Giordano Bruno

Giordano Bruno, born Filippo Bruno (Nola, January or February 1548 - Rome, February 17, 1600), was an astronomer, philosopher, theologian, Italian mathematician and poet.

His cosmological theories surpassed the Copernican model, for he proposed that the Sun was simply a star and that the universe must contain an infinite number of worlds inhabited by animals and intelligent beings. Member of the Dominican Order, he proposed in the theological field a particular form of pantheism, which differed considerably from the cosmological vision held by the different Christian denominations.

In addition to these arguments, his theological statements were also one of the reasons for his conviction, which led him to be executed by the civil authorities of Rome after the Roman Inquisition found him guilty of heresy, which is why he was burned alive at the stake. After his death, his name gained considerable fame, particularly in the 19th century and early XX .

Biography

Childhood and youth

He was born at the beginning of 1548 in Nola, about twenty kilometers from Naples, then under Spanish rule. His parents were Giovanni Bruno, a man-at-arms in the Spanish army, and Fraulissa Savolino. He was baptized with the name of Filippo.

He began studying in Nola, but in 1562 he moved to Naples, where he received lessons from Giovanni Vincenzo de Colle at the Studium Generale and from Téofilo da Vairano at the city's Augustinian monastery. In June 1565 he entered the Dominican Order, in the monastery of Santo Domingo Mayor in Naples, where he dedicated himself to the study of Aristotelian philosophy and the theology of Saint Thomas (Thomism). That same year he changed his first name to Giordano.

In 1571 he appeared before Pope Pius V to expose his mnemonic system, dedicating his work On Noah's Ark to the pope. In 1572 he was ordained a priest and in 1575 he received the title of Doctor of Theology.

His problems began during his indoctrination. He was prosecuted for refusing to have images of saints in his cell and accepting only the crucifix. Later a new process was opened against him for recommending to another novice that he leave a book on the life of the Virgin and dedicate himself to reading other more important works. He too was accused of defending the Arian heresy. In March 1576 he fled the convent, without waiting for the cause to end.

Wandering Life

He moved to Rome, where he stayed in the convent of Santa Maria sobre Minerva. His views caused a scandal, and 130 articles of indictment were brought against him. Fearing the Inquisition, at the age of twenty-eight he left the "narrow and black prison of the convent" and fled Rome in 1576, beginning a wandering and adventurous life. Since then he was able to say, with reason, that "the whole earth is a homeland for a philosopher."

He traveled around northern Italy: Genoa, Savona, Turin, Venice, Padua, teaching children grammar and cosmogony for a living. At the same time, he intensely studied the works of Nicholas of Cusa, Bernardino Telesio and adopted the system of Nicolaus Copernicus, which earned him combat by both Catholics and Protestants. He expressed his scientific ideas about the plurality of worlds and solar systems, heliocentrism, the infinity of space and the universe, and the movement of the stars in writings and lectures.

He later moved to other regions: Bergamo, Milan. He then went to France, staying during the winter of 1578 in the Dominican convent at Chambéry. He was advised against traveling to Lyon due to the intensification of religious conflicts in that area, so he went to Geneva where he was received in 1579 by the Marquis de Vico, a Calvinist of Neapolitan origin to whom he expressed his desire to "live in freedom". There he definitively abandoned religious habits and enrolled in the University of Geneva. Shortly thereafter he publishes an attack on Antoine de La Faye, a famous Calvinist professor, in which he exposes twenty errors made by the professor in one of his lectures. For that reason he was arrested and leaves Geneva as soon as he can.

He returned to France where, after spending a fruitless month in Lyon, he received a doctorate in theology from the University of Toulouse and taught for two years (1580-1581) in that city. He wrote the Clavis magna (Lulista) and explained the treatise De Anima , by Aristotle. After several setbacks due to the religious war, he was accepted by Henry III —who was fascinated by Bruno's prodigious memory— as a professor at the University of Paris in 1581. At that stage of his life he published his works: The Shadows of Ideas (a treatise on artificial memory dedicated to the French monarch, and where he expresses for the first time his adherence to Copernican cosmology), Circe's song and comedy in Italian Candelaio (Candlestick).

