Where the burning of Giordano Bruno took place. Brief biography of Giordano Bruno. Scientific and teaching activities
The story of Giordano Bruno is similar to a twisted detective story that humanity has been reading for more than four centuries, but cannot reach the end.
Lost Cause
“Detective,” whose main character is Giordano Bruno, could begin with a “flash-forward” to 1809, when Emperor Napoleon ordered the removal of papal Inquisition documents from the secret archives of the Vatican. Among the requisitioned papers was allegedly Bruno’s file, which included interrogation protocols and the text of the verdict itself. After the return of the Bourbon dynasty to the French throne, the Vatican requested the return of the documents. But Rome was disappointed: the French reported that part of the Inquisition archive had disappeared without a trace. However - oh, miracle! – the papers were soon found. They were discovered by Gaetano Marini, the Pope's envoy in Paris, "in the shops of herring and meat dealers." Secret archives got into Parisian "grocery stores" from light hand another by a representative of the Roman Curia, who sold them to shopkeepers as packaging. Having received an order from Rome to destroy particularly delicate papers from the archives of the inquisitors, Gaetano Marini found nothing better than to sell them as waste paper to a Parisian paper mill.
It would seem that this is the end of the story, but in 1886 a second miracle occurs - one of the Vatican archivists accidentally stumbles upon Bruno’s case in the dusty archives of the pontiff, which he immediately reports to Pope Leo XIII. How the documents were teleported from the French paper mill to Rome remains a mystery? As well as how much you can trust the authenticity of these documents. By the way, the Vatican for a long time did not want to share the find with the public. The Giordano case was not published until 1942.
Why was a fire lit in Rome's Square of Flowers?
There were some surprises too. The verdict against Giordano Bruno said nothing about his scientific beliefs - “The Earth is not the center of the Universe, which is infinite.” But “voluntary martyrdom” for science made Bruno an “icon” who inspired scientists to scientific exploits, and here it is! But the most curious thing is that in the verdict there was no specific indictment at all, except for the first sentence of the document: “You, brother Giordano Bruno, son of the late Giovanni Bruno, from Nola, your age about 52 years, were already brought in eight years ago to the court of the Holy Office of Venice for declaring: it is the greatest blasphemy to say that bread was transformed into a body, etc.”
In his “Aesthetics of the Renaissance,” the Russian philosopher, professor Alexei Fedorovich Losev formulated an important task for historical science, which had been awaiting publication of the case for several decades: “The historian must clearly answer the question: Why, in the end, was Giordano Bruno burned?”
Royal friend
For the Vatican, the verdict of Giordano Bruno was not just a condemnation of a Dominican monk who had fallen into heresy. At the end of the 16th century, in terms of popularity among European intellectuals, Bruno could have given odds to modern cosmologist Stephen Hawking. Giordano Bruno maintained very friendly relations with the kings of France Henry III and Henry IV, the British Queen Elizabeth I, the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II and many other European “rulers”. With a snap of his fingers, he could receive a chair and a professor's robe at any European university, his books were published in the best printing houses, and the best minds of the continent dreamed of his patronage.
Giordano Bruno's main calling card was not cosmology, but his excellent memory. Bruno developed mnemonics (the art of memory), which was then at the peak of fashion among intellectuals. They say that Giordano memorized thousands of books, ranging from the Holy Scriptures to Arabic alchemical treatises. It was the art of memorization that he taught to Henry III, who was proud of his friendship with the humble Dominican monk, and to Elizabeth I, who allowed Giordano to enter her chambers at any time, without reporting. In addition, the monarchs enjoyed how Bruno, with mocking grace, “knocked out” teams of Sorbonne and Oxford professors with his intellect on any issue.
For Giordano Bruno, intellectual combat was a kind of sport. For example, Oxford academics recalled that he could easily prove that black is white, that day is night, and the Moon is the Sun. His debating style was similar to boxer Roy Jones in the ring at his best - a comparison that boxing fans will understand well. It must be admitted that it was hardly thanks to Bruno’s supernatural memory alone that he found himself on friendly terms with the most influential monarchs of Europe.
As biographers recall, some invisible force moved this Dominican monk through the life, easily brought him to the best palaces of Europe, protected him from the persecution of the Inquisition (for Bruno often mentioned theology in his statements). However, unexpectedly this force failed in May 1592.
Denunciation
On the night of May 23-24, 1592, Venetian inquisitors arrested Giordano Bruno following a denunciation from the local patrician Giovanni Mocenigo. Bruno personally taught the latter - for a huge reward - the art of memory. However, at some point the monk got bored with it. He declared the student hopeless and decided to say goodbye. Mocenigo tried everything possible ways to return the “guru,” but Bruno turned out to be adamant. Then the desperate student wrote a denunciation to the local Inquisition. To be brief, the informer claimed that his mentor violated Catholic dogmas, talked about some kind of “infinite worlds” and called himself a representative of a certain “new philosophy.”
