[218] Levi, pp. 384–92. Levi relates (p. 390) that Bruno at the stake was heard to utter the words: “O Eterno, io fo uno sforzo supremo per attrarre in me quanto vi tra di più divino nell’universo.” He cites no authority. An Avviso reports that Bruno said his soul would rise with the smoke to Paradise (p. 386; Berti, p. 330), but does not state that this was said at the stake. And Levi accepts the other report that Bruno was gagged. [↑]
[219] Notably his comedy Il Candelaio. [↑]
[220] Owen, Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance, p. 357. A full narrative, from the documents, is given in R. C. Christie’s essay, “Vanini in England,” in the English Historical Review of April, 1895, reprinted in his Selected Essays and Papers, 1902. [↑]
[221] See it analysed by Owen, pp. 361–68, and by Carriere, Weltanschauung, pp. 496–504. [↑]
[222] Amphitheatrum, 1615, Exercit. xix, pp. 117–18. [↑]
[223] Amphitheatrum, Exercit. xxvii, p. 161. [↑]
[224] Id. pp. 72, 73, 78, 113, etc. [↑]
[225] P. 35. Machiavelli is elsewhere attacked. Pp. 36, 50. [↑]
[226] Julii Cæsaris Vanini Neapolitani, Theologi, Philosophi, et juris utriusque Doctoris, de Admirandis Naturæ Reginæque Deæque Mortalium Arcanis, libri quatuor. Lutetiæ, 1616. [↑]
[227] Mr. Owen makes a serious misstatement on this point, by which I was formerly misled. He writes (p. 369) that from the publisher’s preface we “learn that the Dialogues were not written by Vanini, but by his disciples. They are a collection of discursive conversations embodying their master’s opinions.” This is not what the preface says. It tells, after a high-pitched eulogy of Vanini, that “nos publicæ utilitatis solliciti, alia eius monumenta, quæ avarius retinebat, per idoneos ex scriptores nancisci curavimus.” In ascribing the matter of the dialogues to Vanini’s young days, Mr. Owen forgets the references to the Amphitheatrum. [↑]