In 1583 he traveled to England, after being appointed secretary to the French ambassador Michel de Castelnau. There he became a regular at the meetings of the poet Philip Sidney. He taught at Oxford University the new Copernican cosmology, attacking traditional ideas. After several discussions, he left Oxford. His most important writings are The Supper of Ashes , Of the Infinite Universe and the Worlds , and On the Cause, the Beginning, and the One (written in 1584). In 1585 he wrote The Heroic Furies, where, in a Platonic dialogue style, he describes the path to God through wisdom.

That same year he returned to Paris with the ambassador, before going to Marburg, where he gave the works written in London to the press. In Marburg he challenged the followers of Aristotelianism to a public debate at Cambrai College, where he was ridiculed, physically attacked, and expelled from the country.

For the next five years he lived in various Protestant countries, where he wrote many works in Latin on cosmology, physics, magic, and the art of memory (he was one of the great representatives of the Hermetic tradition). He went on to prove, albeit by fallacious methods, that the Sun is bigger than the Earth. In 1586 he expounded his ideas at the Sorbonne and at the College of Cambrai, and taught philosophy at the University of Wittenberg. In 1588 he traveled to Prague, where he wrote articles dedicated to the Spanish ambassador, Guillem de Santcliment, and Emperor Rudolf II.

He went on to serve briefly as a professor of mathematics at Helmstedt University, but had to flee again when he was excommunicated by Lutherans. Still in Helmstedt he was able to culminate his poems De triplici minimo et mensura , De monade, numero et figura , and De immenso, innumerabilibus et infigurabilibus . In 1590 he went to the convent of the Carmelites in Frankfurt, the city in which he gained the fame of "universal man" and where he printed the aforementioned Latin poems, and Zurich.

At the behest of Giovanni Mocenigo, a Venetian nobleman, he returned to Italy. Mocenigo became his protector, to give a private lecture, fixing his residence in Venice.

Prosecution and conviction

The process of Giordano Bruno in charge of the Roman Inquisition. Ettore Ferrari bronze fold (1845-1929), Campo de' Fiori, Rome.

On May 21, 1592, Mocenigo, "not satisfied with the teaching and bothered by the heretical speeches of his guest", denounced him to the Inquisition. The Venetian Inquisition imprisons him on May 23, 1592 and he is claimed through Rome on September 12. On January 27, 1593, the confinement of Giordano Bruno was ordered in the Palace of the Holy Office, in the Vatican. He was in prison for eight years while the trial was arranged - under the court of Venice -, in which charges of blasphemy, heresy and immorality were adjudicated; as well as for his teachings on the multiple solar systems and on the infinity of the universe. During the Napoleonic occupation, most of the pages of that trial were lost.

The process was directed by Cardinal Roberto Belarmino, canonized in 1930 by the Catholic Church, and who years later, in 1616, would lead the similar process against Galileo Galilei. Giovanni Mocenigo was accused of heresy when it was discovered that he tried to dominate the minds of others, something that Bruno refused to teach him. He was never arrested nor was there a trial against him.

In 1599 the charges against Bruno were exposed, compiled by Belarmino himself and the Dominican Alberto Tragagliolo (general commissioner of the Holy Office). Multiple retraction offers were dismissed. Finally, without knowing the reason, Giordano Bruno decided to reaffirm his ideas and, on January 20, 1600, Pope Clement VIII ordered that he be brought before the secular authorities. Bruno's final written arguments, addressed to the pontiff, "were opened but not read".

Luigi Firpo lists these charges that were leveled against Bruno by the Inquisition:

• Have opinions against the Catholic faith and speak against it and its ministers.
• Have opinions contrary to the Catholic faith on the Trinity, the divinity of Christ and the incarnation.
• Have opinions contrary to the Catholic faith in relation to Jesus as Christ.
• Have opinions contrary to the Catholic faith in relation to the virginity of Mary, the mother of Jesus.
• Have opinions contrary to the Catholic faith in relation to transubstantiation and mass.
• To say that there are multiple worlds.
• Have favorable views of the transmigration of the spirit in other human beings after death.
• Witchcraft.