It must be said that denunciations of violation of dogmas were the most common “signals” from honest citizens of the Inquisition. This was the most proven way to annoy a neighbor, a competing shopkeeper, a personal enemy... Most of these cases did not even reach the court, but in any case the Inquisition was obliged to respond to the “signal”. In other words, the arrest of Giordano Bruno can be considered “technical”. The prisoner himself generally took it as a joke. At the very first interrogations, he deftly brushed aside all accusations of heresy and friendly shared with the investigators his views on the structure of the Universe. However, this frankness of Bruno could in no way ease his situation. The fact is that the works of Copernicus, whose ideas he developed, were not prohibited (they would be prohibited only in 1616), so there were no grounds for arrest.
The monk was kept under investigation largely because of his harmfulness: he behaved too derogatorily with the inquisitors.
Having taught the “proud man” a lesson, the Venetians were about to let him go, but then a request came from Rome demanding that the heretic be “transported” to the Eternal City. The Venetians stood in a pose: “Why on earth?!” Venice is a sovereign republic!” Rome had to organize an entire embassy to Venice to convince. It is curious that the Venetian procurator Contarini firmly insisted that Giordano Bruno should remain in Venice. In his report to the Council of the Wise of Venice, he gave the following description: “One of the most outstanding and rare geniuses that can be imagined. He has extraordinary knowledge. He created a wonderful teaching."
However, Venice trembled under the pressure of the pope - Bruno went “in stages” to Rome.
Crusade against Aristotle
Now let's return to the denunciation of Giovanni Mocenigo - or rather one of its points, which states that Bruno considered himself a representative of a certain “new philosophy”. The Venetian inquisitors hardly paid any attention to this nuance of the accusation. But they were well familiar with this term in Rome.
The very concept of “New Philosophy” (or “New Universal Philosophy”) was introduced by the Italian philosopher Francesco Patrizi, who was very close to the papal curia. Patrizi argued that Aristotle's philosophy, which became the basis for medieval scholasticism and theology, was directly opposed to Christianity, since it denied the omnipotence of God.
The Italian philosopher saw this as the cause of all the discord that arose in the church, which resulted in the Protestant movements. Patruzi saw the restoration of a unified Church and the return of Protestants to its fold in the departure from scholasticism, built on Aristotle, and replacing it with a certain synthesis of Plato’s metaphysics, the views of the Neoplatonists and the pantheistic theosophical teaching of Hermes Trismegistus. This synthesis was called “New Universal Philosophy”. The idea of ousting Aristotle from European universities (primarily Protestant) and regaining the status of an intellectual center with the help of the “New Philosophy” was liked by many in the papal curia. Of course, Rome could not make the “New Universal Philosophy” its official doctrine, but the fact that in those days the papal throne patronized teachings alternative to Aristotle is beyond doubt. And here Giordano Bruno played his bright role. From 1578 to 1590, he made an unprecedented tour of the largest universities in European cities: Toulouse, Sorbonne, Oxford, Wittenberg, Marburg, Helmstadt, Prague. All of these universities were either “Protestant” or were influenced by Protestantism.
In his lectures or debates with local professors, Bruno undermined precisely the philosophy of Aristotle. His sermons about the movement of the Earth and the multitude of worlds questioned Ptolemaic cosmology, built precisely on the teachings of Aristotle.
In other words, Giordano Bruno strictly followed the strategy of the “New Philosophy”. Was he on a secret mission for Rome? Considering his “inviolability”, as well as his mysterious patronage, it is very likely.
Worse than the Knights Templar
Giordano Bruno spent eight years under investigation. This was a record for the proceedings of the Inquisition! Why so long? For comparison, the trial of the Templars lasted seven years, but there the case concerned the entire order. At the same time, as many as nine cardinals were involved in passing the verdict, which, let us recall, actually did not contain an indictment! Were nine inquisitors general unable to find words to describe the “heretical” acts of a Dominican monk with a good memory?
One passage in the verdict is curious: “Moreover, we condemn, condemn and prohibit all of the above and other books and writings of yours, as heretical and erroneous, containing numerous heresies and errors. We command that from now on all your books, which are in the holy service and in the future will fall into her hands, be publicly torn up and burned in the square of St. Peter before the steps, and as such were included in the list of prohibited books, and so be it as we have commanded.” But apparently the voice of the nine cardinals was so weak that Bruno’s books could be freely purchased in Rome and other Italian cities right up to 1609.
