Giordano Bruno

by J. Lewis McIntyre

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Venice.During the second part of his stay in Frankfort, Bruno received an invitation from a young patrician of Venice, Giovanni Mocenigo, to come to him there and instruct him in the arts for which Bruno was famed. Aug. 1591.To the surprise of all who knew the circumstances, Bruno accepted, and re-entered, in August, the Italy which he had left some fourteen years earlier as a refugee. It was through the bookseller Ciotto that the negotiations were carried on. Mocenigo appeared in his shop one day to buy a work of Bruno which Ciotto in his deposition called at first the Heroici Furori, but this name was cancelled, and De Minimo magno et mensura written in its stead; in all probability it was neither the Furori nor any of the Latin poems to which the second (erroneous) title might refer, but one of the Lullian works. Mocenigo asked at the same time whether Ciotto knew Bruno, and where he was; and on the reply that he was probably at Frankfort (they had found lodging in the same monastery there), Mocenigo expressed a wish that Bruno would come to Venice to teach him the secrets of Memory, and the others he professed, as shown by the book that had just changed hands. Ciotto believed Bruno would come if asked; and accordingly, after a few days, Mocenigo brought a letter for Bruno, which Ciotto undertook to deliver, and in which he was besought to come to Venice. The message must have been delivered in the autumn of 1591, and Bruno seems to have replied by immediate acceptance.[103] A previous letter, however, had been written, probably before Mocenigo spoke with Ciotto, and sent by another hand; it may have been the receipt of it which brought Bruno from Zürich to Frankfort, to hasten the printing of his Latin works. In both letters there were evidently specious promises of protection.[104]

The motives of Mocenigo were more than questionable. He was of the noblest blood of Venice, the Doge’s Chair having been seven times filled by members of his family, and among the patrician youth there was a fashionable craze for Lullism and kindred much-promising arts at this time.[105] De Valeriis, another Venetian noble, wrote, in 1589, an Opus Aureum, which was published at Strassburg along with other Lullian works (including Bruno’s) in 1609. Again, Bruno believed in, and probably taught, a kind of “natural magic,” the magic of sympathetic influence from stars, animals, plants, and stones upon the life of man. Mocenigo, as his conduct abundantly showed, was shallow, mean, superstitious, weak-minded, and vain. He was just the type of man to be attracted therefore by anything that savoured of the black art, of which Bruno was popularly regarded as a devotee. His real aim may have been to be initiated by Bruno into this, although he professed the desire merely of having the Lullian mnemonics and art of invention taught him. His disappointment, when he found Bruno had nothing new to give him in that direction, might account, in a man of his character, for the revenge he took. But there may have been worse behind: Mocenigo had been one of the Savii all’ Eresia—the assessors appointed by the State to the Inquisition Board in Venice—and was therefore familiar with the intrigues of that body. He was also under the influence of his Father Confessor, by whose orders he denounced Bruno. The proceedings make it extremely probable, therefore, that the Inquisition laid a trap for Bruno, into which he unsuspectingly walked. Bruno’s reasons for returning.It is more difficult to understand how the latter so calmly entered the lion’s jaws. Acidalius (Valens Havekenthal), writing to Michael Forgacz from Bologna (January 21, 1592), expressed the general surprise. “Tell me one thing more: Giordano Bruno, whom you knew at Wittenberg, the Nolan, is said to be living just now among you at Padua. Is it really so? What sort of man is this that he dares enter Italy, which he left an exile, as he used himself to confess? I wonder, I wonder! I cannot yet believe the rumour, although I have it on good authority. You shall tell me whether it is true or false.” March 3, 1592.But clearly ill rumours were spreading, for on the third of March he wrote in a different tone, “I no longer wonder about that other sophist, so diverse and incredible are the tales I hear daily of him here.”[106] Probably Bruno did not understand what manner of reputation he had; he still regarded himself as belonging to the Catholic Church. Ciotto deposed he had heard nothing from Bruno’s lips which might suggest a doubt of his being a good Catholic and Christian. Venice was a free and powerful state, Mocenigo the son of a powerful house, so that he may well have looked for safety; and it was his beloved Italy, for which he had never ceased to yearn since the day he had crossed the Alps.