The Inquisition initially accused him for his anti-dogmatic ideas, which had already cost him the Dominican habit. As an anti-trinitarian, he rejected the virginity of Mary and transubstantiation. His musings on questions of cosmology and his attraction to magic gradually gave rise to an impressive list of accusations. In the end, they challenged the whole of his thought. In February 1593, Bruno was imprisoned in the prisons of the Holy Office. The trial lasted for another two years, before the decision was made to carry out an in-depth study of his works, which were censored and later burned in Saint Peter's Square. From his cell, Bruno finished writing a statement in his defense, and presented his final plea on December 20, 1594, before the Holy Office. The trial was interrupted for six months, during which time Bruno continued to actively defend his theory of infinite worlds, sometimes stating that he was ready to recant, and other times stating that he was faithful to his ideas. Therefore, Cardinal Bellarmine drew up a list of the theories considered heretical, over which Bruno again wavered before categorically refusing to renounce them.

The eight propositions that the philosopher refused to renounce were the following:

1. The declaration of "two real and eternal principles of existence: the soul of the world and the original matter of which beings are derived".
2. The doctrine of the infinite universe and the infinite worlds in conflict with the idea of Creation: "He who denies the infinite effect denies infinite power."
3. The idea that all reality, including the body, resides in the eternal and infinite soul of the world: "There is no reality that is not accompanied by a spirit and intelligence."
4. The argument that “there is no transformation into the substance”, since the substance is eternal and generates nothing, but it is transformed.
5. The idea of the earth's movement, which, according to Bruno, did not oppose the Holy Scriptures, which were popularized for the faithful and did not apply to scientists.
6. The designation of stars as "messagers and interpreters of the ways of God."
7. The assignment of a soul "both sensory and intellectual" to Earth.
8. Opposition to the doctrine of St. Thomas on the soul: spiritual reality remains captivated in the body and is not considered as the form of the human body.

Pope Clement VIII doubted the sentence imposed before handing it down because he did not want to make Bruno a martyr. On February 8, the sentence was read in which he was declared a heretic, unrepentant, stubborn and obstinate. The phrase that he addressed to his judges is famous:

Maiori forsan cum timore sententiam in me fertis quam ego accipiam

You tremble more when you announce this sentence than I receive it

He was excommunicated and his works burned in the public square.

Execution

Statue of Giordano Bruno, by Ettore Ferrari, Campo de' Fiori, Rome.

The usual thing was to execute the accused of heresy (provided he recanted at the last moment) and then burn the body. In the case of Giordano Bruno, after almost eight years of captivity, he was burned alive on February 17, 1600 in the Campo de & # 39; Fiore, Rome.

During the entire process he was accompanied by Catholic monks. According to eyewitnesses, the Nolano was "stripped of his clothes, stripped naked and tied to a pole"; In addition, his tongue was "clamped in a wooden vise so that he could not speak". Before being burned at the stake, one of them offered him a crucifix to kiss, but Bruno refused and he said he would die a martyr and his soul would go up with fire to paradise^{[citation needed]}.

Almost three centuries after his death, on June 9, 1889, a statue was erected by international subscription at the place of his death, exalting his figure as a martyr for freedom of thought and new ideals.

According to the Stanford University Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "in 1600 there was no official position of the Catholic Church on the Copernican system, and it was certainly not a heresy (although their reasoning was opposed). to the Ptolemaic system that prevailed among the Catholic hierarchy). When Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake as a heretic, he had nothing to do (in an official sense, though he did have to do in a 'religious principle' sense) with his writings in support of Copernican cosmology. ».^{[citation needed]} Among his theological assertions that were considered heretical were the following: that Christ was not God, but merely an exceptionally skilled magician; that the devil will be saved; and others.^{[citation required]}

According to Isaac Asimov, his death had a deterrent effect on the scientific advancement of civilization, particularly in Catholic nations; but despite this, his scientific observations continued to influence other thinkers, and he is considered one of the forerunners of the Scientific Revolution.

The historian of science Alexandre Koyré considers that the "audacity" of Brunian thought "caused a transformation — a veritable revolution — in the traditional image of the world and of physical reality", having proposed a vision of the universe close to the later developed by Newton. In short, it was his ideas that alerted the Church about the danger that the new astronomy could pose for religion, precipitating the subsequent condemnations of Copernicus (1616) and Galileo (1633).

Thought

Cosmology

Bruno believed that the Earth revolves around the Sun and that the apparent diurnal rotation of the heavens is an illusion caused by the Earth's rotation around its axis. Bruno also argued that because God is infinite, the universe could reflect this fact.

