The dark chapel of the Rucellai, in the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, has a dingy altar-piece representing the Virgin and the infant Christ. Cimabue painted it; and when it was finished the Florentines made a holiday, and bore the picture through the streets, amid great rejoicing, to the chapel where it now hangs. That stiff and awkward Madonna, that doll-like Child, were hailed by them as the highest achievement of painting. For us Cimabue’s masterpiece has only an historic interest,—we find no charm in its Byzantine rigidness. Yet that crude work was the seed of Italian painting, and if we follow its growth during three centuries we shall be led to the “Paradise” of Tintoret, in which are embodied all the excellences and advances of the painter’s art. Between that humble beginning and that glorious culmination an army of artists and myriads of paintings intervene. If we look deep enough, we shall be conscious that they were all agents whereby a mighty spirit was seeking to express itself to man,—a spirit which first appealed to human piety through the symbols of religion, and which, as its agents acquired skill and reach, bodied itself forth in higher images and in conscious forms. The name of that spirit is Beauty, never to be found perfect in the outer world, but known as it communicates through the senses portents of itself which the soul sublimes into that ideal unity by which the laws of nature and the destiny of man are beheld in their highest aspect. True Worship, as in the sweet piety of Fra Angelico, led to Beauty; to Beauty also, along an inevitable path, led the pursuit of Truth by the sixteenth century masters, latest among whom was Tintoret: for Beauty is the final seal and test of both Holiness and Truth.
GIORDANO BRUNO: HIS TRIAL, OPINIONS, AND DEATH[27]
[27] First printed in The Atlantic Monthly, March, 1890.
I
On Saturday, the 23d of May, 1592, Giovanni Mocenigo, son of the late excellent Marcantonio Mocenigo, addressed to the Father Inquisitor of Venice a letter containing charges of heresy against Giordano Bruno, the Nolan. Among other things, he alleged that Bruno had said “that it is a great blasphemy to say, as Catholics do, that bread is changed to flesh; that he is hostile to the mass; that no religion satisfies him; that Christ was a good-for-nothing, and did wretched tricks to seduce the people, and ought to have been hanged; that there is no separating God into persons; that the world is eternal; that worlds are infinite, and God makes an infinite number of them continually; that Christ wrought apparent miracles and was a magician, and so were the Apostles; that Christ showed that he died unwillingly, and evaded death as long as he could; that there is no punishment of sins; and that souls created by the agency of nature pass from one animal into another; and that as the brutes are begotten of corruption, so also are men. Further, he has denied that the Virgin could have borne a child; he asserted that our Catholic faith is full of blasphemies against the majesty of God; that he wished to give himself to the diviner’s art, and draw the whole world after him; that St. Thomas and all the doctors were blockheads compared with himself. Therefore, urged by my conscience and by command of my confessor, I have denounced this Bruno to the Holy Office. Suspecting that he might depart, I have locked him up in one of my rooms, at your requisition; and because I believe him possessed of a demon, I pray you to take speedy resolution concerning him.”
Two days later, this Mocenigo, of whom we know no more than that he belonged to one of the illustrious families of Venice, and was thirty-four years of age, added to his accusations: “On that day when I had Giordano Bruno locked up, on my asking him if he would teach me what he had promised, in view of the many courtesies and gifts he had had from me, so that I might not accuse him of the many wicked words which he had said to me, both against our Lord and against the Holy Catholic Church, he replied that he was not afraid of the Inquisition, because he offended nobody in living as he chose; and then that he did not remember to have said anything bad to me, and that even if he had said it he had said it to me alone, and that he did not fear that I could harm him in this way, and that, even should he come under the hand of the Inquisition, it could at the most force him to wear his friar’s gown again.”
On May 29, Mocenigo, who had in the mean time, at the suggestion of the Inquisition, dredged in the slimy depths of his memory for other charges, informed the Father Inquisitor that he had heard Bruno say “that the forms which the Church now uses are not those which the Apostles used, because the Apostles, by preaching and by example of a good life, converted the people, but that now he who will not be a Catholic must suffer the rod and punishment, because force is used, and not love; that the world could not go on thus, because now only ignorance, and not religion, is good; that the Catholic religion pleased him more than the others, but that it had need of great formalities, which was not right, but very soon the world would see itself reformed, because it was impossible that such corruption should endure. He told me, too, that now, when the greatest ignorance flourishes which the world ever had, some glory in having the greatest knowledge there ever was, because they say they know what they do not understand,—which is, that God can be one and three,—and that these are impossibilities, ignorances, and most shocking blasphemies against the majesty of God. Besides this, he said that he liked women hugely, and that the Church committed a great sin in calling sin that which is according to nature.”
After these charges, we hear no more of this latter-day Judas, Giovanni Mocenigo. Honest we can hardly deem him, for he confesses that he intended to betray Bruno long before he did betray him, and only delayed till he should gather sufficient damning evidence against him. And so we dismiss him to join the despicable crew of those who were traitors to their lords and benefactors.
The Inquisition examined four other witnesses. Two booksellers, Ciotto and Bertano, deposed that they had known Bruno at Frankfort-on-the-Main, whither they went to attend the famous book-fairs; that they had not heard him say aught which caused them to believe he was not a Catholic and a good Christian; but that he had the reputation of being a philosopher, who spent his time in writing and “in meditating new things.” Andrea Morosini, a gentleman of noble birth, testified that during the recent months Bruno had been at his house, whither divers gentlemen and also prelates were wont to meet to discuss letters, and principally philosophy; but that he had never inferred from Bruno’s remarks that he held opinions contrary to the faith. Finally, Fra Domenico da Nocera, of the Order of Preachers, deposed that “one day, near the feast of Pentecost, as I was coming out of the sacristy of the church of John and Paul, a layman, whom I did not know, bowed to me, and presently engaged in conversation. He said he was a friar of our province of Naples, a man of letters; Fra Giordano of Nola, his name. So we sought out a retired part of the aforesaid church. Then he told me how he had renounced the gown; of the many kingdoms he had traversed, and the royal courts, with his important exercises in letters; but that he had always lived as a Catholic. And I asking him what he was doing in Venice, and how he was living, he said that he had been in Venice but very few days, and was living comfortably; that he proposed to get tranquillity and write a book he had in his head, and to present it to his Holiness, for the quiet of his conscience and in order to be allowed to remain in Rome, and there devote himself to literary work, to show his ability, and perhaps to obtain a lectureship.”