Another interesting detail: if in Venice Giordano Bruno very quickly makes excuses for accusations of trampling on Catholic dogmas, then in Rome he suddenly changes tactics and, according to the investigation materials, begins not only to admit it, but also to flaunt his anti-Christianity. At the trial, he even throws out to the judges:
“Perhaps you pronounce your sentence with more fear than I listen to it. I die a martyr voluntarily and I know that my soul will ascend to heaven with its last breath.”
Did the Venetian Inquisition really seem more convincing to Bruno in its ferocity, and did an atmosphere of humanism and philanthropy reign in the torture chambers of the Vatican?
Who burned at the stake?
The only written evidence of the execution of Giordano Bruno has reached us. The witness was a certain Kaspar Schoppe, a “repentant Lutheran” who went into the service of the cardinal. Schoppe wrote in a letter to his comrade that the “heretic” accepted death calmly: “Without repenting of his sins, Bruno went to the worlds he imagined to tell what the Romans were doing with blasphemers.” I wonder why Schoppe thought that Giordano Bruno’s heresy lay in his view of the Universe - nothing was said about this in the verdict?
Schoppe, by the way, pointed out in his letter to a friend one interesting detail– Giordano Bruno was taken to the stake with a gag in his mouth, which was not in the tradition of the Inquisitorial burnings. It is unlikely that the organizers of the execution were afraid of the possible dying curses of the condemned man - this, as a rule, was the format of any execution. As well as repentance. Why the gag? It is unlikely that in a matter of minutes of execution, even such an intellectual and polemicist as Bruno would have been able to convince the illiterate crowd of the infidelity of Aristotelian cosmology. Or the executioners were simply afraid that the condemned man would suddenly, in a moment of absolute despair, suddenly shout out the terrible: “I am not Giordano Bruno!”
During the Inquisition, many who disagreed with the tenets of the church were burned at the stake. This role did not escape some scientists. From this article you will learn which scientists were burned by the Inquisition.
Why was Giordano Bruno burned?
Let us immediately note that he was not a scientist, but a monk, occultist, poet and a fierce fan of Copernicus. The latter caused him to quarrel with Giovanni Mocenigo, his patron from Venice. And he told the inquisitors about Bruno. They arrested him based on Giovanni's denunciations and forced him to sign an explanatory note regarding statements about the Virgin Mary and Christ. For 6 whole years Bruno was “transferred” from one prison to another. However, Pope Clement VIII took away his monastic rank and excommunicated him, bringing him to a secular court. He did not delve deeply into the affairs and subtleties of Bruno’s accusations, sentencing the “malicious heretic,” as they believed, to be burned.
Why was Copernicus burned?
was the first to become a victim of the Inquisition. The reason for this was the work “On the Rotation of the Celestial Spheres,” in which he described the heliocentric model with the Sun in the center, and not as the Earth was previously considered. The Inquisition banned his work for 4 years. But this did not prevent the composition from gaining popularity even in China. However, the version that the Church burned Copernicus at the stake is far from true. He died of a stroke at an old age.
Miguel Servet was also burned at the stake
Miguel Servet is indeed a natural scientist and doctor. And they really burned it in Geneva. However, he is not well suited to the role of a victim of the “struggle between science and religion.” Servetus himself was fanatically religious; it was his religion, and not his scientific views, that brought him to the stake. He was condemned because of his book “The Restoration of Christianity,” in which he denied the Trinity of God and generally expressed views that were extremely heretical from the point of view of Calvin (and everyone else).
There are several points of view about why Giordano Bruno was burned. In the mass consciousness, the image of a man executed for defending his heliocentric theory was attached to him. However, if you take a closer look at the biography and works of this thinker, you will notice that his conflict with the Catholic Church was more likely religious than scientific.
Biography of the thinker
Before you figure out why Giordano Bruno was burned, you should consider him life path. The future philosopher was born in 1548 in Italy near Naples. In this city, the young man became a monk of the local monastery of St. Dominic. All his life his religious quests went along with his scientific ones. Over time, Bruno became one of the most educated people of its time. As a child, he began to study logic, literature and dialectics.
At the age of 24, the young Dominican became a priest. However, Giordano Bruno's life was not long connected with church service. One day he was caught reading forbidden monastic literature. Then the Dominican fled first to Rome, then to the north of Italy, and then completely outside the country. A short study at the University of Geneva followed, but even there Bruno was expelled on charges of heresy. The Thinker had inquisitive mind. In his public speeches at debates, he often went beyond the scope of Christian teaching, disagreeing with generally accepted dogmas.
Scientific activities
In 1580 Bruno moved to France. He taught at the largest university in the country - the Sorbonne. The first published works of Giordano Bruno also appeared there. The thinker's books were devoted to mnemonics - the art of memorization. The philosopher was noticed by the French king Henry III. He provided patronage to the Italian, inviting him to the court and providing him with all the necessary conditions for work.