[...] the universe is one, infinite, immobile... He is not capable of understanding and therefore is endless and boundless and to that infinite and undeterminable degree and therefore immobile.

Theophile in Of the cause, principle, and oneGiordano Bruno.

Orion's constellation.

Bruno also claimed that the stars in the sky were other suns like our own, orbited by other planets. He indicated that supporting those beliefs in no way contradicted the Scriptures or true religion.

Bruno also claimed that the universe was homogeneous, made up of the four elements (water, earth, fire, and air), rather than the stars having a separate quintessence. In essence —although the use of this term is anachronistic— the same “physical laws” would be operating everywhere. Space and time were both infinite. There was no place in his stable and permanent universe for Christian notions of creation and final judgment.

Bruno's cosmology is marked by infinity, homogeneity and isotropy, with planetary systems with life distributed evenly throughout the universe.

Physics

Famous is the evidence given by Giordano Bruno for the relativity of motion. Bruno shows that the Earth is not static. If a stone falls from the top of the mast of a moving ship, it will still fall to the bottom of the mast, regardless of the ship's motion; demonstrating that one cannot consider the movement of a body in absolute terms, only with a reference system.

All things on Earth move with Earth. A stone thrown from the top of the mast will return to the end somehow, even if the ship is moving.

The ash dinner (1584)

Bruno also defended atomism, recovering the materialistic concepts of Antiquity. This is exposed in several of his works, especially in De triplici minimo et mensura, where he maintains that all physical compounds mutate and return to the minima or atoms, from which in turn arise new bodies that they reconfigure the universe over and over again (known as "vicissitudinal alternation", in Brunian language), pointing to arithmetic, geometry and physics as the three basic branches of knowledge.

Magic

In common use, magic is understood as mastery over physical, spiritual or divine forces; however, the study of magic in Bruno is shown as the ability to perceive or recognize the set of binding relationships that are they arouse within the realm of the fantastic. This is: magical practice is based on his theory of bonds. For this reason, the "magician" must pay close attention to the work of the imagination. Imagination is the gateway to all the emotions that can move a living being.

Basically three factors are required to achieve linkage:

• active power in the agent;
• passive power in the subject or patient (this is a disposition or aptitude of non-resistance);
• and the appropriate application to the circumstances of time and place.

The links are not eternal, because they occur in the world, at the same time that not everything can link all things —and, if it does, it does not occur in the same way. There are three ways to link:

• vision, through forms, gestures, movements and appropriate figures;
• by voice and speech;
• and mind or imagination.

The links are established through the senses. The "entry" happens, which is when they are perceived; the "attachment", which is when a sense of the things that entered through the senses begins to form; then the "link" happens; and, finally, the "attraction."

The magician or manipulator must be aware at all times that, in order to attract one or more individuals, he must consider the full range of interests of the subjects to bewitch. For this reason, for the magical technique it is required to have a more than partial knowledge of the subject and his desires, because without having it, no link can be given.

His magical-fantastic proposal responds to the three levels of reality that he points out in his ontology: the divine world and the material world are connected through fantasy, so that fantasy is the intermediary in the process that goes from sensitivity to cognition.

Sensitivity is a multivocal and dynamic process of associations in the rise and fall of perceptible data. Bruno's metaphysical conception is related to the ideas of Pico della Mirandola, who considered man as having an intermediate position between the superior (divine) parts and the inferior (material) parts. In the same way, Bruno extends the theories elaborated by Marsilio Ficino, who, like Saint Augustine, distinguished three kingdoms: the material, the divine and the spiritual. So who links soul and body is the spirit. It is in the spirit where the rise and fall of ideas and perceptions occurs; This is where the sensitivity of the subject is formed: the soul has contact with material things thanks to the reflection of them (in images) within the spirit, while the body accesses the luminous contact of intelligence through its reflection in the spirit as fantasies. In the same way, Bruno, like Ficino, considers that the spirit is not proper to men, but is a reality of its own, a world in itself; Thus, we can speak of a world of spirits.

