V

THE VENETIAN TRIAL

If, most illustrious gentleman, I worked a plow, pastured a flock, cultivated an orchard, and tailored a garment, no one would look at me, few would observe me, by very few would I be reprehended and I could easily be pleasing to everybody. But since I am a delineator of the field of nature, solicitous concerning the pasture of the soul, enamored of the cultivation of the mind, and a Daedalus as regards the habits of the intellect, behold one who, having cast his glance upon me, threatens me, one who, having observed me, assails me, another who, having attained me, bites me, and another who, having apprehended me, devours me. It is not one person, it is not a few, it is many, it is almost all.

—Giordano Bruno

THE TRIAL OF Giordano Bruno began on May 26, 1592, in the Patriarchal Palace, positioned opposite the prison on the Rio di Palazzo. Unlike the Roman Inquisition, the Venetian equivalent was at least accountable to the government. The Romans could get away with almost anything because all trials were held in secret; in Venice one of three assessors for the state called savii all’eresia, who were changed every year and who remained under the direction of the governor throughout a trial, reported each day all that happened in court. Three judges were present at each hearing (the patriarch and two others) and were known collectively as “the Three.” Accompanying them was the assessor, who could halt the proceedings immediately if he believed the trial deviated from the letter of the law.

Hearings of the Venetian Inquisition were not merely show trials; the state was proud of its oligarchical system and placed great importance upon procedure and legal correctness. However, though they were liberal for the time, such trials ran according to legal processes we would barely recognize today. Bruno was allowed no advocate and had to answer his charges alone. He was given no time for preparation, no access to information, texts, precedents, or indeed any form of communication with the outside world. And, empowered by the Bulls of Innocent IV, Cum negocium and Licet sicut acceptimus, both delivered in 1250, the court at no time provided Bruno with the name of his accuser, only the claims against him. Furthermore, although it was a self-regulated body and the presence of the assessor was respected, the records of the hearing were never made public, all processes were conducted in private, and everyone involved was constrained by an oath of silence. Most alarming, Bruno’s judges were skilled and practiced in the art of extracting information from the accused, experts in twisting words and leading both witnesses and victims into unwise admissions. These men were ecclesiastics who wished to portray the view that the earthly realm meant little, that the world to come was everything. They placed little importance upon the physical well-being of the accused and believed they could do almost anything in the name of God. Fired up by prejudice, energized by peer pressure, and with dogma and conviction as sustenance, they wielded immense, terrifying power. Although the Venetian state had moved closer to egalitarianism than any other Western society, we must never forget that powerful men of the sixteenth century had, almost without exception, acquired their power through cruelty, ambition, and ruthless energy; dealing with such men demanded caution.

Bruno’s trial was represented for the state by the current patriarch, Laurentio Priuli, a former Venetian ambassador to Paris. The other two judges were the apostolic nuncio, Ludovico Taberna, and the Father Inquisitor, the Very Reverend Father Giovanni Gabrielle of Saluzzo. The panel was completed by Aloysio Fuscari, the assessor. During the days leading up to the hearing, the three judges had read, in private conclave, two specially prepared reports written for them by Bruno’s accuser, Giovanni Mocenigo.

In the first, composed on May 24, the day after Bruno’s arrest, Mocenigo begins by describing his motivations for deceiving Bruno. “I am compelled by my conscience and the order of my Confessor,” he writes, and then goes on to offer clear evidence of the contrite nature of his actions against Bruno and how, all along, he was serving his Inquisition masters. “Since you have favored me with so much forbearance by pardoning my error in delaying my tardy accusation, I pray you to excuse it before these Illustrious Lords, since my intention was good; for I could not get at the whole matter at once; nor did I know the vileness of the man until I had kept him in my house some two months…and then I desired to get the better of him and by my dealings with him could be certain that he would not make off without my knowledge. Thus I have always assured myself of being able to make him come under the censure of the Holy Office. This I have succeeded in doing.”¹

In this first statement it appears Mocenigo is trying to recover from some embarrassment or an error he had made during the process. It may have been that Mocenigo had convinced both himself and his masters that Bruno would be any easy catch. Bruno’s initial refusal to stay in Mocenigo’s palace must have been a galling setback and delayed the Inquisition’s plans.

The apologies over, Mocenigo then offered what constituted his gathered evidence against Bruno, a confection of undoubtedly accurate statements along with half-truths, exaggerations, and what was almost certainly plain fiction.

“At various times when he has talked with me at home [he] said that Catholics were much to blame in holding that bread becomes flesh; that he was an enemy of the Mass; that no religion pleases him; that Christ was a wretch; that he might very well foretell his being hanged, since he did evil to seduce the people. [Bruno said] that there was no distinction of Persons of God, which would be an imperfection; that the world is eternal and that there are infinite worlds, and that God unceasingly makes infinities because he wills as much as he can. [Bruno claimed] that Christ worked miracles in appearance and was a magician; the same of the Apostles, and that he might be given the mind to do as much and more; that Christ showed he was unwilling to die, and put it off as long as he could; that there is no punishment of sins, and that souls, created by the operation of nature, pass from one animal to another, and that, even as brute beasts are born of corruption, so are men, who are born again after deluges.”

This hodgepodge is fascinating because of the sheer breadth of the accusations. Clearly, some of Mocenigo’s claims are rather hackneyed and strikingly similar to those found in the statements made against other known heretics. Indeed, it is hard to imagine anyone in the religious climate of the time admitting to someone they hardly knew their conviction that they were “an enemy of the Mass; that no religion pleases him; that Christ was a wretch; that he might very well foretell his being hanged, since he did evil to seduce the people.”

However, other remarks fit neatly into Bruno’s worldview. His claims for reincarnation and transmigration of souls would not have been alien to him, as these were ideas derived from many ancient religions with which he was quite familiar. The idea that men and other animals are, in essence, one and the same—“even as brute beasts are born of corruption, so are men”—is entirely consistent with Bruno’s pantheism. And, of course, infinite worlds and the eternal nature of the physical realm are core Bruno beliefs. Furthermore, claims that Bruno condemned the concept of the Holy Trinity could be hardly surprising, as it lay at the foundation of Bruno’s support for Arianism; the only surprise is that Bruno should confess to such extreme heresy.

Mocenigo’s statement continued:

“He set forth a design to form a new sect, under the name of the New Philosophy; said the Virgin could not have brought forth a child, and that our Catholic faith is full of blasphemy against the Majesty of God; that the disputes and revenues of friars should be stopped, because they befoul the earth; that they are asses and their doctrines asinine; that we have no proof that our faith is endorsed by God, and that to abstain from doing to others what we are unwilling they should do to us is enough for a good life; he is in favor of all other sins, and that it is a marvel God endures so many heresies of Catholics; he says he desires to apply himself to divination, and all the world would follow him; that St. Thomas (Aquinas) and all the doctors knew nothing, and that he could enlighten the first theologians in the world so that they would be unable to reply.”²

Mocenigo ends with a reminder that the Inquisition had prepared a total of no fewer than 130 charges against Bruno, starting with his desertion of the Monastery of St. Domenico. He stated his belief that Bruno was possessed by the Devil and that others would bear witness to his claims, including the Venetian booksellers Ciotto (Giovanni Battista) and Andrea Morosini. Mocenigo then accompanied this statement with a collection of items stolen from Bruno, including three printed works by other philosophers and a manuscript believed to have been penned by Bruno himself.

Again, this part of Mocenigo’s statement contains a similar blend of fact and fiction. It is highly unlikely Bruno would have expressed such feelings about Aquinas. Ironically we have here one of the faithful (Mocenigo) using an example of a favored figure from orthodox theology (Aquinas) to hold a claim of heresy against Bruno; but Aquinas had two faces: the one adopted by later churchmen as the epitome of Catholic convention; the other, unknown beyond the circle of European occultists, that of the mystic and alchemist.

Again Mocenigo goes too far and slides into cliché. When Bruno merely repeats the words of Christ, “to abstain from doing to others what we are unwilling they should do to us is enough for a good life,” his betrayer adds, “…he is in favor of all other sins.”