It was Henry who contributed to Bruno’s placement at the English university in Oxford, where he moved at the age of 35. In London in 1584, the thinker published one of his most important books, “On Infinity, the Universe and Worlds.” The scientist has long studied astronomy and issues of space structure. The endless worlds that he spoke about in his book completely contradicted the then generally accepted worldview.
The Italian was a supporter of the theory of Nicolaus Copernicus - this is another “point” for which Giordano Bruno was burned. Its essence (heliocentrism) was that the Sun is at the center of the planetary system, and the planets revolve around it. The church point of view on this issue was exactly the opposite. Catholics believed that the Earth was in the center, and all bodies, together with the Sun, moved around it (this is geocentrism). Bruno propagated the ideas of Copernicus in London, including at the royal court of Elizabeth I. The Italian never found any supporters. Even the writer Shakespeare and the philosopher Bacon did not support his views.
Return to Italy
After England, Bruno traveled around Europe for several years (mainly in Germany). WITH permanent job things were difficult for him because universities were often afraid to admit an Italian because of the radicalism of his ideas. The wanderer tried to settle in the Czech Republic. But he was not welcome in Prague either. Finally, in 1591, the thinker decided to take a bold action. He returned to Italy, or rather to Venice, where he was invited by the aristocrat Giovanni Mocenigo. The young man began to pay Bruno generously for lessons on mnemonics.
However, the relationship between the employer and the thinker soon deteriorated. In personal conversations, Bruno convinced Mocenigo that there are infinite worlds, the Sun is at the center of the world, etc. But the philosopher made an even bigger mistake when he began to discuss religion with the aristocrat. From these conversations you can understand why Giordano Bruno was burned.
Bruno's accusation
In 1592, Mocenigo sent several denunciations to the Venetian inquisitors, in which he described bold ideas former Dominican. Giovanni Bruno complained that Jesus was a magician and tried to avoid his death, and did not accept it as a martyr, as stated in the Gospel. Moreover, the thinker spoke about the impossibility of retribution for sins, reincarnation and the depravity of Italian monks. Denying the basic Christian dogmas about the divinity of Christ, the Trinity, etc., he inevitably became a sworn enemy of the church.
Bruno, in conversations with Mocenigo, mentioned the desire to create his own philosophical and religious teaching, “New Philosophy.” The volume of heretical theses expressed by the Italian was so great that the inquisitors immediately began an investigation. Bruno was arrested. He spent more than seven years in prison and interrogation. Due to the heretic's impenetrability, he was transported to Rome. But even there he remained unshaken. On February 17, 1600, he was burned at the stake in the Piazza des Flowers in Rome. The thinker did not abandon his own views. Moreover, he stated that burning it does not mean disproving his theory. Today at the place of execution there is a monument to Bruno, erected there in late XIX century.
Basics of teaching
Giordano Bruno's versatile teaching touched on both science and faith. When the thinker returned to Italy, he already saw himself as a preacher of a reformed religion. It should have been based on scientific knowledge. This combination explains the presence in Bruno’s works of both logical reasoning and references to mysticism.
Of course, the philosopher did not formulate his theories based on empty space. The ideas of Giordano Bruno were largely based on the works of his numerous predecessors, including those who lived in ancient times. An important foundation For the Dominican, there was a radical ancient philosophical school that taught a mystical-intuitive way of understanding the world, logic, etc. The thinker adopted from her ideas about the world soul, which moves the entire Universe, and the single beginning of existence.
Bruno also relied on Pythagoreanism. This philosophical and religious teaching was based on the idea of the universe as a harmonious system, subject to numerical laws. His followers significantly influenced Kabbalism and other mystical traditions.
Attitude to religion
It is important to note that Giordano Bruno's anti-church views did not mean that he was an atheist. On the contrary, the Italian remained a believer, although his idea of God was very different from Catholic dogmas. So, for example, before his execution, Bruno, already ready to die, said that he would go straight to the creator.
For the thinker, his commitment to heliocentrism was not a sign of abandonment of religion. With the help of this theory, Bruno proved the truth of his Pythagorean idea, but did not deny the existence of God. That is, heliocentrism became a kind of mathematical way to complement and develop the philosophical concept of a scientist.
Hermeticism
Another significant source of inspiration for Bruno was This teaching appeared in the era of late Antiquity, when Hellenism was experiencing its heyday in the Mediterranean. The basis of the concept was ancient texts, according to legend, given by Hermes Trismegistus.
The teaching included elements of astrology, magic and alchemy. The esoteric and mysterious character of the Hermetic philosophy greatly impressed Giordano Bruno. The era of antiquity has long been in the past, but it was during the Renaissance that a fashion for studying and rethinking such ancient sources appeared in Europe. It is significant that one of the researchers of Bruno’s heritage, Francis Yates, called him a “Renaissance magician.”