To Venice, at any rate, he came, living for a time by himself, and spending some three months also at Padua, the neighbouring university town, where he gathered pupils about him, and wrote as constantly as before. Some manuscripts that were bought in Paris a few years ago, and which had belonged to Bruno, were partly written in the hand of one of these pupils, Jerome Besler, whom Bruno had known in Helmstadt, and who acted there as his copyist. Others of his German, and possibly some English friends were met with at this renowned university.[107] It was only a few months after he left that Galilei was invited to teach in Padua—“the creator of modern science following in the steps of its prophet.”[108] The university was in a state of ferment at the time Bruno arrived, one of the hottest disputes being that between the students and certain professors, who read or dictated instead of freely speaking their lectures—Doctores chartacei they were called—and a fine of twenty ducats was imposed by the senate on every one who should be found guilty of this crime. Bruno’s memory-art may therefore, as Bartholmèss suggests, have “supplied a felt want.”

Bruno in Mocenigo’s house.Early in 1592 Bruno took a fatal step, which showed how little he realised his danger—he gave up his personal freedom and went to live in Mocenigo’s house. There the two opposite natures soon clashed, and the young patrician began to show his real character. The teaching did not satisfy him, did not give him the power over nature and man which he no doubt expected. He approached Ciotto again before the spring book-market, telling him how Giordano was living in his house at his expense, “who promised to teach me much, and has had clothes and money in plenty from me, but I cannot bring him to a point, and fear he may not be quite honest”; and asking him to make inquiries in Frankfort as to Bruno’s character, and the likelihood of his fulfilling his obligations. Ciotto returned with an unfavourable report: Bruno was known to make profession of a memory-art, and of other similar secrets, but had never been known to do any good with them, and all who had gone to him for such things had remained unsatisfied; moreover, it was not understood in Frankfort how he could stay in Venice, as he was held for a man of no religion. To this Mocenigo replied, “I too have my doubts of him, but I will see how much I can get of what he promised me, so as not to lose entirely what I have paid him, and then I will give him up to the judgment of the Holy Office”—the Inquisition. This estimable frame of mind no doubt asserted itself in the relations of pupil and master. Bruno had been introduced by Ciotto to the house of Andrea Morosini, an enlightened patrician, whose open hospitality a number of the most cultured men of the time enjoyed; they formed an Academy after the manner of those of Cosenza, Naples, and other places. “Several gentlemen meet there,” said Morosini of these gatherings, “prelates among them, for entertainment, discoursing of literature, and principally of philosophy; thither Bruno came several times, and talked of various things, as is the custom; but there was never a sign that he held any opinions against the faith, and so far as I (Morosini) am concerned, I have always thought him a Catholic, and had I had the least suspicion of the contrary I should not have permitted him to enter my house.”[109] The last statement must, of course, be taken cum grano. At this time Bruno was preparing a work on “the Seven Liberal Arts, and on Seven other Inventive Arts,”[110] which he hoped to be able to present to the Pope in order to obtain from him absolution, and have the ban of excommunication removed, without the compulsion of again entering the order. Many Neapolitan fathers of the order came to Venice to a meeting of Chapter, and to some of these Bruno spoke—to a Father Domenico especially:—he wished to present himself at the feet of his Holiness with some “approved” work, and his ultimate design, as he told Domenico, was to go to Rome and live quietly a life of letters, perhaps obtaining some lecturing in addition.[111] Among others he consulted Mocenigo, who promised to assist him so far as he could.

