Giordano Bruno

by J. Lewis McIntyre

Bruno’s behaviour before the Venetian tribunal has been regarded as a signal blot upon his character. In the course of his cross-examination he entirely changed his attitude, which was at first one of defiant self-confidence, open confession of his (philosophic) differences from the Church, and of indirect attacks upon the faith in his writings; insistence upon his right to use “the natural light” of sense and reason, so long as the doctrines of the Church were accepted by way of faith. Later he passed from this attitude to one of anxious and angry denial of all charges of heterodoxy, of trafficking with heretics, and the like; and finally to one of almost cringing submission and professed readiness to undergo any punishment for his misdeeds. It is possible that he began by overrating the tolerance of the Venetian Republic. In Morosini’s circle, of which Fra Paolo Sarpi was afterwards a member, he had heard enlightened talk and free criticism of the Church, and especially of Rome. One of the reputed sayings of Morosini, “we were born Venetians before we became Christians,” makes one hesitate to accept as quite honest his evidence before the tribunal. But Bruno’s trial occurred at a time when tolerance had given way to diplomacy. Had Bruno been a Venetian or of another nationality the result would have been different. They had adopted a policy of friendship towards the Papal government, and in consequence dealt during that period much more severely with heretical doctrine than with looseness of life. Bruno may have discovered this in the course of his trial, and changed his position in order to save his life. Sigwart comes to the conclusion that “it is impossible to believe in his entire genuineness and truthfulness; it is clear that he was now trying to save himself and escape condemnation by submission.” Numberless quotations might be made from his writings which give the lie to his denials before the tribunal, and his wonderful memory could not have allowed them to slip from his mind. However, there is this to be said, that Bruno had never regarded himself as anything but a Catholic; that his criticisms of that Church were suggestions of reform from within rather than attacks from without; that he had always retained an instinctive dislike both of Calvinism and of Lutheranism, in spite of his exaggerated but conventional praises of Luther at Wittenberg; that he had never formally compared his philosophy with his traditional faith, but rather laid that faith aside and worked as a philosopher merely: hence his reputation in Germany as a man of no religion. When he first became aware that he was in danger of losing life or at least liberty, and his dream of a quiet retirement with freedom of work in Italy began to fade, he must have lost his centre of judgment, and had difficulty in estimating his own past doings and sayings from the new standpoint. It would be unjust to say there was the smallest element of hypocrisy in his submission, or of deceit in his denial of guilt. And in any case, whatever errors he committed before the Venetian tribunal were amply amended by his behaviour before the Roman.[122] One thing is certain: he never either then or afterwards recanted or in any sense withdrew a single proposition belonging to his philosophical creed.

To Rome there went with him, in all probability, copies of the denunciations and evidence given at Venice, the works which Mocenigo had marked, and lists of all his works, including that given by himself, which would be valuable could it now be found. From January 16, 1593 to January 14, 1599 there is absolute silence concerning Bruno, so far as discovered documents go. In 1849 an opportunity was obtained of studying the archives of the Vatican, but the student did not pass beyond November 1598 (beginning from February 1600), before the opportunity was over.[123] The earliest of these records of Bruno is, as stated above, of January 14, 1599. To the congregation (of the Holy Office) “there were read eight heretical propositions, taken from the works of Fra Giordano Bruno of Nola, apostate of the order of Preaching Friars, imprisoned in the prison of the Holy Office, and from the process against him, by the Reverend Fathers Commissario and Bellarmino. It was decided that selected propositions be read to him, in order to determine whether he was willing to abjure them as heretical. Other heretical propositions are to be looked for in the process and in the books.”