Cosmology
During the Renaissance, there were few researchers who rethought cosmology as much as Giordano Bruno. The scientist’s discoveries on these issues are presented in the works “On the Immeasurable and Innumerable,” “On the Infinite, the Universe and the Worlds,” and “A Feast on the Ashes.” Bruno's ideas about natural philosophy and cosmology became revolutionary for his contemporaries, which is why they were not accepted. The thinker proceeded from the teachings of Nicolaus Copernicus, supplementing and improving it. The philosopher’s main cosmological theses were as follows: the universe is infinite, distant stars are analogues of the earth’s Sun, the universe is unified system with the same matter. Bruno's most famous idea was the theory of heliocentrism, although it was proposed by the Pole Copernicus.
In cosmology, as well as religion, the Italian scientist proceeded not only from scientific considerations. He turned to magic and esotericism. Therefore, in the future, some of his theses were rejected by science. For example, Bruno believed that all matter is animate. Modern research refute this idea.
Also, to prove his theses, Bruno often resorted to logical reasoning. For example, his dispute with supporters of the theory of the immobility of the Earth (that is, geocentrism) is very indicative. The thinker presented his argument in the book “A Feast on Ashes.” Apologists for the immobility of the Earth often criticized Bruno using the example of a stone thrown from a high tower. If the planet revolved around the Sun and did not stand still, then the falling body would not fall straight down, but in a slightly different place.
In response to this, Bruno offered his own argument. He defended his theory with an example about the movement of a ship. People jumping on a boat land on the same point. If the Earth were motionless, then this would be impossible on a floating ship. This means, Bruno reasoned, a moving planet pulls with it everything that is on it. In this correspondence dispute with his opponents on the pages of one of his books, the Italian thinker came very close to the theory of relativity formulated by Einstein in the 20th century.
Another important principle expressed by Bruno was the idea of the homogeneity of matter and space. The scientist wrote that, based on this, it can be assumed that from the surface of any cosmic body, the universe will look approximately the same. In addition, the cosmology of the Italian philosopher directly spoke about the operation of general laws in the most different corners the existing world.
The influence of Bruno's cosmology on future science
Bruno's scientific research always went hand in hand with his extensive ideas about theology, ethics, metaphysics, aesthetics, etc. Because of this, the Italian's cosmological versions were filled with metaphors, sometimes understandable only to the author. His works became the subject of research debates that continue today.
Bruno was the first to suggest that the universe is limitless and contains an infinite number of worlds. This idea contradicted Aristotle's mechanics. The Italian often put forward his ideas only in theoretical form, since in his time there was no technical means, capable of confirming the scientist’s guesses. However modern science was able to fill these gaps. The theory of the big bang and the endless growth of the universe confirmed Bruno’s ideas several centuries after the thinker was burned at the stake of the Inquisition.
The scientist left behind reports on the analysis of the falling bodies. His data became a prerequisite for the appearance in science of the principle of inertia, proposed by Galileo Galilei. Bruno, one way or another, influenced the 17th century. Researchers of that time often used his works as auxiliary materials to put forward their own theories. The importance of the Dominican’s works has already been emphasized in modern times by the German philosopher and one of the founders of logical positivism, Moritz Schlick.
Criticism of the dogma of the Holy Trinity
There is no doubt that the story of Giordano Bruno was another example of a man who mistook himself for the messiah. This is evidenced by the fact that he was going to found his own religion. In addition, faith in a high mission did not allow the Italian to renounce his convictions during many years of interrogation. At times, in conversations with the inquisitors, he was already inclined to compromise, but at the last moment he again began to insist on his own.
Bruno himself gave additional grounds for accusations of heresy. During one of the interrogations, he stated that he considered the dogma of the Trinity to be false. The victim of the Inquisition argued his position with the help of various sources. The protocols of the thinker’s interrogations have been preserved in their original form, so today it is possible to analyze how Bruno’s system of ideas originated. Thus, the Italian stated that the work of St. Augustine says that the term Holy Trinity did not arise in the Gospel era, but already in his time. Based on this, the accused considered the entire dogma to be an invention and falsification.
Martyr of science or faith?
It is important that in Bruno’s death sentence there is not a single mention of heliocentric The document states that Brother Giovano promoted heretical religious teachings. This contradicts the popular view that Bruno suffered for his scientific beliefs. In fact, the church was furious at the philosopher's criticism of Christian dogma. His idea of \u200b\u200bthe location of the Sun and Earth against this background became a child's prank.
Unfortunately, the documents make no specific mention of what Bruno's heretical theses were. This has led historians to speculate that more complete sources were lost or deliberately destroyed. Today, the reader can judge the nature of the former monk’s accusations only from secondary papers (Mocenigo’s denunciation, interrogation records, etc.).
