But college authorities rarely smile upon professors who please the hearts of their students. Bruno once more found himself invited to leave. And so back again to France and then to Marburg, where not so long before Luther and Zwingli had debated upon the true nature of the transubstantiation in the castle of pious Elisabeth of Hungary.
Alas! his reputation as a “Libertine” had preceded him. He was not even allowed to lecture. Wittenberg proved more hospitable. That old stronghold of the Lutheran faith, however, was beginning to be overrun by the disciples of Dr. Calvin. After that there was no further room for a man of Bruno’s liberal tendencies.
Southward he wended his way to try his luck in the land of John Huss. Further disappointment awaited him. Prague had become a Habsburg capital and where the Habsburg entered, freedom went out by the city gates. Back to the road and a long, long walk to Zürich.
There he received a letter from an Italian youth, Giovanni Mocenigo, who asked him to come to Venice. What made Bruno accept, I do not know. Perhaps the Italian peasant in him was impressed by the luster of an old patrician name and felt flattered by the invitation.
Giovanni Mocenigo, however, was not made of the stuff which had enabled his ancestors to defy both Sultan and Pope. He was a weakling and a coward and did not move a finger when officers of the Inquisition appeared at his house and took his guest to Rome.
As a rule, the government of Venice was terribly jealous of its rights. If Bruno had been a German merchant or a Dutch skipper, they would have protested violently and they might even have gone to war when a foreign power dared to arrest some one within their own jurisdiction. But why incur the hostility of the pope on account of a vagabond who had brought nothing to their city but his ideas?
It was true he called himself a scholar. The Republic was highly flattered, but she had scholars enough of her own.
And so farewell to Bruno and may San Marco have mercy upon his soul.
Seven long years Bruno was kept in the prison of the Inquisition.
On the seventeenth of February of the year 1600 he was burned at the stake and his ashes were blown to the winds.