What had happened all these years? Why was Bruno’s life spared so long? This unusual clemency on the part of the Inquisition points to a great difference in their estimate of Bruno’s importance from their view of that of other heretics. In a list of twenty-one prisoners of the Inquisition made on the 5th of April 1599, only one besides Bruno had been for more than a year in their hands; the duration of imprisonment for the others could be counted by months or days. As a general rule they were not slow in striking. Among the reasons that have been suggested is the time required to go over the four processes which had already been drawn up against Bruno, if the documents were extant, and to obtain and read his books and manuscripts. This may be dismissed at once; Bruno’s books could not be scarce then, although they became so later, and it could not require six years to find enough material to condemn him if that were desired. Another suggestion is that Bruno was a Dominican, and the whole order was concerned in procuring his recantation, rather than have the scandal which his death in apostasy would cause. The historians of the order afterwards denied that Bruno, if really put to death, had been one of their order—“Had he been one of us he would have remained with us et convictu et sensibus.”[124] More probable is the idea that Pope Clement had some favour for Bruno, who had intended to dedicate a book to him, and whose skilful pen and biting tongue he hoped to win over to the side of the Church. The book on the Seven Liberal Arts may have been actually completed, and may have presented a modus vivendi between religious authority and philosophic freedom, as Brunnhofer suggests. If the hope of winning him over was really held, it is not likely that they refrained in his case, any more than in Campanella’s, from the use of torture.

Bellarmino, a Jesuit, to whom along with Commissario the study of Bruno’s works and of the processes had been entrusted, was one of the most learned prelates of the day, a keen and ready controversialist, in spite of his reputed love of peace, and a skilful writer of many apologetic and polemical works. Beneath the surface of enlightenment there lay hidden a nature of intense bigotry: it was he who decided that Copernicanism was a heresy; he played a part later in the process against Galilei, and in the attack upon Fra Paolo Sarpi; through his agency the Platonist Patrizzi was induced to retract his heresies, and his works were placed along with those of Telesius, the apostle of Naturalism, upon the index.

February 4, 1599.On the 4th of February the congregation again considered Bruno’s case, he having in the interval made some protest against the eight propositions selected. His Holiness decreed that it should be intimated to him by the Reverend Fathers Bellarmino and Commissario, “that the propositions are heretical, and not only now or lately declared heretical, but according to the most ancient Fathers of the Church and the Apostolic See. If he shall admit them as such, it is well, but if not, a term of forty days shall be set him.” What were the eight propositions? It is of course almost impossible to say, but probably Tocco[125] is right in suggesting that they were neither any of those already withdrawn in Venice (as held “philosophically,” but not theologically), nor any of the charges of Mocenigo which Bruno had so vigorously denied, but actual admissions common to his works and to the confessions he had made at Venice—for example, propositions as to (1) the distinction of persons in God; (2) the Incarnation of the Word; (3) the nature of the Holy Spirit; (4) the Divinity of Christ; (5, 6, and 7) the necessity, eternity, and infinity of Nature; (8) the Transmigration of Souls. It must have been in the last four of these, or some similar propositions, that Bruno stood fast by his new faith.