In Ficino's Platonic theology a subtle distinction can be observed between the concept of «imagination» and that of «fantasy», the former being the one that shapes what we perceive, while the latter issues a judgment regarding what already elaborated by the imagination. Fantasy, insofar as it makes judgments, must also be distinguished from intellect. The first deals with the particular —that is, it translates universals into particulars—, while the intellect conceives universals —for which reason it has autonomy over fantasy—; but both operate simultaneously. The magician's ability to influence and attract lies in recognizing the link that unites all things: from corporeal language (which provides a complete image of something) that, via sense, sends perceptions through the channel of mediators (imagination and fantasy) to, in such a way, rise to the intellect.

Bruno warns that the particular characteristics of our judgments are not aesthetic or ethical in themselves, given that, since fantasy is the intermediary function of the spirit, it itself establishes a meaning by linking. Thus, the judgment that discerns is always fantastic: in each representation we have a halo of fantasy.

The fantastic contribution is not a rational judgment; It responds rather to sensitivity, this being the axis that accommodates all internal and external perception. The realm of fantasy is the crossroads where everything makes sense; It is the place of the human soul, in such a way that the soul is formed through the links and is constituted from the multivocal relations with which it associates things, archetypes and spirits.

The technique of magic consists in discovering the mystery of the spell, taking advantage of the continuity of the individual pneuma and the universal pneuma. Love is a magician for Excellency, since it puts at your disposal all the means of persuasion to seize certain objects; its purpose is to bind. The magician can exert his influence on objects, individuals, societies, as well as can invoke the presence of those invisible beings, demons and heroes. But, for all to act and master manipulation, he must accumulate the knowledge of the networks that are intertwined to reach the object of his desire. This operation is the link. In this way, magic as a technique serves as an instrument of individual or mass manipulation; knowledge of the appropriate links allows the magician to dispose of all of nature; that is why, in the past, magician and sage were identified. In the same way, recognizing the linking networks allows self-control, so we can consider the use of magic as an essential condition for human action insofar as it allows a free and non-reactive manifestation of the perceptions that bind us. Thus, the more knowledge the manipulator has about those or what he wants to link, the greater his chances of success, since he will know how to choose the circumstances and the propitious moment to create the binding link.

The true operator must be able to order, correct and dispose of the fantasy, compose his species according to his will.

Culianu, Eros and Magic in the Renaissance (1999, p. 135)

The magical action in turn uses a great instrument of manipulation: eros. As Ficino had already stated, everything can be defined in relation to love, since all affects are reduced to one, two or three: love and/or hate, and/or fear, desire and/or disgust. The external is imprinted on the imagination through the senses, loaded with affects that attract or repel each other. It is by sympathy and antipathy that we are moved towards something, without forgetting that everything that appears to us externally is not totally arbitrary but responds to the universal language, or what the Platonists would call the "soul of the world". The technique of all magical operations resides in the appropriation of fantasy. The power of the imaginary is exploited just when she intervenes because she has the ability to color the soul according to the meaning that she herself creates. Another important component when putting the magician's technique into practice is faith, because without it nothing can be done; This is how Bruno mentions it in his thesis on magic.

The magician or manipulator is distinguished from ordinary mortals insofar as the latter are subjected to endless affections or fantasies; For this reason, Bruno constantly warns to try not to transform from operator to instrument of ghosts. However, there are fantasies caused by a voluntary action of the subject, like that of artists or poets; and there are other fantasies whose origin is elsewhere, which may have been provoked by demons or induced by a human will. Of these precisely, Bruno warns, you have to be careful. Hence the importance of the art of manipulation. Today the importance of the magical technique can be observed in activities such as marketing and advertising, even in political and religious activity, insofar as they are activities aimed at manipulating individuals for a specific purpose, taking into account, if not all, at least a large part of the intersubjective interests under consideration.

We can sustain that technology comes to be a democratic magic that allows everyone to enjoy, the extraordinary powers that until now could only presume the magician.

Culianu, Eros and Magic in the Renaissance (1999, p. 149)

Books

There are works that have not yet been published in Spanish, others are considered lost and others whose distribution is in doubt. Bruno's complete works are listed on the Index of Prohibited Books of the Catholic Church.