Yet, the most damaging accusation is Mocenigo’s contention that Bruno wanted to debase the Church and create a new sect. In making this assumption Mocenigo had nothing to go on but hearsay. Rumors about Bruno’s intentions had been circulating among underground figures since his return from England, and some may have assumed that the only move Bruno could make would be to follow the example of others and gather initiates to form a sect. Bruno had, however, surprised everyone by returning to Italy with just one servant.

Nevertheless, a central concern for the Inquisition was the fear that heretics might effectively challenge orthodox theology. They had plenty of reason to fear such a thing, Luther and Calvin were only the most famous and successful examples of the heterodox rebelling against the established Church. Hundreds of other sects had come and gone in recent centuries, and the hard attitude of the Church only encouraged revolution. More than any single quality, the Catholic Church cherished the notion of its own uniqueness; its, it believed, was the singular true path to enlightenment, and the pope, in direct communion with the One God, was the only guide to heaven. Leaders of the Holy Church had discarded the lives of tens of thousands of crusaders as though they were worthless garbage, and through the use of the Inquisition, they had exterminated tens of thousands of innocents, scything humanity without compunction in order to maintain the authority of the Vatican and its incredible hold over the faithful. Naturally, then, any deviation from orthodoxy was deemed intolerable. In the eyes of the pope, the Inquisition, the Dominicans, and the Franciscans, the offense of the heretic was always the same, the heinous crime of attempting to undermine the status quo. Every statement of the accusers offered a belief that the poor soul on trial was attempting to create disorder and to supplant the God-given power of Rome.

Yet, strikingly, in Bruno’s case, Mocenigo’s statement seems to have fallen short, because after submitting this missive, he was asked to furnish a second statement before the trial could begin. So, as Bruno languished in his cell not knowing what was to happen to him, completely isolated from the outside world and unaware of the deliberations surrounding his arrest, Mocenigo dredged his memory for more evidence and wrote:

“On the day when I held Bruno locked up, I asked him if he would fulfill his promises concerning what he proved unwilling to teach me in return for my many acts of kindness and gifts, so that I might not accuse him of so many wicked words to me against our Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Catholic Church. He replied that he had no dread of the Inquisition, for he had offended no one in his way of living and could not recall having said anything wicked; and, even if he had done so, he had said it to me without any witness being present, and therefore he did not fear that I could injure him in that way, and even if I should be handed over to the Inquisition, they could only force him to resume his habit. ‘So you were a monk,’ said I. He replied, ‘I took the first habit, and therefore, in any case, I could readily adjust matters.’ I followed up with, ‘And how can you adjust your affairs if you do not believe in the most Holy Trinity; if you say such wicked things of Our Lord Jesus Christ; if you hold our souls to be made of filth and everything in the world guided by Fate, as you have told me on several occasions? You must needs first adjust your opinions, and the rest will be easy; and if you wish, I will give you all the aid I can, that you may know that, although you have so broken your word and been so ungrateful for all my kindness, I still wish in every way to be your friend.’ At this he only prayed me to set him free; if he had packed his things and told me he wished to leave, he did not mean it, but wished to bridle my impatience to be taught, wherein I perpetually tormented him, and, if I would set him at liberty, he would teach me all he knew; moreover, he would disclose the secret of all his works to me alone; also, that he meditated writing others, which should be beautiful and exceptional; he would be my slave with no further reward than what I have given; and, if I wanted all he had in my house, it should be mine, for in every way he owed everything to me: all he wanted was a little book of conjurations which I found among his writings”³

In some ways this is a more potent account than the first. Mocenigo here seems to be running away with himself in a desperate effort to convince the Inquisition he has carried through the job assigned to him. At the beginning of this statement he becomes so wrapped up in his claims that he reaches an amazing tautology by telling Bruno he will not report him if the magus will finally submit to teaching him the occult arts.

In most ways, though, this second statement is little more than a reiteration of the first, for Mocenigo had clearly run out of ideas or accusations to pin on Bruno. The fact that Bruno had formerly been a monk was certainly no news at all, and the further hints that Bruno was planning to write more heretical texts and wanted only to keep a “little book of conjurations” is merely further spice for the judges. It also carries with it further suggestions that Mocenigo had tried desperately hard to ensnare Bruno and had acted with vigilance and determination; Mocenigo never missed an opportunity for self-aggrandizement. Yet, despite working hard to portray himself as a benevolent, faithful Christian who wanted to bring the heretic to enlightenment, Mocenigo’s characterization of Bruno was ridiculously muddled. Bruno was certainly a heretic, but he was definitely not a man to beg for mercy because a nobleman had placed him under house arrest.

And yet, in spite of the inconsistencies and the sheer amateurishness of Mocenigo’s writing and the actions described in his report, the Venetian judges were swayed by it enough to endorse the arrest and to place Giordano Bruno on trial before the Inquisition, believing such a move lawful and justifiable. Of course, they had wanted to do this all along, but they needed to support the decision with sufficient evidence. Mocenigo’s report was shoddy, to say the least; however, to men who knew nothing of Bruno’s character (and little if anything of his philosophies) but were keen to persecute a heretic, it was good enough. The trial was set to begin the following day, Tuesday, May 26, 1592.

The court was positioned in the heart of the complex of buildings around the Doges’ Palace, the windows barred and the doors guarded at all times. The judges and the assessor, resplendent in their robes of office, sat in high-backed, cushioned chairs on a raised platform and formed a small arch with a bare wooden stool for the accused facing them. To one side, the witnesses stood facing the rest of the court. On the other side were two rows of chairs for government officials and senior public figures there by invitation and sworn to secrecy. The clerk to the court sat in a lower part of the room close to the witnesses so he could report everything he saw and heard.

First to be called to the chair was one of Bruno’s inner circle in Venice, Giovanni Battista, often known as Ciotto. Ciotto was a man long used to the system employed by the Inquisition. As a seller of arcane literature, some of which undoubtedly crossed the invisible line between orthodoxy and heresy, he would have been as well equipped as anyone could be to face the sort of questions posed by Laurentio Priuli, Ludovico Taberna, and the Father Inquisitor, Giovanni Gabrielle.

Father Gabrielle began by asking Ciotto to describe how he came to know of Mocenigo and his links with Giordano Bruno. Ciotto replied in a matter-of-fact manner. “I was about to start for the Frankfurt Fair last Easter when Signor G. Mocenigo found me and asked me if I were going thither. He said: ‘I have him [Giordano Bruno] here at my expense. He has promised to teach me many things and has had a quantity of clothes and money from me on this account. I can bring him to no conclusion. I doubt whether he is quite trustworthy. So, since you are going to Frankfurt, keep this in mind, and do me the service to find out if anyone has faith in him and if he will carry out his promises.’ By reason of this, when I was in Frankfurt I spoke with several scholars who had attended his lectures when he was in the city and were acquainted with his method and discourse. What they told me amounted to this, that Giordano made strong professions of memory and other similar secrets, but success with anyone was never seen, and his pupils in this matter and others similar were far from satisfied. They said more. They did not know how he could remain in Venice, for he is regarded as a man without religion. This is all I gathered, and I told it to Ser Giovanni when I returned from the fair, whereto he replied: ‘I also had my doubts of this; but I wish to find out what I can draw from him of the instructions he has promised me, not to lose altogether what I have given him, and then I shall hand him over to the Censure of the Holy Office.’”⁴

This is the statement of a cautious man placed in a dangerous situation. The Venetian authorities certainly did not turn an entirely blind eye to the selling of occult literature, but neither were they keen to stifle any form of trade, the lifeblood of the city, so a delicate mutual respect enabled the tradesmen to prosper and the ecclesiastics to remain content. However, before the Inquisition, men like Ciotto had to tread very carefully, even in Venice. On the one hand, if their account lent too much sympathy for the prosecution, then they would be seen within the community of occultists as untrustworthy and their businesses would suffer. On the other, if they offered too much support for the accused, they could be suspected themselves and face similar persecution over their own often questionable affairs.

Consequently, Ciotto’s statement says very little. He abrogates any remarks that might be construed as suspicious by placing comments in the mouths of others, and it is clear that what he told Mocenigo was meant to dissuade the man from persisting with Bruno. We must remember that Ciotto was an associate of Bruno’s; everything in this statement points to an attempt to both underplay Bruno’s art and to distance himself from it without slandering Mocenigo or anyone else.