XVIII

December 21, 1599.He was granted more than forty days, however, or the period was renewed, for it was not until the 21st of December of that year that the patience or perseverance of the Inquisition began to be exhausted. On that date—the next on which there is any record of Bruno—the congregation again reopened the case. In a rough copy of the report which has been found Bruno is quoted as saying, “that he neither ought nor will recant, that he has nothing to recant, no matter for recantation, does not know what he ought to recant.” In the fair copy the names of the members of the tribunal are given. At their head was Cardinal Madruzzi, and among them were the fanatical San Severin, embittered by his failure to secure the Papacy (he had gone so far as to choose his name—Clement—when his rival was elected in 1592, and became Clement VIII.), the man who figures in history as having declared St. Bartholomew’s “a glorious day, a day of joy for Catholics”; the ascetic Sfondrati; the intolerant Borghese, afterwards Pope Paul V.; and the learned Bellarmino. After hearing Bruno on his defence, it was decided among them that Hippolyte Maria, general of the Dominican order, and Paul of Mirandula, their vicar, “should deal with Bruno, show him what had to be abjured, that he might confess his errors, amend his ways, and agree to abjure; and should try to bring him to the point as soon as possible.” Bruno, however, as they reported, stood firm, denying that he had made any heretical statements, and insisting that he had been misunderstood by the ministers of the Holy Office, and by his Holiness; and at the same meeting (20th of January 1600) a memorial from Bruno to the Pope, who was present, having been opened but not read, it was decreed “that further measures be proceeded to, servatis servandis, that sentence be passed, and that the said Friar Giordano be handed over to the secular authority.” On the 8th of February this decision was carried into effect, and he was placed in the hands of the Governor of Rome, with the usual recommendation that he be punished “with as great clemency as possible, and without effusion of blood”—the formula for burning at the stake. A witness of the passing of the sentence was Gaspar Schopp, a youthful but none the less fanatical convert from the reformed religion to Catholicism. It was a year of jubilee in Rome. Pope Clement was possessed of great diplomatic gifts, he had gained the submission of Henry IV. of France, had united France again with Spain, and detached it from England, and had quieted or lulled numerous disputes within the Church itself. Rome was therefore crowded with visitors, more so than usual even in a year of jubilee. Of the distinguished foreigners paying their homage to Clement, Gaspar Schopp was one; facile of tongue as of pen, he quickly gained the Pope’s favour, was made a knight of St. Peter, and a count of the Sacred Palace. This adept at coat-turning sent from Rome a letter to Conrad Rittershausen, which was for long the sole authority for Bruno’s death, but was held by Catholic writers on Bruno to be a forgery. In the face of the solid arguments and evidence forthcoming, Catholic reviewers even at the present day deny that Bruno was put to death. It is quite needless at this date to enter into the question of the authenticity of the letter, its assertion of Bruno’s punishment being the sole ground on which that was ever doubted.[126] We learn from it that Bruno was publicly reported in Rome to have been burned as a Lutheran; and one of the aims of Schopp in writing—which he did on the very day of Bruno’s death—was to prove the falsity of this report. He had heard the sentence pronounced, and its damnatory clauses he gives as the following:—(1) Bruno’s early doubts concerning and ultimate denial of the Transubstantiation, and of the virgin conception; (2) the publication in London of the Bestia Trionfanti, which was held to mean the Pope; (3) the “horrible absurdities” taught in his Latin writings, such as the infinite number of worlds, the transmigration of souls, the lawfulness and utility of magic, the Holy Spirit described as merely the soul of the world, the eternity of the world, Moses spoken of as an Egyptian working his miracles by magic—in which he excelled other Egyptians—and as having invented the decalogue, the Holy Scriptures a fable, the salvation of the devil, the Hebrews alone descended from Adam and Eve, other peoples from the men created the previous day; Christ not God, but an illustrious magician, who deceived men, and on that account was properly hanged (impiccato) and not crucified; the prophets and apostles corrupt men, magicians, who were for the most part hanged. “In fine, I should never have done were I to pass in review all the monstrosities he has advanced, whether in his books or by word of mouth. In one word, there is not an error of the pagan philosophers or of our heretics, ancient or modern, that he did not sustain.” The delay at Rome, it is suggested, was due to Bruno’s constant promises to retract, but he was only putting off his judges, and the duration of his imprisonment is given (officially?) at “about two years.” It is clear that on the occasion of the sentence being read the denouncements of Mocenigo, as well as all later evidences dragged from Bruno’s own lips, or picked up from his books, were recited for the benefit, presumably, of the visitors present. When the sentence was pronounced Bruno was degraded, excommunicated, and handed over to the secular magistrates, as we have seen. The whole letter is redeemed by the reply of Bruno to his judges—“Greater perhaps is your fear in pronouncing my sentence than mine in hearing it.” These strong words are almost the last we have of Bruno. At the stake he turned his eyes angrily away from the crucifix held before him. And so, adds Schopp, “he was burned and perished miserably, and is gone to tell, I suppose, in those other worlds of his fancy, how the blasphemous and impious are dealt with by the Romans!” It is pleasant to know that when Lord Digby was English ambassador to Spain he caused Gaspard Schopp to be horse-whipped.[127] For the degradation of Bruno, as we learn from the Register of the Depository-General of the Pontificate, two scudi of gold were paid to the Bishop of Sidonia. The memorable words he uttered at the time were reported by another than Schopp, the Count of Ventimiglia, who was a pupil of Bruno, and present at his death (perhaps at the sentence also)—“You who sentence me are in greater fear than I who am condemned”; and before his death Bruno recommended Ventimiglia “to follow in his glorious footsteps, to avoid prejudices and errors.”[128]

