Part 7 (1/2)

When the Roman Catholic authorities awoke to the dangers of the new teaching, they struck with force. The first to suffer was the famous monk-philosopher, Giordano Bruno, whose trial by the Holy Office was premonitory of trouble to come for Galileo.[205]

[Footnote 205: Berti: 285.]

After an elementary education at Naples near his birth-place, Nola,[206] Filippo Bruno[207] entered the Dominican monastery in 1562 or 1563 when about fourteen years old, a.s.suming the name Giordano at that time. Before 1572, when he entered the priesthood, he had fully accepted the Copernican theory which later became the basis of all his philosophical thought. Bruno soon showed he was not made for the monastic life. Various processes were started against him, and fleeing to Rome he abandoned his monk's garments and entered upon the sixteen years of wandering over Europe, a peripatetic teacher of the philosophy of an infinite universe as deduced from the Copernican doctrine and thus in a way its herald.[208] He reached Geneva in 1579 (where he did not accept Calvinism as was formerly thought),[209] but decided before many months had pa.s.sed that it was wise to depart elsewhere because of the unpleasant position in which he found himself there. He had been brought before the Council for printing invectives against one of the professors, pointing out some twenty of his errors. The Council sent him to the Consistory, the governing body of the church, where a formal sentence of excommunication was pa.s.sed against him. When he apologized it was withdrawn. Probably a certain stigma remained, and he left Geneva soon thereafter with a warm dislike for Calvinism. After lecturing at the University of Toulouse he appeared in Paris in 1581, where he held an extraordinary readers.h.i.+p. Two years later he was in England, for he lectured at Oxford during the spring months and defended the Copernican theory before the Polish prince Alasco during the latter's visit there in June.[210]

[Footnote 206: McIntyre: 3-15.]

[Footnote 207: Four lives of Bruno have been written within the last seventy-five years. The first is _Jordano Bruno_ by Christian Bartholmess (2 vol., Paris 1846). The next, _Vita di Giordano Bruno da Nola_ by Domenico Berti (1868, Turin), quotes in full the official doc.u.ments of his trial. Frith's _Life of Giordano Bruno_ (London, 1887), has been rendered out of date by J.L. McIntyre's _Giordano Bruno_ (London, 1903), which includes a critical bibliography. In addition, W.R. Thayer's _Throne Makers_ (New York, 1899), gives translations of Bruno's confessions to the Venetian Inquisition.

Bruno's Latin works (_Opera Latina Conscripta_), have been republished by Fiorentino (3 vol., Naples, 1879), and the _Opere Italiane_ by Gentile (3 vol., Naples, 1907).]

[Footnote 208: Bartholmess: I, 134.]

[Footnote 209: Libri: IV, 144.]

[Footnote 210: McIntyre: 16-40.]

To Bruno belongs the glory of the first public proclamation in England of the new doctrine,[211] though only Gilbert[212] and possibly Wright seem to have accepted it at the time. Upon Bruno's return to London, he entered the home of the French amba.s.sador as a kind of secretary, and there spent the happiest years of his life till the amba.s.sador's recall in October, 1585. It was during this period that he wrote some of his most famous books. In _La Cena de la Ceneri_ he defended the Copernican theory, incidentally criticising the Oxford dons most severely,[213] for which he apologized in _De la Causa, Principio et Uno_. He developed his philosophy of an infinite universe in _De l'Infinito e Mondi_, and in the _s.p.a.ccio de la Bestia Trionphante_ ”attacked all religions of mere credulity as opposed to religions of truth and deeds.”[214] This last book was at once thought to be a biting attack upon the Roman Church and later became one of the grounds of the Inquisition's charges against him. During this time in London also, he came to know Sir Philip Sydney intimately, and Fulk Greville as well as others of that brilliant period. He may have known Bacon;[215] but it is highly improbable that he and Shakespeare met,[216] or that Shakespeare ever was influenced by the other's philosophy.[217]

[Footnote 211: Bartholmess: I, 134.]

[Footnote 212: Gilbert: _De Magnete_ (London, 1600).]

[Footnote 213: Berti: 369, Doc. XIII.]

[Footnote 214: McIntyre: 16-40.]

[Footnote 215: Bartholmess: I, 134.]

[Footnote 216: Beyersdorf: _Giordano Bruno und Shakespear_, 8-36.]

[Footnote 217: Such pa.s.sages as _Troilus and Cressida_: Act I, sc. 3; _King John_, Act III, sc. 1; and _Merry Wives_, Act III, sc. 2, indicate that Shakespeare accepted fully the Ptolemaic conception of a central, immovable earth. See also Beyersdorf: _op. cit._]

Leaving Paris soon after his return thither, Bruno wandered into southern Germany. At Marburg he was not permitted to teach, but at Wittenberg the Lutherans cordially welcomed him into the university.

After a stay of a year and a half, he moved on to Prague for a few months, then to Helmstadt, Frankfort and Zurich, and back to Frankfort again where, in 1591, he received an invitation from a young Venetian patrician, Moecenigo, to come to Venice as his tutor. He re-entered Italy, therefore, in August, much to the amazement of his contemporaries. It is probable that Moecenigo was acting for the Inquisition.[218] At any rate, he soon denounced Bruno to that body and in May, 1592, surrendered him to it.[219]

[Footnote 218: McIntyre: 68.]

[Footnote 219: Ibid: 47-72.]

In his trial before the Venetian Inquisition,[220] Bruno told the story of his life and stated his beliefs in answer to the charges against him, based mainly on travesties of his opinions. In this statement as well as in _La Cena de le Ceneri_, and in _De Immenso et Innumerabilis_,[221] Bruno shows how completely he had not merely accepted the Copernican doctrine, but had expanded it far beyond its author's conception. The universe according to Copernicus, though vastly greater than that conceived by Aristotle and Ptolemy, was still finite because enclosed within the sphere of the fixed stars. Bruno declared that not only was the earth only a lesser planet, but ”this world itself was merely one of an infinite number of particular worlds similar to this, and that all the planets and other stars are infinite worlds without number composing an infinite universe, so that there is a double infinitude, that of the greatness of the universe, and that of the mult.i.tude of worlds.”[222] How important this would be to the Church authorities may be realized by recalling the patristic doctrine that the universe was created for man and that his home is its center.

Of course their cherished belief must be defended from such an attack, and naturally enough, the Copernican doctrine as the starting point of Bruno's theory of an infinite universe was thus brought into question;[223] for, as M. Berti has said,[224] Bruno's doctrine was equally an astro-theology or a theological astronomy.

[Footnote 220: See official doc.u.ments in Berti: 327-395.]

[Footnote 221: Bruno: _De Immenso et Innumerabilis_: Lib. III, cap. 9 (vol. 1, pt. 1, 380-386).]

[Footnote 222: Thayer: 268.]

[Footnote 223: Berti: 285.]