Next to offer evidence was another bookseller of Bruno’s acquaintance, Jacobus Britanus, a middle-aged man from Antwerp who had lived in Venice for some years and was known to Italians as Giacomo Bertano. The bookseller was read a section of Mocenigo’s first statement, in which his name had been used to support Mocenigo’s accusations against Bruno. Father Gabrielle’s voice cut through the silence of the courtroom as he repeated Mocenigo’s words:

“‘Britanus in particular spoke of him to me, declaring him to be an enemy of Christianity and our faith, and that he had heard him utter great heresy.’ What say you to this?”⁵

Britanus, another friend of Bruno’s, another who had shared with him Hermetic secrets in the darkened rooms of mutual acquaintances, stared resolutely at the Father Inquisitor. “I utterly refute that statement,” he said crisply. “He was chiefly occupied in writing and in the vain and chimerical imagining of novelties,” he added.

The clerk to the court then reported that the patriarch, Laurentio Priuli, rose and adjoined the court until the following Friday, May 29.

On the morning of the twenty-ninth, Britanus was questioned once more and claimed he knew nothing of Bruno’s character, that they had hardly discussed religion or spiritual matters and that he was only vaguely acquainted with Bruno. The court adjourned for lunch, and in the afternoon, Bruno was, for the first time, subjected to cross-examination. As Bruno took his seat, the clerk to the court recorded his impressions of the prisoner. “Giordano Bruno is,” he wrote, “…of ordinary height, with a chestnut-colored beard and looking about his age of forty.”⁶

The atmosphere was tense and Bruno was very nervous. Just as Priuli ordered the accused to tell the truth, Bruno suddenly burst out: “I shall tell the truth. Often I have been threatened with the Holy Office and I deemed it a joke; so I am quite ready to furnish an account of myself.”⁷ As he spoke, his voice trembled and he waved his hands before him, gesticulating earnestly. For six days Bruno had been left alone in his tiny cell to contemplate his fate, and now perhaps for the first time he had come to realize the seriousness of the situation. Perhaps for the first time he caught the distant crackle of flames, the faint whiff of his own burning flesh.

The judges appraised the man before them. They had been furnished with copies of some of his works, which they had read with growing disdain, and they had been provided with a report on Bruno’s life, his travels, his ideas, and his philosophy. As the court fell silent, and Bruno, a small, disheveled figure sat, Gabrielle leaned forward in his chair and began the questioning. The exchange of question and answer continued without a break long into the evening of May 29, and from this and subsequent days of interrogation a picture of Bruno began to emerge, his life story and the beliefs and convictions to which he was then willing to admit. The records of these represent the only surviving account of the chronology of Bruno’s life. What follows is an amalgamation of his statements that help to construct an image of Bruno, the heretic.

 

He was born Felipe Bruno in the tiny town of Nola at the foot of Mount Vesuvius close to Naples; ashes were in his blood. The monastery he had been sent to seemed to the boy to be an enchanted place where his natural inclination for learning could be best encouraged. Only as he grew older and learned more, only as he began to conceive a broader canvas, could he see fissures in what he was taught, anomalies, inconsistencies, and lies.

“One day,” he told the court, “during a discussion with Montalcino, one of our order, in the company of other fathers, he Montalcino] said that heretics were ignorant folk and used no scholastic terms; whereto I replied that indeed they did not set forth their conclusions in the scholastic manner; but they came to the point, as did the fathers of the Church. Then I showed the view of Arius to be less dangerous than it was commonly taken to be; for it was generally understood that Arius meant to teach that the Word was the first creation of the Father; and I explained that Arius said the Word was neither Creator nor Created, but intermediary between the Creator and the creature, just as the spoken word is an intermediary between the speaker and the meaning he sets forth; and that, for this reason, it is called the First-born before all creatures, through which, and out of which all things are; not to which, but through which all things return to their final end, which is the Father.”⁸

In 1576, Bruno fled the monastery after he had been threatened with an appearance before the local Inquisitor where he would have faced charges of harboring heretical views and reading forbidden texts. He changed his name and discarded his cowl. For short periods he found sanctuary in local monasteries, but always his reputation caught up with him and he was forced to move on in the still of night, traveling through the darkened countryside to the next temporary haven, ever wary, ever fearful.

Placing faith in a place in which he hoped he would become anonymous, he headed for Rome. He wished to be allowed to settle there, to teach, to write in peace, but he was to stay only a few weeks before moving on once more, the authorities ever only one step behind him. “I learned,” he admitted, “that after leaving Naples, certain works of St. Chrysostom and St. Jerome containing the forbidden annotations of Erasmus, which I had secretly used and thrown into the privy when I came away to prevent their being found, were discovered.”⁹ Soon after this, he learned that he had been excommunicated in absentia.

Now nowhere in Italy was safe for him. In his statement to the Inquisition, Mocenigo had reported that Bruno had “told me that the Inquisition sought a quarrel with him in Rome on 130 points, and that he made off while they were being presented because he was credited with throwing the informer, or the man whom he believed to be such, into the Tiber.”¹⁰

Our knowledge of this episode is further confused by a statement found in the diary of a librarian named Guillaume Cotin whom Bruno met during the mid-1580s. The diary was discovered during the nineteenth century in the Bibliothèque Nationale and is believed to be genuine. In it, Cotin remarks: “7th December. [1585]. Jordanus came again…. He has been an exile from Italyeight years, as much by reason of a murder committed by his brother [meaning a fellow priest], whereby he incurred hatred and peril of life, as to escape the calumnies of Inquisitors, who are ignorant men, and, not understanding his philosophy, declare him to be a heretic.”¹¹

Strikingly, at the Venetian trial (and later in Rome) the Inquisitors appeared to have no interest in this incident and ignored this attempt of Mocenigo’s to sensationalize further his claims against the Nolan. Clearly Bruno had become involved with some disreputable characters in Rome. He was, we must always remember, a fugitive. He was living in the very bosom of the enemy, walking the same roads, sharing the very air the Inquisitors breathed. By necessity he would have been forced to live furtively, associating with criminals and other heretics, away from unwanted gaze. But the Inquisitors now seemed to have little interest in the events in Rome; either they had been satisfied of his innocence or else they had decided to ignore the issue because they did not want the question of a possible murder, however distant, to overshadow the claims of heresy.¹²

Whatever the circumstances of Bruno’s involvement in this murder, immediately after the incident, he was prompted to act more resolutely than he had since leaving his order. He immediately left the capital, temporarily reverted to his Christian name of Felipe, and traveled as far as he could with the resources then available to him, to Genoa, some two hundred miles to the north.

But again, he did not stay long. From Genoa he took the road to Turin and then made the journey to Venice. There he found plague and the horror of tens of thousands dead. He moved on again and quickly found another temporary sanctuary in Padua. “Leaving Venice, I went to Padua,” Bruno told his judges, “…where Leaving Venice, I went to Padua,” Bruno told his judges, “…where I found some Dominican fathers of my acquaintance. They persuaded me to wear my habit again, showing me that it was more convenient to travel with than without it. With this idea in my mind, I went to Bergamo and had a robe made of cheap white cloth, and over this I wore the scapular which I had kept with me when I left Rome.”¹³

Traveling once more as a monk, Bruno left Padua for Milan, about ninety miles to the northwest. By this time he had been traveling for more than two years and he must have been exhausted and beginning to feel the strain. The itinerant life provided freedom and the chance of adventure, but it was a desperately hard path to follow. He had little money, and roadside accommodations were almost universally appalling. He would have been obliged to stay in filthy inns, sharing cramped, rat-infested rooms with others. His fellow travelers would have been a ramshackle bunch, for anyone with decent money would have stayed somewhere better. In cheap inns, travelers were frequently robbed and many were murdered in their beds or on the straw-covered floor, bludgeoned or knifed for a few pennies or a pair of new boots. And aside from the human threat, plague and a host of other diseases were a constant danger.

But such a life also brought Bruno into contact with a great variety of people. Swapping the isolation and security of the monastery, he now faced danger but also rubbed shoulders with other philosophers and thinkers, traveling musicians, poets and actors, down-at-the-heels merchants and peripatetic preachers. He was in touch with the world, and this evidently flowed into his thinking and his writing and provided him with many of the characters that would later people his great books, figures through whom he could expostulate his ideas and philosophies.