In the Avvisi and Ritorni of Rome, which represented, however meagrely, the newspapers of the time, two references to Bruno appeared, with short garbled accounts of him. In one he was spoken of as a Friar of S. Dominic, of Nola, burnt alive in the Campo di Fiori, an obstinate heretic, with his tongue tied, owing to the brutish words he uttered, refusing to listen to the comforters or others: in another he was reported as saying that he died a martyr, and willingly, and that his soul would ascend with the smoke to Paradise, “but now he knows whether he spoke the truth!” The fullest account, however, of his death, and one which should put to rest all doubts on the subject, is in the reports of the Company of St. John the Beheaded. This company—called also the Company of Mercy or Pity (della misericordia)—was instituted for the purpose of accompanying condemned heretics to the place of death, encouraging them to repent, to die with contrition for their sins. The priests bore tablets painted with images, which were presented to the condemned to kiss, from time to time, till the faggots were lit. Even the executioner was called to their aid occasionally, and the cruellest methods adopted to produce at least the appearance of kissing, and so of repentance. In obstinate cases, on the other hand, the tongue was tied, so that the heretic could not speak to the people. When the sufferers repented before death the Company took note of their last wishes, and they were buried in the tombs of the Cloister donated for that purpose by Innocent VIII., but if they were impenitent no will was allowed, and the ashes were abandoned to the winds of heaven. This must have happened in Bruno’s case, for there is no mention of will or of burial in the report. Its date is Thursday, 16th February (an error for 17th), and it reads thus:[129]—“At the second hour of the night it was intimated to the Company that an impenitent was to be executed in the morning; so at the sixth hour the comforters and the chaplain met at St. Ursula, and went to the prison of the Tower of Nona. After the customary prayers in the chapel there was consigned to them the under-mentioned condemned to death, viz. Giordano, son of the late Giovanni Bruno, an Apostate Friar of Nola in the Kingdom, an impenitent heretic. With all charity our brethren exhorted him to repent, and there were called two Fathers of St. Dominic, two of the Society of Jesus, two of the new Church, and one of St. Jerome, who, with all affection and much learning, showed him his error, but he remained to the end in his accursed obstinacy, his brain and intellect seething with a thousand errors and vanities. So, persevering in his obstinacy, he was led by the servants of justice to the Campo dei Fiori, there stripped, bound to a stake, and burnt alive, attended always by our Company chanting the litanies, the comforters exhorting him up to the last point to abandon his obstinacy, but in it finally he ended his miserable, unhappy life.”

So Bruno passed away; his ashes were scattered, his name almost forgotten. His death was the merest incident amid the great doings of the year of Jubilee. None of the many bishops and cardinals and distinguished visitors in Rome, with the single exception of Gaspard Schopp, makes any mention of the occurrence or of the man; and Schopp did so only because he wished to point a moral from the case. During his seven years’ imprisonment, Bruno had almost passed out of the short-lived memory of his fellowmen. Burnings of heretics were not infrequent spectacles, and required no special notice. Three years later (August 7, 1603) all his works were placed upon the Index, and consequently became rare. They were classed with other dangerous works on the black arts, and Bruno’s name became one to avoid.