Particularly interesting in this series is the letter from Kaspar Schoppe. It was a Jesuit who was present at the announcement of the verdict on the heretic. In his letter, he mentioned the main claims of the court against Bruno. In addition to the above, one can note the idea that Moses was a magician, and only Jews descended from Adam and Eve. The rest of the human race, the philosopher convinced, appeared thanks to two other people created by God the day before the couple from the Garden of Eden. Bruno persistently praised magic and considered it useful. These statements of his once again demonstrate his commitment to the ideas of ancient Hermeticism.
It is symbolic that the modern Roman Catholic Church refuses to reconsider the case of Giordano Bruno. For more than 400 years after the death of the thinker, the pontiffs never acquitted him, although the same was done in relation to many heretics of the past.
Giordano Bruno was condemned by the Catholic Church as a heretic and sentenced by the secular judiciary of Rome to death penalty through burning. But this concerned his religious views more than cosmological ones.
Giordano Bruno(Italian Giordano Bruno; real name Filippo), born in 1548 - Italian Dominican monk, philosopher and poet, representative of pantheism.
There is a lot of terminology in this formulation. Let's look into it.
Catholic Church- the largest branch of Christianity in terms of number of adherents (about 1 billion 196 million people as of 2012), formed in the 1st millennium AD. e. on the territory of the Western Roman Empire.
Heretic- a person who has deliberately deviated from the tenets of faith (the provisions of a doctrine declared to be an immutable truth).
Pantheism- a religious and philosophical doctrine that unites and sometimes identifies God and the world.
Well, now about Giordano Bruno.
From the biography
Filippo Bruno was born into the family of soldier Giovanni Bruno, in the town of Nola near Naples in 1548. Giordano is the name he received as a monk; he entered the monastery at the age of 15. Due to some disagreements about the essence of faith, he fled to Rome and further to the north of Italy, without waiting for his superiors to investigate his activities. Wandering around Europe, he earned his living by teaching. Once, King Henry III of France was present at his lecture in France, who was amazed by the comprehensively educated young man and invited him to the court, where Bruno lived for several quiet years, engaged in self-education. He then gave him a letter of recommendation to England, where he lived first in London and then in Oxford.
Based on the principles of pantheism, it was easy for Giordano Bruno to accept the teachings of Nicolaus Copernicus.
In 1584 he published his main work, “On the Infinity of the Universe and Worlds.” He is convinced of the truth of Copernicus's ideas and tries to convince everyone of this: the Sun, and not the Earth, is at the center of the planetary system. This was before Galileo generalized the Copernican doctrine. In England he never managed to spread simple system Copernicus: neither Shakespeare nor Bacon succumbed to his beliefs, but firmly followed the Aristotelian system, considering the Sun to be one of the planets, revolving like the others around the Earth. Only William Gilbert, a doctor and physicist, accepted the Copernican system as true and empirically came to the conclusion that The earth is a huge magnet. He determined that the Earth is controlled by the forces of magnetism as it moves.
For his beliefs, Giordano Bruno was expelled from everywhere: first he was banned from lecturing in England, then in France and Germany.
In 1591, Bruno, at the invitation of the young Venetian aristocrat Giovanni Mocenigo, moved to Venice. But soon their relationship deteriorated, and Mocenigo began to write denunciations to the Inquisitor against Bruno (the Inquisition was investigating heretical views). After some time, in accordance with these denunciations, Giordano Bruno was arrested and imprisoned. But his accusations of heresy were so great that he was sent from Venice to Rome, where he spent 6 years in prison, but did not repent of his views. In 1600, the Pope handed Bruno into the hands of secular authorities. On February 9, 1600, the inquisitorial tribunal recognized Bruno « an unrepentant, stubborn and unyielding heretic» . Bruno was deprived of the priesthood and excommunicated from the church. He was handed over to the court of the governor of Rome, ordering him to be subjected to “the most merciful punishment and without shedding of blood,” which meant the demand burn alive.
“You probably pronounce a verdict on me with more fear than I listen to it,” Bruno said at the trial and repeated several times, “to burn does not mean to refute!”
On February 17, 1600, Bruno was burned in Rome on the Square of Flowers. The executioners brought Bruno to the place of execution with a gag in his mouth, tied him to a pole that was in the center of the fire, iron chain and tied it with a wet rope, which, under the influence of fire, contracted and cut into the body. Last words Bruno were: « I die a martyr voluntarily and know that my soul will ascend to heaven with its last breath».
In 1603, all the works of Giordano Bruno were included in the Catholic Index of Prohibited Books and were there until its last edition in 1948.