In Milan, Bruno met Philip Sidney, the English nobleman and poet who would remain a lifelong friend and to whom Bruno later dedicated his The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast. They were introduced by a group of scholars living in the city, philosophers who bridged the world of the peripatetic occultists, the alchemists, and the heretical monks with that of wealthy travelers and nobility who were known to be interested in clandestine truths and secret cabala. But Milan and this circle were to join the rapidly shifting landscape of Bruno’s life, for he stayed there only a week or two before taking the advice of friends and heading for Geneva. Here the Calvinists had made their stronghold and provided sanctuary for Protestant sympathizers and some antipapists.

John Calvin had established his church in Geneva almost forty years before Bruno arrived there. In 1579, Calvin had been in his grave fifteen years, but his influence remained almost undiminished. The city provided a haven for Protestants, who still referred to it as “the City of God,” just as they had when Calvin had walked its streets. The largely Protestant population still followed the strict ethical and theological code laid out in Calvin’s “Institutes,” believing that every action and all life should serve the sole purpose of glorifying God. They scorned most progressive or liberal thinking.

So why would Bruno of all people think of going there of all places? He was quite aware of the fate that had awaited Michael Servetus only a quarter of a century earlier. It seems that for the thirty-one-year-old Bruno, curiosity was a more powerful force than fear. “I often went to hear heretics preach or dispute rather through curiosity as to their ways than because I found them inviting,” he told the Venetian judges of his time in Geneva. “…Nor had I satisfaction: so that after the reading or sermon, when the time came for the sacrament and the distribution of bread in their style, I went about my business. I have never taken the sacrament or observed their practices.”¹⁴

Inevitably, Bruno soon ran into trouble among the Protestants. With misplaced confidence, he began teaching, and for the first time he openly attacked Aristotle. His judgment was indeed faulty. The Calvinists had reinterpreted the Bible to suit their theological disposition, but in some ways they were every bit as traditional as the Catholics. They remained loyal to Aristotelianism, and like their Catholic enemies, they viewed his philosophy as a central pillar of their theology, a suitable and accurate portrayal of God’s physical universe. So Bruno could hardly have been surprised when after publishing a strongly worded anti-Aristotelian tract, he found himself brought before the Church authorities. Yet, according to the city records, Bruno seems to have taken the matter lightly. “Neither did he excuse himself nor plead guilty,” the report runs, “…for [he claimed] the matter had not been truly reported.” The record concludes, “It was decided that he should be thoroughly reprimanded and allowed to partake of the sacrament. The said reprimand to free him from his transgression; for which he humbly offered thanks.”¹⁵

Apparently on this occasion the city elders were in a forgiving mood, but Bruno was less than inspired by Calvinist ways. He would later write of the philosophers he found in Geneva, “Among ten kinds of teachers there is not to be found one who has not formed to himself a Catechism ready to be published to the world, if not published already, approving no other institution but his own, finding in all others something to be considered, disapproved or doubted of; besides that, the greater part of them disagree with themselves, blotting out today what they had written yesterday.”

And before the Venetian court, he declared, “I have read books by…Calvin and other heretics, not to acquire their doctrine or for improvement, for I think them more ignorant than myself, but out of sheer curiosity.”¹⁶ His curiosity quickly sated, before his luck might turn, Bruno wisely moved on again, this time returning to France, where he took a brief sojourn in Lyon before traveling on to Toulouse.

Again, this was a strange choice. Although the University of Toulouse had a reputation for academic excellence, the city itself was one of the most intolerant in France, staunchly orthodox, dominated by Catholic zealots; it would hardly seem to offer a peaceful haven for Bruno.

But we should not be too surprised by Bruno’s decision. Indeed, to be puzzled by it is to miss the true essence of his character. For by this time he must have come to see himself as something of a noble fugitive, a crusader. He had been forced to move from city to city, just one step ahead of persecution, and he was beginning to harden to this peripatetic life. He had resisted the persecution of the Calvinists and remained unconvinced by their doctrine, but we must not underestimate the risks he had taken in making such decisions.

Bruno seems to have been drawn to Toulouse by the very fact that it represented a challenge. Disregarding its doctrinal leanings, he began to teach there and became immersed in new work, starting one of his earliest treatises, his first mature study of memory, Clavis magna (The Great Key). He joined a literary society called the Palace Academy and was soon accepted as a scholar by the university authorities; he was even awarded an official appointment to teach Aristotle. But once again, his heretical ideologies were quickly noticed and he ran into trouble, so that within months of his arrival, he was forced to leave. As he described it to the Venetian Inquisition, “I left on account of the civil wars, and went on to Paris.”¹⁷

Bruno arrived in the French capital late in 1581. He had been traveling for four years and had settled nowhere for longer than a few months. He had little money and few credentials that would hold him in good stead in this divided Catholic city, and still he was forced to be ever watchful of Vatican spies and agents of the Inquisition. Once more, he had descended into a viper’s nest, perhaps the most dangerous place for him outside Italy. By 1581, Paris had been ravaged by almost two decades of religious wars, its streets were ruined, the buildings decaying and misused, the population disproportionately skewed toward women and the old because so many young men had been killed. It was a place where murder was easy and often went unpunished, and provided yet another dismal backdrop for Bruno’s odd misanthropy, his desperate, passionate mission.

But within the intellectual circles of Paris, Bruno was already a famous man. His teachings and writings had been judged not only by those who would persecute him; he had made useful inroads into the small but influential community of cabalists and wealthy radicals, curious about the occult and mystic practices. Encouraged by his reception among these people, he began a series of public lectures, which drew the attention of sympathizers at the University of Paris. With surprising speed, he was offered a chair and had soon attracted the attention of King Henry himself. “I got me such a name that King Henry III summoned me one day…. He gave me an Extraordinary lectureship with a salary,” Bruno reported proudly to the Inquisition.¹⁸

But once again the good times were not to last; how could they when Bruno was deliberately entering a war zone that had been created by religious conflict? How could he avoid making enemies when he was expostulating in detail and for all to hear his extreme views and then, with the support of only a few friends, securing himself academic positions and court favors that gave him a high public profile? He was playing dangerously and parading his fearless heresies; it could not last.

But at first he had enjoyed the protection of the highest power in the land and had formed a close and genuine relationship with Henry. The king was an individualist, a maverick, but not unintelligent. He has been described as a pervert and a hedonist, and by others as an anomaly, a crazed, irresponsible amoralist, and throughout his relatively short life (he died a few weeks before his thirty-eighth birthday) he generated intense reactions from both his own people and foreigners. Bruno was drawn to him perhaps as a fellow traveler on a path less well trodden, and the two men shared a rebelliousness and a taste for the unorthodox. Henry was fortunate enough to have been born into a royal family; with this background he could happily indulge himself. Bruno was a man of very different intellectual caliber but enjoyed none of Henry’s privileges. He was a seeker of Truth but chased something starkly different from Henry’s pure hedonism. Nevertheless, there was an empathy between the two, and because of this (and for his own ends) Henry was prepared to assist Bruno. He could neither shelter the magus nor be seen to directly support a known heretic, but he did what he could, furnishing him with a letter of recommendation and securing for him accommodation in the home of Michel de Castelnau, Lord of Mauvissière, the French ambassador to the court of Queen Elizabeth in London.

And here the dark trail of Bruno’s life fades almost to invisibility. Bruno spent over two years in England, his longest stay in one place since his youth. We know he spent almost all this time in the home of Castelnau at Salisbury Court, close to Fleet Street in Westminster, and was introduced to the English court and to Elizabeth herself. He renewed his friendship with Philip Sidney, who was then at the apogee of his fame and success; he visited Oxford, where he gave public lectures and, as he had done in Toulouse and Paris, gathered the opprobrium of the university dons and many of the students, so that he was all but physically expelled from the city. We also know Bruno wrote his most accomplished and lasting works during his English sojourn. Most prominent was The Ash Wednesday Supper, which centers on a drama played out in the streets of Westminster and involving some of the people with whom he had dealings at court and within literary circles.

