Giordano Bruno

Giordano Bruno . Italian philosopher who fought scholastic philosophy and the Roman Catholic Church ; passionate propagandist of the materialist conception of the world, understood as pantheism. After eight years in prison he was burned by the Inquisition in Rome . ^[1]

Summary

[ disguise ]

• 1 Biographical summary
  • 1 Youth
  • 2 Ecclesiastical life
  • 3 Work
  • 4 Death
• 2 References
• 3 Sources

Biographical summary

He was born in Nola, near Naples , in the year 1548 , into a family of modest conditions. His father, Giovanni, was a military man by profession and his mother, Fraulissa Savolino, belonged to a family of small landowners. He was given the name Filippo. He carried out his first studies in his hometown, which he loved and often remembered later in his works,

Youth

In 1562 he moved to Naples where he pursued higher education and took private and public classes in dialectics , logic and mnemonics at the university.

ecclesiastical life

In June 1565 he decided to embark on an ecclesiastical career and entered, under the name of Giordano, the Dominican order of preachers in the convent of S. Domenico Maggiore. It is noted that the age of 17 was considered quite high, in the context, for decisions of this type. In the convent the contrast between his restless personality, endowed with lively intelligence and desire to know, and the need to submit to the rigorous rules of a religious order began to manifest itself: a year later he was already accused of despising the cult of Mary and de los Santos and risked disciplinary action.

In the year 1576 , the inquisition had long been giving clamorous examples of rigor and efficiency, which is why Bruno, fearing the seriousness of the accusations, fled Naples, abandoning the ecclesiastical habit.

Construction site

In 1581 in Paris he dictated, as an “extraordinary reader” (the “ordinaries” had to attend mass, which was prohibited for him as an apostate and excommunicated) a course in thirty lessons on the divine attributes in Thomas Aquinas . The news of the success of the course reached King Henry III , to whom Bruno immediately dedicated ( 1582 ), the “De umbris idearum” with the annex “Ars memoriae” obtaining his appointment as “extraordinary and paid reader.”

Belonging to the group of “lecteurs royaux” also allowed him a certain autonomy with respect to the Sorbonne, of which Michel de Castelnau did not stop criticizing Aristotelian conformity. This is a period of great fruitfulness in Bruno’s philosophical and literary production, who publishes in short succession the “Cantus circaeus”, the “De compendiosa architectura et complement artis Lullii” and “Il Candelaio”.

With the king’s favor he became a “gentilomo” (but soon dear friend) of the French ambassador to England Michel de Castelnau, who arrived in London in April 1583 , and thanks to whom he frequented Elisabeth’s court. He continued here publishing important works: “Ars reminiscendi”, “Explicatio triginta sigillorum” and “Sigillus sigillorum” in a single volume and then the “Cena delle ceneri”, “De la causa, principle et uno”, “De infinito, Universo et mondi ” and “Spaccio della bestia trionfante”. The following year, always in London, he gave to the printing press “La caballa del cavallo pegaseo” and “Degli eroici furori”. This last work, like the “Spaccio” is dedicated to Sir Philip Sidney, nephew of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.Some of these texts reflect the controversies with the University of Oxford and with a part of the English aristocracy.

In contact with the famous Oxonian university, driven by the impetuosity of his character, during a debate he tactlessly put an esteemed professor in difficulties: John Underhill, and thus Philip Sidney became unfriendly to a portion of his colleagues who did not let him. to immediately express their animosity. He indeed obtained, after a few months, the commission to give a series of lectures in Latin on cosmology , in which he defended among others the theories of Nicholas Copernicus on the movement of the Earth .

Death

On January 20 , 1600 , Clement VIII , considering the accusations already proven and rejecting the request for further torture presented by the cardinals, ordered that the accused, “unrepentant, pertinacious, obstinate heretic,” be handed over to the secular arm. That meant, despite the presence in the sentence of the usual hypocritical formula that invoked the Governor’s clemency, death at the stake.

On February 8, the sentence was read in the house of Cardinal Madruzzo and it was then that Bruno turned to the judges and pronounced the famous phrase:

“Perhaps you who issue this sentence are more afraid than I who receive it.”

On February 17, 1600 , he was taken to Campo del Fiori with a gag that prevented him from speaking and there, naked and tied to a stick, he was burned alive.