On June 9, 1889, a monument was solemnly unveiled in Rome on the very Square of Flowers where the Inquisition executed him about 300 years ago. The statue depicts Bruno in full height. Below on the pedestal is the inscription: "Giordano Bruno - from the century that he foresaw, at the place where the fire was lit."
Views of Giordano Bruno
His philosophy was rather chaotic; it mixed the ideas of Lucretius, Plato, Nicholas of Cusa, and Thomas Aquinas. The ideas of Neoplatonism (about a single beginning and the world soul as the driving principle of the Universe) crossed with the strong influence of the views of ancient materialists (the doctrine in which the material is primary, and the material is secondary) and the Pythagoreans (the perception of the world as a harmonious whole, subject to the laws of harmony and number) .
Cosmology of Giordano Bruno
He developed the heliocentric theory of Copernicus and the philosophy of Nicholas of Cusa (who expressed the opinion that the Universe is infinite and has no center at all: neither the Earth, nor the Sun, nor anything else occupy a special position. All celestial bodies consist of the same matter, that the Earth is, and quite possibly, inhabited. Almost two centuries before Galileo, he argued: all luminaries, including the Earth, move in space, and every observer has the right to consider himself motionless). Bruno expressed a number of guesses: about the absence of material celestial spheres, about the boundlessness of the Universe, about the fact that stars are distant suns around which planets revolve, about the existence of planets unknown in his time within our solar system. Responding to opponents of the heliocentric system, Bruno gave a number of physical arguments in favor of the fact that the movement of the Earth does not affect the course of experiments on its surface, also refuting arguments against the heliocentric system based on the Catholic interpretation of Holy Scripture. Contrary to the prevailing opinions at that time, he believed that comets were celestial bodies, and not vapors in earth's atmosphere. Bruno rejected medieval ideas about the opposition between Earth and heaven, asserting the physical homogeneity of the world (the doctrine of the 5 elements that make up all bodies - earth, water, fire, air and ether). He suggested the possibility of life on other planets. When refuting the arguments of opponents of heliocentrism, Bruno used impetus theory(medieval theory according to which the cause of the movement of thrown bodies is a certain force (impetus) invested in them by an external source).
Bruno's thinking combined a mystical and natural scientific understanding of the world: he welcomed the discovery of Copernicus, as he believed that the heliocentric theory was fraught with deep religious and magical meaning. He lectured on Copernican theory throughout Europe, turning it into a religious doctrine. Some even noted that he had a certain sense of superiority over Copernicus in that, being a mathematician, Copernicus did not understand his own theory, while Bruno himself could decipher it as the key to the divine secret. Bruno thought like this: mathematicians are like intermediaries, translating words from one language to another; but then others get the meaning, not themselves. They are like those simple people who inform the absent commander about the form in which the battle took place and what the result was, but they themselves do not understand the deeds, reasons and art thanks to which these won... We owe our liberation from Copernicus some false assumptions of the general vulgar philosophy, not to say, from blindness. However, he did not go far from it, since, knowing mathematics more than nature, he could not go so deep and penetrate into the latter as to destroy the roots of difficulties and false principles, thereby completely resolving all opposing difficulties, and would have saved himself and others from many useless research and would fix attention on permanent and definite matters.
But some historians believe that Bruno’s heliocentrism was a physical and not a religious teaching. Giordano Bruno said that not only the Earth, but also the Sun rotates around its axis. And this was confirmed many decades after his death.
Bruno believed that there were many planets revolving around our Sun and that new planets, still unknown to people, could be discovered. Indeed, the first of these planets, Uranus, was discovered almost two centuries after Bruno's death, and later Neptune, Pluto and many hundreds of small planets - asteroids - were discovered. Thus the predictions of the brilliant Italian came true.
Copernicus paid little attention to distant stars. Bruno argued that every star is a huge sun like ours, and that planets revolve around every star, but we don’t see them: they are too far from us. And each star with its planets is a world similar to our solar one. There are an infinite number of such worlds in space.
Giordano Bruno argued that all worlds in the universe have their beginning and their end and that they are constantly changing. Bruno was a man of amazing intelligence: only with the power of his mind did he understand what later astronomers discovered with the help of spotting scopes and telescopes. It is even difficult for us to imagine now what a huge revolution Bruno made in astronomy. The astronomer Kepler, who lived a little later, confessed that he “was dizzy when reading the works of the famous Italian and a secret horror seized him at the thought that he might be wandering in a space where there was no center, no beginning, no end...”.
Still not consensus about how Bruno’s cosmological ideas influenced the decisions of the Inquisition court. Some researchers believe that they played a minor role in it, and the accusations were mainly on issues of church doctrine and theological issues, others believe that Bruno's intransigence in some of these issues played a significant role in his condemnation.
