohibition on Jesuits joining the Inquisition was lifted in 1587, in order to appoint Bellarmine; see Godman, Saint as Censor, p. 74.
Giovanni Marsilio’s Defense: Difesa di Giovanni Marsilio, 3r–4r ff.: “Dell’Arti usate dal Signor Cardinale.”
“He was asked if he had ever argued”: Firpo, Il processo, p. 175.
2 (Summary heading 3). “About Christ”: Ibid., p. 259.
3 (Summary heading 2). “About the Trinity, divinity, and incarnation”: Ibid., p. 253.
4 (Summary heading 7). “That there are multiple worlds”: Ibid., p. 267.
5 (Summary heading 22). “About the souls of men and beasts”: Ibid., p. 283.
6 (Summary heading 1). “That Brother Giordano has bad feelings”: Ibid., p. 247.
7 (Summary heading 24). “That sins are not to be punished”: Ibid., p. 287.
8 (Summary heading 23). “About the art of divination”: Ibid., p. 286.
“You replied that if the Holy See”: Ibid., pp. 340–41.
the final insult: Muir, Mad Blood Stirring, p. 257.
27: GETHSEMANE
“Giovanni Mocenigo, accuser”: Firpo, Il processo, p. 259.
“Francesco Graziani, cellmate in Venice”: Ibid., p. 263.
“Matteo Silvestri, cellmate”: Ibid.
Corn Market: Foxe, Acts and Monuments, bk. 11, p. 1770. Hugh Latimer’s famous remark to Nicholas Ridley at the stake does not appear in the first edition (1563) of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, but only from 1570 onward; hence, like Galileo’s “Eppur si muove,” it may be apocryphal.
28: HELL’S PURGATORY
discussed … torture: Firpo, Il processo, pp. 78–79.
“[Eight] propositions”: Ibid., pp. 82–104.
“Francesco Graziano, fellow prisoner in Venice”: Firpo, Il processo, p. 266.
29: THE SENTENCE
“Jesus said”: Matthew 18:20.
“We proclaim in these documents”: The text of Bruno’s sentence is printed in Firpo, Il processo, pp. 339–44.
the noble Cenci family: Brigante Colonna and Chiorandi, Il processo Cenci.
30: THE FIELD OF FLOWERS
“Thursday morning”: Avvisi di Roma, 110r–v; Firpo, Il processo, p. 356.
“Hence as I make my journey”: Bruno, On the Immense and the Numberless, 1.19–24:
Quapropter dum tutus iter sic carpo, beata
Conditione satis studio sublimis avito
Reddor Dux, Lex, Lux, Vates, Pater, Author, Iterque:
Adque alios mundo ex isto dum adsurgo nitentes,
Aethereum campumque ex omni parte pererro,
Attonitis mirum et distans post terga relinquo.
EPILOGUE: THE FOUR RIVERS
“In the first place”: Kepler, Dissertatio cum nuncio sidereo, 9v.
“For the glory of this world’s Architect”: Ibid., 10r.
“Perhaps [my adversary]”: Galilei, Il saggiatore, p. 24.
the idea that mathematics underpinned philosophy: Leonardo da Vinci, Note sulla pittura, 1r. See also Napolitano Valditara, Le idee, i numeri, l’ordine.
Bibliography
Please note that some of the links referenced in this work are no longer active.
Any biographer of Bruno is indebted to two excellent, extensive Italian biographies: Vincenzo Spampanato, Vita di Giordano Bruno, with an afterword by Nuccio Ordine (Messina: Giuseppe Principato, 1922; Rome: Gela Editrice, 1988), and Saverio Ricci, Giordano Bruno nell’Europa del Cinquecento (Rome: Salerno, 2000).
Shorter biographies, also excellent, exist in Italian by Michele Ciliberto, Giordano Bruno (Rome: Laterza, 1990; 2nd ed. 1992), and Giovanni Aquilecchia, Giordano Bruno (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1971), and in German by Paul Richard Blum, Giordano Bruno (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1999).
The surviving records of Bruno’s trial were edited in 1941 by Angelo Mercati, archivist of the Archivio Segreto Vaticano, with a fierce apologetic agenda, Il sommario del processo di Giordano Bruno, Studi e Testi 101 (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana), and in 1993 by Luigi Firpo, with welcome objectivity, Il processo di Giordano Bruno (Rome: Salerno Editrice), republished and annotated with French translation as Giordano Bruno, Documents I, Le Procès, introduction and text by Luigi Firpo, translation and notes by A.-Ph. Segards, Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2000.
The specialized literature on Bruno has grown exponentially in the past thirty years, with its own journal, Bruniana & Campanelliana, edited in Rome by Eugenio Canone and Germana Ernst, which provides an annual list of recent publications (“Schede”) on Bruno. The references compiled below emphasize, where possible, general sources in English.
Many English-speaking readers have first been introduced to Bruno by the work of the late Frances Yates, still marvelous to read. The most cogent disagreement with Yates’s point of view is that presented by Hilary Gatti, Giordano Bruno and Renaissance Science (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1999).
Bruno’s influence on nineteenth-century Italy is traced by Anna Foa, Giordano Bruno (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1998); Eugenio Canone, ed., Brunus redivivus: Momenti della fortuna di Giordano Bruno nel XIX secolo (Pisa: Edizioni dell’Ateneo, 1998); and Lars Berggren, “The Visual Image of Giordano Bruno,” in Hilary Gatti, ed., Giordano Bruno, Philosopher of the Renaissance (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), pp. 16–49.
TRANSLATIONS OF BRUNO’S WORKS INTO ENGLISH
The Ash Wednesday Supper. Translated by Edward Gosselin and Lawrence Lerner. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995.
The Ash Wednesday Supper. Translated by Stanley Jaki. The Hague: Mouton, 1975.
Giordano Bruno Page 33