It is easy to see why Bruno was attracted to England. The country had been cast into turmoil over religious conflict in much the way other parts of Europe had been during the past century, but England was now ruled by a Protestant queen who did not lean toward Calvin and who certainly had no love of Rome (she had been excommunicated by Pope Pius V in 1570). England still seethed with religious confusion, and this would occasionally erupt into violence on all levels and through all strata of society. As Bruno intrigued the intellectual liberals of England with his ideas about mnemonics and his anti-Aristotelian philosophy, Mary Queen of Scots was enduring her final years of captivity in an English castle, and when Bruno left the country, Mary was only two years away from death under the ax at Fotheringhay Castle. Although England had escaped some of the more destructive repercussions of Luther’s revolution, the fuse Elizabeth’s father, Henry VIII, and her half brother, Edward VI, had lit still smoldered.

Bruno knew all of this, of course, but nevertheless treated England as something of a safe haven while he took stock of his life. However, his connection with the English queen only added to his condemnation by the Inquisition. By the time of Bruno’s trial, less than four years after the English had defeated the Spanish Armada, Queen Bess was considered a goddess by her people, but in the eyes of the pope, she was Public Enemy Number One, an excommunicant, a heretic, and a whore. A decade earlier, the Holy See had decreed that anyone who assassinated Elizabeth would not only be forgiven but receive special favor in heaven.

Yet if Bruno’s reasons for going to England are obvious, much of his time there is unaccounted for. Convincing evidence now suggests he was a spy for Sir Francis Walsingham, principal secretary to Elizabeth. Bruno was, after all, a man with many European contacts, a man who though ostensibly Catholic held only contempt for the institution of the papacy and the Roman Church authorities. Most important, while he lived at the French ambassador’s residence he was perfectly placed to pass on information.¹⁹ According to recent research, during his brief career as a spy Bruno used the pseudonym “Faggot,” which, if nothing else, shows he enjoyed a very Anglo-Saxon sense of gallows humor, for a faggot is a bundle of sticks such as would be placed with the tinder at the base of a stake during an execution by fire.

Bruno was cosmopolitan and enjoyed a broad circle of friends. At the English court he mixed with the highest echelons of society, but he was also drawn to the streets and continued to network, to liaise with the underworld of alchemists and Hermeticists. This linked him with artists and musicians, poets and actors. He certainly met and discussed magic with the infamous John Dee (one of Elizabeth’s spiritual guides), and he made a lasting impression because of his studies in the art of memory.

Bruno left England when he came to realize Elizabeth would not help him and he would be forced to find another way to present his grand schemes. Returning to Paris, he believed he had been away long enough for the memory of his earlier misadventures to have faded sufficiently. In this he was right, and he quickly gathered about him a cadre of influential friends. “I accompanied the Ambassador to Paris, where I stayed another year, boarding and lodging with the gentlemen I knew there,” he reported to the Venetian Inquisitors.²⁰ He continued to teach and to write and was kept busy finding publishers for his new works. But once more voices of opposition were soon raised. In reference to this period, Bruno told his judges, “I have not taught in direct opposition to the Catholic religion, but I was judged to do so indirectly at Paris.”

Even so, this was one of the most productive and creative periods of his life. During the three years between his arrival in England in 1583 and his departure for France late in 1585, he wrote seven new books. Some of these have been lost and may never have been published, but they include four of his most important works: The Ash Wednesday Supper, The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast, On the Infinite Universe and Its Worlds, and On Cause, Principle and the One. The first two of these are still in print in English, more than four centuries after their first appearance. But perhaps more important, Bruno now came to realize his chances of securing patronage for his religious crusade were fading fast; both Henry and Elizabeth had rejected his overtures, and France was beginning to find its own form of temporary resolution to the question of religious conflict.

Looking at his contemporaries and their personal missions, their successes and their failures, Bruno must have felt his life’s work poised at a crossroads. In terms of trying to reach his audience, Bruno had certainly looked upon Erasmus as a role model and considered his approach a paradigm for his own efforts to effect change. In the style of Erasmus, Bruno had become an exile, unable to have any direct contact with Rome and the Holy Church, ostracized, excommunicated, constantly shadowed by the Inquisition but always just beyond their reach. Bruno had published book after book, expounded his beliefs in inflammatory lectures, and stirred up as much of a reaction as he possibly could everywhere he went. But it had done little. Bruno’s success during his lifetime was as nothing compared to the popular reaction to Erasmus. In modern terms, Erasmus’s Moriae encomium (The Praise of Folly) was a blockbusting best-seller and carried with it massive influence among the educated. By comparison, although treated with respect and in some quarters reverence, Bruno’s works were read by few; they were cult successes. So Bruno knew he needed to change course, to try a different tack. The problem was that his work was far more radical than Erasmus’s could ever have been, and Bruno knew that genuine change would have to come from the influence of powerful political figures. Having failed twice, he decided it was time for a new approach; he would have to make overtures to the Church.

“I approached the French Nuncio, Monsignor, the Bishop of Bergamo,” Bruno told the Venetian court. “Whilst I strove by means of these gentlemen to return to the Church, I consulted another Jesuit; and they told me that they could not absolve me of apostasy…. I prayed the Nuncio and sought again earnestly that he would write to His Beatitude, Sixtus V, at Rome, to obtain the grace and be received into the bosom of the Catholic Church, but that I should not be compelled to return to monkdom. Wherefore the Nuncio had no hope and would not write unless I were willing to return to my order. He referred me to the Jesuit father, Alonzo Spagnuolo. I discussed my case with him, and he showed me that it was necessary to procure absolution from censure from the Pope and that nothing could be done unless I went back to my order.”²¹

An almost identical offer had been made to every apostate who wished to repent and return to the Church. In 1521, the same offer had been extended to Martin Luther, who wisely chose to stay in Germany. Rome’s offer was entirely hollow and Bruno knew it. It was clear to all that a return to the monastery in Naples would mean immediate arrest, imprisonment, torture, and almost certainly execution; few were ever fooled into believing the Holy Roman Church and His Beatitude Sixtus V could be trusted to demonstrate any form of leniency toward heretics.²²

Of course, Bruno did not say as much to the court. As he delivered his tale during the third day of his trial, May 29, 1592, he reiterated his commitment to finding a way in which he could return to the Church and be accepted for what he was and for what he believed. He reassured his judges that he had never represented any form of threat to the Church, that, on the contrary, he loved the Catholic faith and wanted to glorify it, just so long as he could freely express himself. “I was about to proceed hence to Frankfurt again to get certain of my works printed, especially one on the seven liberal arts, together with other of my printed works, both these which I confirm and those which I do not confirm, and place myself at the feet of His Beatitude (for I have learned that he loves upright men).²³ I desired to explain my case and to try to be absolved for my misbehavior and allowed to wear the clerical habit, but free from monastic authority, whereupon I have spoken during these days to many Neapolitan Fathers of my order who were here and particularly Father Superior Fra Domenico of Nocera, Father Serafino of Nocera, Father Giovanni, who comes I know not whence, save that it is the Kingdom of Naples, and yet another of Atripalda, who left off his habit but resumed it; I don’t know his name; in religion he was called Brother Felice.”²⁴

But from the moment he first conceived the idea that he might return to the faith yet maintain his idiosyncratic worldview, the response from the clergy was always the same: “Return to Naples or the Vatican itself and the matter may be discussed.”

 

And as Bruno concluded the recounting of this part of his story, his words trailed off into a heavy silence. The room had grown dark around him as his tale had unfolded, candles had been lit, and now shadows flickered across the faces of all around him. Bruno looked at Father Giovanni Gabrielle, at Laurentio Priuli, then across to Ludovico Taberna and Aloysio Fuscari, the assessor, before turning to the gathered observers and witnesses. Father Gabrielle, his face expressionless, rose, and his voice, resonating with power and authority, ordered everyone present to swear silence before he adjourned the trial until the following day. Bruno, exhausted, his face drawn and lined, was returned to his cell.