• 1582:
  • Ars memoriae Full text in Latin, Twilit Grotto: Archives of Western Esoterica
  • De umbris idearum Full text in Latin, Twilit Grotto: Archives of Western Esoterica
  • Cantus Circaeus Full text in Latin, Twilit Grotto: Archives of Western Esoterica
  • De compendiosa architectura
  • Candelaio or Candelajo Comedy Full text in Italian in 'Opere di Giordano Bruno di Nolano', edition of Adolfo Wagner, 1830, Vol I, p.1

• 1583:
  • Ars reminicendi Triginta Sigilli Full text in Latin, Twilit Grotto: Archives of Western Esoterica
  • Explicatio triginta sigillorum Full text in Latin, Twilit Grotto: Archives of Western Esoterica
  • Sigillus sigillorum

• 1584:
  • The Ceneri Dinner Full text in Italian, Giordano Bruno.info: Download
  • Of the cause, principle, and one Full text in Italian, Giordano Bruno.info: Download
  • De l'infinito universe et Mondi Full text in Italian, Giordano Bruno.info: Download
  • Spaccio of the Bestia Trionfante Full text in Italian, Giordano Bruno.info: Download

• 1585:
  • Cocktail Cocktail - Cillenic Ass Full text in Italian, Giordano Bruno.info: Download
  • De gli heroici furori 'Heroic Enthusiast' Full text in English 1.a parte, P.Gutemberg Full text 2.a parte P.Gutemberg Full text in Latin, Twilit Grotto: Archives of Western Esoterica
  • Figure Aristotelici Physiciauditus

• 1586:
  • Dialogi duo de Fabricii Mordentis Salernitani
  • Idiot triumphans
  • From somni interpretatione with l' Insomniun.
  • Centun et viginti articuli denatura et mundo adversus peripateticos
  • Animadversions circa lampaden lullianan
  • Lampas triginta statuarum

• 1587:
  • Lulliana combine
  • De progresu et lampade venatoria logicorum

• 1588:
  • Bondage Oratio Full text in Italian, Giordano Bruno.info: Download
  • Camoeracensis Acrotismus
  • De specierum scrutinio
  • Articuli centum et sexaginta adversus huius tempestatis mathematicos atque Philosophos
  • De vinculis in Genere Full text in Latin, Twilit Grotto: Archives of Western Esoterica Full text in Italian, Giordano Bruno.info: Download

• 1589:
  • Oratio consolatoria Full text in Italian, Giordano Bruno.info: Download

• 1590:
  • Of magic Full text in Latin, Twilit Grotto: Archives of Western Esoterica

• 1591:
  • De triplici minimo et mensura
  • De monade numero et figura
  • Innumerabilibus, immenso, et infigurabili
  • De imaginum, signorum et idearum compositione Full text in Latin, Twilit Grotto: Archives of Western Esoterica

• 1595:
  • Summa terminorum metaphisicorum

• 1612:
  • Artificium Perorandi

• Date unknown:
  • Libri physicorum Aristotelis explanati
  • Of magic - Theses of maxia Full text in Latin, Twilit Grotto: Archives of Western Esoterica
  • Mathematica magic Full text in Latin, Twilit Grotto: Archives of Western Esoterica
  • De rerum principiis et elementis et causis
  • Lulliana medicine

Honors

• The crater Giordano Bruno, 22 kilometers in diameter and located on the hidden face of the Moon, and the asteroid (5148) Giordano bears its name.
• The asteroid (13223) Cenaceneri is called his book.
• The statue of Campo de' Fiori Square recalls the place where it was executed.

In popular culture

• Cuban singer Silvio Rodríguez mentions it in his song Quote with angels. Here is the verse:

When this angel climbs the sky,

There's nothing like him.
The end of your rushing flight
is the sentence of a heretic.
Don't be distracted or delayed,
everything is now inopportune.
It's heading for the flower field.

where the fire awaits Bruno.

• The song Roman Sky Avenged Sevenfold is based on his persecution and death sentence.

• The album "Perhaps You Deliver this Judgment with Greater Fear than I Receive It" by the Canadian punk band Crvsades is also based on its persecution and death sentence.

• In a chapter of the program "The Price of History" [1], Rick and Chumlee go to Italy, where Rick takes advantage of the trip to find a book by Giordano Bruno, Rick previously makes a brief summary of his work and the death of the martyr and manages to buy one of his books for a hundred thousand American dollars.