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Meantime Mocenigo was putting pressure on Bruno to obtain the secrets he sought to know, while Bruno at last became aware of his danger. He pretended he wished to go to Frankfort to have some books printed, and on a certain Thursday in May he took leave of Mocenigo. The latter, fearing his prey was about to escape, began to cajole him into staying, but passed to complaint and finally to threats as Bruno persisted. May 22.On the night of the following day (Friday), as Bruno had already made preparations for leaving, Mocenigo came with his servitor Bartolo and five or six men, whom Bruno recognised as gondoliers, from the neighbouring stance, seized the philosopher and locked him up in an attic-room. Mocenigo promised, if he would stay and teach what was desired—viz. “the formulæ for memory and geometry”!—to set him at liberty, otherwise something unpleasant would befal him. This novel method of drawing instruction being foiled by the self-respect of the prisoner, the latter was left for the night, transferred the following day to a cellar under the ground, and during the night was handed over to the servants of the Inquisition, who brought him to their prison. The Inquisition.On the 23rd of May, Mocenigo denounced him to the Holy Office, with a hideous but cunning travesty of some of his opinions, reporting him, for example, as saying that Christ’s miracles were only apparent, that He and the apostles were magicians, and that he himself (Bruno) could do as much or more if he had a mind; that the Catholic faith was full of blasphemies against God; that the Friars ought to be prevented from preaching, and should be deprived of their revenues, because the world was befouled by them—they were asses, and the doctrines of the Church asses’ beliefs, and so on. The arrest was on the following night (Sunday night), Second Denunciation.and on the Monday a second denunciation was entered by Mocenigo, than which there is no more pitiful self-revelation of meanness and hypocrisy extant. He confesses or rather boasts that, on locking up Bruno, he had recited the charges he would make against him, “hoping to coerce him into revealing his secrets,” i.e. the Secret Arts. Bruno’s only reply had been to ask for his liberty, to say that he had not really intended to leave, but was still ready to teach Mocenigo everything he knew, to work for him (“to be my slave,” said Mocenigo), without any further recognition, and to give him anything that he had in the house; only he asked to have returned him a copy of a book of conjurations that Mocenigo had found among his written papers and had appropriated. To explain his delay in accusing Bruno, Mocenigo professed not to have been able to get enough against the latter until he had the philosopher in his own house two months earlier (viz. in March), “and then I wished to get the good of him, and by the steps I took I was able to assure myself that he would not leave without telling me of it. All the time I promised myself to bring the matter before the censorship of the Holy Office.” These denouncements were confirmed on oath by Mocenigo, whose age is given at thirty-four years, so that the excuse of youth falls from him. The Venetian tribunal.The following Tuesday the Holy Tribunal met to consider the case. It consisted, in Venice, of the Papal Nuncio (Ludovico Taberna), the Patriarch of Venice (Lorenzo Priuli),[112] the Father Inquisitor (John Gabrielli of Saluzzo, de Salutiis),[113] along with three assessors or representatives of the State (Savii all’ Eresia), one of whom was always present, with the right of suspending the meeting if he thought proper: at the present time the three were Aloysius Fuscari, Sebastian Barbadico, and Tomaso Morosini. On this day the evidence of Ciotto and Bertano, the booksellers who had known Bruno at Frankfort as well as at Venice (Bertano was also at Zürich), was taken; it was in the main favourable, only Bertano recalled the prior of the Carmelite monastery at Frankfort having said of Bruno that he spent most of his time in writing, and went about dreaming dreams and meditating new things, that he had a fine mind and knowledge of letters, and was a universal man, but that he had no religion so far as the prior knew, and he quoted a saying of Bruno’s to the effect that the apostles did not know everything, and that he had the mind, if he wished, to make all the world of one religion; while Ciotto reported the common belief in Frankfort that Bruno was a man of no religion.

First examination of Bruno.The prisoner himself was then brought forward—“A man of ordinary stature, with chestnut-brown beard, of the age and appearance of forty years”; Ciotto, too, described him as a slender man of small stature, with a small dark beard, about forty years of age. Bruno of his own accord, before a question was put, professed his readiness to speak the truth; he had several times had the threat made to him of being brought before the Holy Office (viz. by Mocenigo), but had always treated it as a jest, because he was quite ready to give an account of himself. This he proceeded to do. The biographical part of his account has been embodied in the preceding pages.