That evening Bruno received his first visit from one of the Venetian confraternities that took food and provisions to prisons. The best-known was the Fraterne, but two others also worked hard for prisoners, the Scuole and the Corporazioni delle Arti. These were charitable organizations whose members made personal visits, tended wounds, fed prisoners, and left blankets and medicines. The state felt little obligation to do more than incarcerate those on trial; its only real concern was to prevent escape, and, aside from the aid provided by the confraternities, prisoners relied on help from friends and relatives. Bruno was probably well cared for because he had wealthy and influential associates, but he was also a famous antiestablishment figure who would undoubtedly have been treated especially harshly by the authorities and the cutthroat guards of the prison.²⁵

Also that evening, no more than fifty yards from Bruno’s dark cell, his judges met in private to discuss, over fine food and free-flowing wine, the problem prisoner whose fate lay in their hands. They were clearly troubled. Gabrielle and Priuli were certainly growing concerned for their position. Rome was desperate for this man, and having heard Bruno’s tale, they could understand why. But as Venetians they could not simply hand the man over to the pope, as such a move would attract criticism from many quarters. Venetian patriots would accuse them of weakness, those inclined to religious tolerance would claim they were stoking the fires of prejudice, and the lawyers might even suggest such a move was illegal. But they were also good Catholics, men who despised heresy. This man Giordano Bruno was obviously dangerous. At the very least they needed more information from him and from others; Mocenigo, they realized, must be forced to provide a third statement immediately. Then, when the court was returned, they must each plumb the depths of this vile individual Bruno, whose sordid views they would expose; they would reveal the limits of his depravity so that no one could doubt what they must do next.

“Bruno believes,” Mocenigo claimed in his third report to the Venetian Inquisition, “the Church manifests violence, not love toward heretics. The world could not remain in ignorance and without good religion. Truly the Catholic religion was more acceptable to him than others; but all needed much reform on itself, for it could not continue to corrupt. There is greater ignorance than ever was aforetime, he claimed, since men now teach what they do not understand, namely that God is a Trinity, which is impossible and blasphemous against the Majesty of God. When I told him to be silent and hasten on with what he had to do for me, because I was a Catholic and he a Lutheran, and I could not abide him, he replied, ‘Oh, you will see what your faith will do for you,’ and laughing, he added, ‘wait the Judgment, when the dead shall arise you will get the reward of your righteousness.’ And on another occasion, he said, ‘This Republic has a reputation for great wisdom; it should deal with the monastic revenues and the friars live on broth. The friars of today are all asses, and to let them enjoy so much wealth is a great sin.’ Also, he told me that ladies pleased him well; but he had not yet reached Solomon’s number; the Church sinned in making wickedness of that which was of great service in Nature, and which, in his view, was highly meritorious.”²⁶

The morning after receiving this statement the judges reconvened the trial. First in the chair was a local priest, Father Superior Fra Domenico, in whom Bruno had confided. He told the court, “In this very month of May, on the Holy Feast of the Pentecost, as I was coming out of the Sacristy of the Church of St. John and St. Paul, I observed a layman bow to me. At first I did not know him; but when he spoke to me saying, ‘Come into a private place,’ I remembered him as one of our brethren in the province of the kingdom, a man of letters, Brother Giordano of Nola by name. We withdrew to a quiet place in the aforesaid church, and there he told me the reason of his leaving our province and of the cause of his unfrocking; being excommunicated by Fra Domenico Vita, provincial at the time. He told me of his sojournings in many Kingdoms and at Royal Courts and of his important work in lecturing, but that he had always lived as a Catholic. And when I asked him what he did in Venice and how he subsisted, he said that he had been in Venice but a very short time and had his own sufficient means; and that he wished to live quietly and set about the writing of a book he had in mind. And then, through important patronage, he would present it to His Beatitude and obtain his pardon together with satisfaction of conscience for what he had to tell me about. He hoped to stay in Rome, to devote himself to literature, to show what he was made of, and perhaps to deliver some lectures.”²⁷

The priest completed his statement matter-of-factly; the court seemed rather disappointed, so next the Inquisitors called Bruno before them so that he might continue his story. This he did beginning with his wanderings after leaving France the second time; his journey to Germany, his time at Wittenberg, Prague, and Brunswick between 1586 and 1589, his visit to the Frankfurt book fair, and his initial contact with Giovanni Mocenigo. As Bruno described the letters he had received from Mocenigo, the strain of his incarceration must have been clear for all to see. “I have uttered myself and handled matters too philosophically, wrongly, not sufficiently after the manner of a good Christian, and, in particular, I have taught and maintained in some of these works philosophical doctrines concerning what, according to Christian faith, should be attributed to the power, wisdom, and goodness of God: founding my doctrine on sensible experience and reason and not on faith.”²⁸

It is difficult to know whether Bruno said this out of fear as a mild form of recantation or whether he was merely musing, reflecting upon what he had done, such thoughts provoked by the telling of his tale. What he is really saying is, Yes, my views are far from official doctrine and you may brand me a heretic, but they have come from long and concentrated philosophizing and dedicated study, and most important they derive from reason rather than faith; this does not mean I’m a bad Catholic.

Yet, it was just the sort of admission the judges were waiting for, the kind of recorded statement that could later be twisted and used against him. But by this time it was too late in the day to embark upon a full-blooded philosophical debate. Gabrielle and Priuli both knew they would need a clear head for such things, and the Father Inquisitor adjourned until Monday, June 2, when Giordano Bruno the heretic would be called upon to give a thorough and clear account of his beliefs.

 

For the resumption of the trial, the state assessor, Aloysio Fuscari, was replaced by another of the three Venetian savii all’eresia, one Sebastian Barbadico, who was sworn in and took his place beside Gabrielle, Laurentio Priuli, and the apostolic nuncio, Ludovico Taberna. Bruno was then brought before them and the questioning resumed.

They began by asking him if he had been involved in occult practices since arriving in Venice. “Never since I have been in Venice have I taught heretical doctrine,” he declared, “…but have only discussed philosophy with many patricians, as they can tell you. Many patricians and literary people gathered together there [Venice] and I have entered into discussion with some librarians.” Then, keeping faith with his new friends, he added guardedly, “…but I do not recollect particular persons, for I did not know who they might be.”²⁹

This was of course a blatant lie, but the court had no evidence to disprove the statement, only Mocenigo’s hearsay and uncorroborated claims. And so the judges moved on quickly. Bruno had been furnished with a complete set of his own works, from which he was allowed to quote, and the Inquisitors began to probe into the man’s philosophy and beliefs. And for his part Bruno seemed to find new energy.

“These works,” Bruno said, placing a hand on a pile of books beside him, “…are purely philosophical and I hold the intellect should be free to inquire provided it does not dispute divine authority but submits to it.”³⁰

And so here we have the very essence of Bruno’s heresy. His views on science and philosophy, even his anti-Aristotelianism, were of secondary importance to the crucial issue, which was that he believed in God but not in Rome. When he declares that the intellect should be given free rein so long as it does not conflict with divine authority, he means this in its purest sense. While orthodox Catholics saw no distinction between the word of God and the word of the pope, Bruno most definitely did. He had little respect for the Church establishment and believed each man was answerable only to God Himself. But to the cardinals, such beliefs were quite intolerable.

Even so, Bruno believed he could make the authorities understand him, force them to accept his ideas. In this respect he was either absurdly naive or possessed by his own ego, blind to the realities of human nature and the forces he was facing. At this stage, only days into his first trial, he still believed he could convince and persuade, he still held the view that the men sitting across from him in the court and the men at the center of power in the Holy City were cerebral, intelligent people who could surely see that intellect and faith could successfully coexist. Bruno could not identify the animal in his enemy, the devil on the shoulder, the evil in the soul; he still thought intellect could overwhelm fear and prejudice, that greater glory would come to those who supplanted earthly power with the understanding of Truth. He was, of course, utterly wrong and walked into the lion’s den barefoot and unarmed.

