Tuesday, December 29, 2020

Ingrid D. Rowland - Giordano Bruno - Philosopher, Heretic (University Of Chicago, 2008) ****


In the list of "thinkers who matter in the history of mankind", Italian monk and free-thinker Giordano Bruno requires a top spot, not only because of the quality of his thinking, but also because of the courage he showed to fight the system of belief to which he actually belonged. 

Eventually he was burned at the stake for heresy at the hands of the inquisition. 

Rowland recreates his life in vivid prose, extremely well documented and with lots of excerpts from the original texts by Bruno himself or other contemporaries. 

Bruno received a good education, with an interest in "natural philosophy" as it was called then: mathematics, astronomy. Quite rapidly after his formal education ended, he had to flee Naples. To a certain extent he reminds me of Voltaire, an eternal rebel, relishing in the quality of his own sharpness of thought, that pierces through the inconsistencies and irrational framework of thought of the establishment, but then going a step further and publicly mocking these, becoming the first victim of this insolent behaviour. 

Bruno becomes a wandering monk (in France, England, Germany) and teacher, first living in monasteries, then later at universities and at the courts of dukes and kings. He developed a technique to memorise events and texts, which he taught in schools, but he also turned this into a performance, reciting long texts by heart, to the pleasure of the artistocracy. 

He was invited to the court of Venice in 1592, and was arrested by the inquisition in 1593. His trial lasted seven years, after which he was burned at the stake for heresy. 

Bruno claimed that the earth was not the center of the universe. He claimed that the universe was infinite. He claimed that stars were nothing else than suns, each with their own solar system of planets. He even mentioned that it is not impossible that on some of these planets intelligent beings may live. He denounced the holy trinity and the many saints. 

In contrast to what many believe, Bruno was not convicted for his scientific beliefs, but rather for his religious positions. 

When sentenced he said "You may be more afraid to bring that sentence against me than I am to accept it". 


 

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