The text of the verdict against Bruno that has reached us indicates that he was charged with eight heretical provisions, but only one provision was given (he was brought to the court of the Holy Office of Venice for declaring: it is the greatest blasphemy to say that bread was transformed into the body), the contents of the remaining seven not disclosed.
At present, it is impossible to establish with complete certainty the content of these seven provisions of the guilty verdict and answer the question whether Bruno’s cosmological views were included there.
Other achievements of Giordano Bruno
He was also a poet. He wrote the satirical poem “Noah’s Ark”, the comedy “The Candlestick”, and was the author of philosophical sonnets. Having created a free dramatic form, he realistically depicts life and customs ordinary people, ridicules the pedantry and superstition, the hypocritical immorality of the Catholic reaction.
Probably every schoolchild, when asked why the Inquisition dealt with Giordano Bruno, will answer this way: in the 17th century. the young scientist was burned at the stake because he was a supporter of the Copernican heliocentric system, that is, he argued that the Earth revolves around the Sun. In fact, in this widespread myth, only one thing is true: Giordano Bruno was really burned by the Inquisition in 1600. Everything else requires clarification.
Firstly, Bruno could hardly be called young. In a surviving engraving from the 19th century. The Nolanite (place of birth - the Italian city of Nola) really looks young, but at the time of his execution he was 52 years old, which at that time was considered a very advanced age. Secondly, he can hardly be called a scientist. Giordano Bruno was a wandering Dominican monk and philosopher who traveled all over Europe, taught at many universities (from where he was often expelled with scandal for heretical opinions), and defended two dissertations.
Perhaps, several centuries earlier, he could have been called a scientist, but in his time, hypotheses in scientific works required mathematical confirmation. Bruno's works were executed in a figurative, poetic form, and not in the form of scientific treatises. He wrote more than 30 works in which he argued that the Universe is limitless and infinite, that the stars are distant suns around which planets revolve, that there are other inhabited worlds, etc. Copernicus's heliocentric system only complemented his religious and philosophical concepts. Bruno didn't study scientific research in the sense in which Copernicus, Galileo, Newton and other scientists studied them.
Bruno Nolanets considered himself primarily a religious preacher who intended to reform religion. Contrary to the popular version, according to which the scientist opposed the church and clergy, he was not an atheist, and this dispute was not a conflict between science and religion. Despite the radicalism of his opinions, Giordano Bruno remained a believer, although he believed that the religion of his day had many shortcomings. He opposed the fundamental dogmas of Christianity - the virgin birth, the divinity of Christ, etc.
A denunciation written by a Venetian aristocrat against his teacher of mnemonics (the art of memorization), Bruno Nolanza, in 1592, reported his heretical views, “ that Christ performed imaginary miracles and was a magician, like the apostles, and that he himself would have had the courage to do the same and even much more than them; that Christ did not die of his own free will and, as far as he could, tried to avoid death; that there is no retribution for sins; that souls created by nature pass from one living being to another; that, just as animals are born into depravity, people are born in the same way... that theological bickering must be stopped and the incomes of the monks should be taken away, for they are a disgrace to the world" The fundamental ones for Giordano Bruno were primarily religious and philosophical, rather than scientific, ideas.
The Inquisition's investigation into Bruno's case lasted 8 years, during which they tried to convince him that his heretical statements were full of contradictions. However, the monk did not give up his views, and then the Inquisitorial tribunal declared him “an unrepentant, stubborn and inflexible heretic.” Bruno was defrocked, excommunicated and handed over to the secular authorities. In his guilty verdict there was no mention of the heliocentric system - he was charged with denying the tenets of Christianity. In those days, although Copernicus’ ideas were not supported by the church, their supporters were not persecuted or burned at the stake. But Bruno, in fact, created a new religious and philosophical teaching that threatened to undermine the foundations of Christianity, since it denied the omnipotence of God. Therefore, he was punished as a heretic, and not as a scientist.
In mid-February 1600, the “punishment without shedding of blood” was carried out. Giordano Bruno, who never renounced his views, was burned in Rome. In 1889, a monument was erected on this site with the inscription: “Giordano Bruno - from the century that he foresaw, on the spot where the fire was lit.” And if Galileo was rehabilitated by the church several centuries later, Bruno is still considered an apostate from the faith and a heretic.
Since adherents of the heliocentric system, in addition to Giordano Bruno, were also Galileo Galilei and Copernicus, in the popular consciousness all three of these historical characters often merge into one, which in scientific world They jokingly call Nikolai Brunovich Galilei. Famous phrase“And yet she turns” is attributed to them all in turn, although in fact it was born much later in one of the works on Galileo. But before his death, Bruno, again according to legend, said: “To burn does not mean to refute.”
The Inquisition dealt with not only Bruno Nolanz. .