“I have ever expounded philosophically and according to the principles of Nature and its light; not chiefly considering what must be held according to Faith,” he announced bravely. “…And I believe that nothing can be found by which I can be judged rather to animadvert on religion than to uphold philosophy; although I may have set forth much impious matter occasioned by my own light…never have I taught anything directly contrary to the Catholic Religion, although I was judged to have done so indirectly at Paris, where, indeed, I was allowed to maintain certain discussions entitled: A Hundred and Twenty Articles against the Peripatetic School and other commonly accepted Philosophers; and this was printed by permission of the authorities. I was allowed to expound on natural principles without prejudice to truth in the light of faith, in which way one can read and teach the works of Aristotle and Plato; for they are indirectly contrary to the faith in the very same manner—much more so, in fact, than the philosophy I propounded and defended, the whole of which is expounded in my last Latin books published at Frankfurt and entitled De minimo, De monade, and De immenso, and in part, De compositione. In these my object and doctrine may be specifically read, which is, in a word: I hold the universe to be infinite as a result of the infinite divine power; for I think it unworthy of divine goodness and power to have produced merely one finite world when it was able to bring into being an infinity of worlds. Wherefore I have expounded that there is an endless number of individual worlds like our earth. I regard it, with Pythagoras, as a star, and the moon, the planets, and the stars are similar to it, the latter being of endless number. All these bodies make an infinity of worlds; they constitute the infinite whole, in infinite space, an infinite universe, that is to say, containing innumerable worlds. So that there is an infinite measure in the universe and an infinite multitude of worlds. But this may be indirectly opposed to truth according to the faith.”³¹

Bruno had been an eloquent and respected teacher and in the clarity with which he explains his ideas it is easy to see why, but even he must have known that with his final sentence he was making a considerable understatement. Was he being ironic? Was he deliberately inflaming sentiment, or was he so used to the heterodox nature of his worldview he hardly realized what he was saying? Gabrielle, Priuli, and Taberna were learned, well-read men, familiar with the heretical statements and ideas of many before Bruno, but this man before them now was not merely dabbling at the fringes of theology; what he was saying was so far from official doctrine that many would have simply considered Bruno mad.

“Within the universe I place a universal Providence, whereby everything lives, everything grows, acts, and abides in its perfection,” he went on. “And I understand this in a twofold way: one, after the fashion of the spirit which is completely present in the whole body and in every part thereof. This I call Nature, the shadow and record of the Divine. The other manner is the inconceivable way in which God, an essence, presence, and power, is in all and above all, not as part, not as spirit, but unspeakably.

“Now I understand all attributes to be one and the same in Deity, and, with theologians and the greatest thinkers, I conceive of three attributes: power, wisdom, and goodness; or, mind, comprehension, and Love. Things are through mind, they are ordered and are distinct through intellect; they are in harmonious proportion through universal love, in all and above all. There is nothing that doth not shine in being, any more than anything is beautiful without the presence of beauty; wherefore nothing can exist shorn from the divine presence. But distinctions in the Divinity are made by the method of Discursive Thought and are not reality.”³²

He then went on to describe how he concurred with Aristotle on the matter of a First Cause, a moment of Creation, after which he tried rather unconvincingly to marry his philosophy with the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, linking the Father to Will or Power; the Son, or the Word, to the Intellect; and the Holy Spirit to Love, and he added, “All things, souls and bodies, are immortal as to their substance, nor is there any other death than dispersion and reintegration.”³³

Unsatisfied, the Inquisitors continued to probe. Did he then hold the Trinity to be only in Essence but distinct Persons? they wanted to know.

This was a direct challenge. Bruno equivocated. “What is ‘Person’?” he asked. “According to St. Augustine, the word was new in his age.”

“Had you then doubted the existence of the One, the existence of God?” came the reply.

“Never,” Bruno retorted forcefully.

“And what of Christ and the incarnation, was that then a lie?” came the angry response.

“I have doubted and wrestled with this matter; I have never denied the dogma, only doubted.” Bruno declared, “…And I believe the Father and Son are one in essence.”³⁴ Again, naturally resisting open heresy, he added that as a youth he had only quoted the ideas of Arius. “I showed the view of Arius to be less dangerous than it was commonly taken to be,” he announced. “For it was generally understood that Arius meant to teach that the Word was the first creation of the Father; and I explained that Arius said the Word was neither Creator nor created, but intermediate between the Creator and the creature, just as the spoken word is the intermediary between the speaker and the meaning he sets forth.”³⁵

“To make clearer what I have said,” he went on, “I have held and believed that there is a distinct Godhead in the Father, in the Word, and in Love, which is the Divine Spirit; and in Essence, these three are one; but I have never been able to grasp the three really being Persons and have doubted it. Augustine says: ‘We utter the name of Person with dread when we speak of divine matters, and use it because we are obliged.’ Nor have I found the term applied in the Old or New Testament.”³⁶

Continuing with their line of questioning on the details of doctrine, the Inquisitors asked Bruno to explain his thoughts on the incarnation. In response, he told them he could not understand how the finite flesh of humanity could be fused with the Word, an infinite essence, but accepted that Christ had incarnated on earth, seeing him more as a representative of God rather than one with God. He accepted miracles as an expression of divinity and respected the Church doctrine of transubstantiation. Why else had he never partaken of the sacrament after he was excommunicated?

Without mentioning the source of the claim, Father Gabrielle then repeated Mocenigo’s accusation, that he, Bruno, had denied Christ’s divinity, and had declared the Son of God to be an “evil wretch.”

Bruno appeared genuinely stunned by this. “I marvel that you should ask such a question,” he declared. “Never did I say or think such a thing about Christ. I believe as Holy Mother Church does about him.”

According to the clerk of the court, Bruno then appeared hurt, mournful, saying, “I cannot conceive how such things could be imputed to me. I hold that Christ was begotten, by the Spirit, of a Virgin-mother. If this be shown false I shall submit to any penalty…. I have repeatedly tried to be absolved and accepted by the Church. I have held and still hold the immortality of souls which are kinds of existence especially due to substance. That is to say, speaking Catholically, the intellectual soul does not pass from body to body, but goes to Paradise, Purgatory, or Hell; but I have thought deeply, as a Philosopher, how, since the soul does not exist without body and does not exist in the body, it may pass from body to body even as matter may pass from mass to mass,” Bruno concluded.³⁷

“And so you are a skilled theologian and acquainted with Catholic decisions, are you?” Gabrielle asked.

Bruno was taken aback. “Not much,” he replied. “I have pursued philosophy, which has been my avocation.”

“Have you then criticized theologians?”

“No, I have not. I have read Protestant teachings and always argued for Catholic doctrine, especially the teachings of Aquinas. I have read heretical books and dissected them. Read my work, it is there.”

“Have you mocked priests and monks?”

Exasperated, Bruno threw up his arms. “I have said nothing of the kind, nor held that view.”³⁸

The judges then went through Mocenigo’s accusations one by one, and Bruno deflected each, sometimes with irritation, occasionally with stark disbelief. He was growing increasingly agitated; the judges could see it and they exploited it.

“Do you believe Christ wrought his miracles by magic?” Father Gabrielle asked.

Bruno threw up both hands and looked bewildered. “What is this?” he cried. “Who invented these devilries? I have never thought such a thing. Oh God! What is this? I would rather be dead than have said anything of the kind.”

The judges then raised the subject of Bruno’s work on the art of memory, suggesting this was an occult practice. “You are a known occultist,” Gabrielle declared. “What of your relationship to the French king?”

“When I was in the court of King Henry,” Bruno replied, “he summoned me one day to discover from me if the memory which I possessed was natural or acquired by magical art. I satisfied him that it did not come from sorcery but from organized knowledge.”³⁹

The judges then pressed him on the nature of the books Mocenigo had taken from him the previous week. “And what of the books you are known to have read? Occult works, the works of heretics?” asked the Father Inquisitor.

Sensing danger, Bruno skirted the issue. “I have indeed seen condemned works such as those of Raymond Lully and other writers who treat of philosophical matters. I scorn both them and their doctrines,” he lied.⁴⁰

“Nonsense,” said Gabrielle. “What of the manuscripts found on your person when you were arrested?” Then he looked down at his notes. “What of…The Seals of Hermes?”

“Indeed, my copyist Herman Besler was at the time making reproductions of ancient, unpublished works, including a work called The Seals of Hermes,” Bruno responded. “I know I was philandering with perilous material, but I did not see too closely into the contents of these books, and I have not read The Seals of Hermes.”⁴¹

Gabrielle was unconvinced but decided to change tack. “You have mocked the faith,” he declared. Then, quoting Mocenigo, he added: “‘…await the Judgment, when the dead shall arise you will get the reward of your righteousness.’ Are these not your words?”

Bruno looked stunned. “I have never said these things. My lord, look through my books. They are profane enough; but you will not find a trace of this; nor has it entered my head.”⁴²

A sudden hush fell over the room; the judges sat motionless. Bruno, his confidence clearly ebbing away, his energy almost drained, looked around the room once more, seeing the still faces, the eyes of witnesses quickly averted. Then the Father Inquisitor spoke.

“You have admitted enough to make the charges against you credible,” he declared icily. “You deny the authority of Rome, you question the Trinity, deny the Divinity of Christ, you dispute theology, mock the Mother Church and the priesthood, you lend support to the faithless and practice magic. You must take heed and make full, open, and faithful confession in order to be received into the bosom of the Holy Mother Church and be made a member of Jesus Christ. But it would be a marvel indeed if persistence in your obstinate denial did not lead to the usual end. The Holy Office desires only to bring forth light to the heretic by its Christian love, to bring them from their evil ways and guide them onto the path of eternal life.”

The words fell into the silence like lead in water. Bruno kept his head bowed throughout Gabrielle’s statement. Then, lifting his head, he said slowly, “So may God pardon me. Every one of my answers to every question has been true so far as my memory has served me; but, for my greater satisfaction, I will again pass my life in review, and, if I have said or done anything against the Catholic Christian Faith, I will frankly confess it. I have said what is just and true, and I shall continue to say it. I am certain the contrary shall never be proved against me.”⁴³

Rising, Father Gabrielle adjourned the trial until the following day.

If Bruno had not realized it already, then that night, alone in his cell, he must have come to understand the gravity of what had happened. Gabrielle’s words meant only one thing: the Church would punish him. In its inimitable way it wished to redirect the mind and the soul of the heretic by forcing a recantation; then it would imprison him, torture him, and almost certainly burn him. Even the ever optimistic, ever determined Bruno must now have come to understand that this would be his fate.

Next morning, June 3, 1592, Bruno was once more called upon to give evidence. The accusations were read to him again and he was asked if he conceded guilt. “Wherein I have erred, I have told the truth, and you will never find that is not so.” Concerning the divinity of Christ in particular, he declared, “What I have held, I have told you, I never talked on the subject.”⁴⁴ Again, pressed on his views about occult practices, he declared contempt for the art but confessed to an interest in “judicial astrology.”

Question after question was a repeat of those asked the previous day, the same ground covered again and again. Finally, Gabrielle asked: “Do you now consider your heresies fallacious?” Bruno replied evenly. “I hate and detest all the errors I have at any time committed as regards the Catholic Faith and decrees of the Holy Church, and I repent having done, held, said, believed, or doubted anything Catholic. I pray this Holy Tribunal that, aware of my infirmity, it will admit me into the bosom of the Church, providing me with remedies proper to salvation and showing mercy.”⁴⁵ And with that, the case was adjourned for three weeks, Bruno was taken back to his cell to consider what he had said while the judges considered his fate.

 

Gabrielle, Priuli, and Taberna met again that evening. What were they to make of this man? At times he had tried to present himself as a devout Catholic who had merely strayed from the core of orthodoxy, renouncing any interest in magic, even denying his learning and understanding, let alone his own contribution to the Hermetic tradition. Yet elsewhere in his testimony, he expressed doubts about central tenets of the Catholic faith.

But they knew Bruno was a skilled performer. He had been a greatly admired lecturer, a polished speaker who had always reveled in attention. He had employed a common trick, to try to speak of heresy almost in the third person, to discuss these things as though they were merely academic, detached entirely from faith.⁴⁶ Furthermore, he had been clearly thrilled by the attention, even though the Inquisitors had succeeded in terrifying him. But what could they make of his constantly shifting arguments? What did he really believe? How far would he go? What was important to him and what was not?

Clearly, he had lied when he professed to abhor the mystical arts. He had written much on the subject, taught a memory system based upon Hermetic imagery and ancient pre-Christian religious symbolism. They had his books before them. Obviously his interest in such things was never tempered by any guilt, and he was not a man to fear where he trod; to him Christianity was certainly no sacred cow. He had constantly veered close to confession and then pulled back; with this he had been far from subtle. The very notion that he owned occult books but had not read them was quite ridiculous. He had also been circumspect concerning his involvement with the Venetian booksellers and other known occultists in the city. Gabrielle, Priuli, and Taberna knew these men well, for they had been observed from afar; many were marked men, and the scent of the pyre hung about them too.

So, if he could lie about these things, the judges mused, what other sins had he committed? Was everything Mocenigo had written indeed true? The prisoner claimed he believed in the divinity of Christ, but renounced the orthodox meaning of the Trinity. He accepted the idea that Christ performed miracles, but viewed Jesus as only a representative of God rather than an expression of the Trinity. Most important, he insisted upon placing intellect above faith. He was not a man to accept anything without thinking about it first. Dangerous, very dangerous.

But beyond this, what did this man want? He had claimed repeatedly his wish to be absolved and allowed to preach his idiosyncratic doctrine, but why then cast doubt upon the fact of the Holy Trinity? Was he, they wondered, always to remain an enigma?

 

And so the final days of the Venetian trial began. Three weeks after the last gathering, the Inquisitors met again, this time with a new state representative, Thomas Morosini. On this occasion, Bruno was present but not questioned. Instead, a distinguished scholar and friend of Bruno’s, Andrea Morosini, was called to give witness.⁴⁷

With necessary caution, Morosini (who was known to be a dedicated Catholic but also a man interested in occult matters) told the court, “For some months past certain philosophical books had been on sale at Venetian booksellers, bearing the name of Giordano Bruno, a man reputed to be of varied learning. I understood from what I heard in Venice and from what Giovanni Battista the bookseller said to diverse gentlemen, and especially to myself, that this man was here and that we might desire to get him to our house, where certain gentlemen and also prelates are wont to come for the discussion of literature and above all of philosophy. Wherefore I said that he should get him to come; and he did so several times, debating on various learned matters. I have never been able to infer from his reasoning that he held any opinion contrary to the faith, and, so far as I am concerned, I have always considered him to be a Catholic—and at the least suspicion of the contrary, I should not have allowed his presence in my house.”⁴⁸

Next Ciotto was called upon again and questioned about what he viewed to be Bruno’s intentions. Ciotto reported that Bruno had told him, as he had told others, that he wished to be allowed to return to the Church. Then Ciotto added, “He wished to meet personally with His Holiness in Rome to present to him his latest work.”⁴⁹

The next day, June 26, Bruno made his final appearance before the Venetian judges. A second assessor had been called upon for this, the final questioning of the prisoner along with the closing statements of the Inquisitors. Bruno was again reminded of the seriousness of the charges brought against him and the grave suspicions of the Holy See. Asked again if he had, upon solitary reflection, decided to change his testimony or to add any further comment, Bruno repeated that he had been entirely truthful in his statements. “I can understand that my writings and confessions could provoke charges of heresy,” he declared, “but I have always felt remorse and harbored the desire to return to the Church. I have never intended any slight to the Faith and have held back through fear of the Holy See and the love of liberty.”

But, snatching upon this, Gabrielle retorted, “Had your desire been sincere you would not have lived so long in France and other Catholic countries and here in Venice without having consulted some prelate; whereas you went on teaching false and heretical doctrine up to now.”

“But,” said Bruno, “…my disposition shows I did consult with Catholic Fathers. I have behaved without fault in this city. I have discussed philosophy only, before you I have condemned Protestants. I only wish to live freely uncloistered in my native home. Mocenigo is the only man who could have accused me of the things you claim against me; he is a wicked man. I have searched my conscience for faults and can find none. I have readily confessed everything I know.” Then, throwing himself to the floor, prostrate before the Inquisitors, Bruno sobbed, “I humbly demand pardon of God and the Court. I wish only that my punishment be conducted in private so that I may not draw attention to the habit I wear.”⁵⁰

Gabrielle told him to rise and asked if there was any final thing he wished to confess. Bruno shook his head in silence. The other judges rose, Bruno was taken roughly from the court to retrace a now familiar journey to his cell, and the officials left to once more discuss the case over a lavish meal.

For Bruno, the point of crisis was approaching fast. It is clear the Venetian Inquisitors had been in direct communication with Rome. Short of lying, how else could they have claimed before the court that the pope and the Holy Office were so suspicious of Bruno? And as they dined in Father Gabrielle’s rooms, some three hundred miles away in the Vatican others were also talking about the heretic Bruno: the pope’s personal representative, the Father Inquisitor, Cardinal Santoro di Santa Severina, was reviewing the Venetian case.