Giordano Bruno. Martyr to Astronomy.

Several months back I started doing some research into the field of Exoplanets for a presentation I did. During that research I came across a Giordano Bruno - here is his story.

Not too many people have every heard of Giordano Bruno but back in the beginning of the 1600's Giordano Bruno was a man with some very controversial ideas.

Born at Nola (in Campania, then part of the Kingdom of Naples) in 1548, he was originally named Filippo Bruno. At 15, Bruno entered the Dominican Order, taking the name of Giordano. He continued his studies, completing his novitiate, and becoming an ordained priest in 1572.
Over the next few years he became influence by the writings of Copernicus and by the newly rediscovered ideas of Plato. In 1576 he left Naples to avoid the attention of the Inquisition. He left Rome for the same reason and abandoned the Dominican order. He traveled to Geneva and briefly joined the Calvinists, before he was excommunicated, ostensibly for his adherence to Copernicanism.
For the next several years he wondered through out Europe where he held down various teaching post and enjoyed the protection of powerful patrons most notably Henry III of France. It was in this time Bruno wrote about the existence of other worlds and that our Sun was not the centre of the universe but one of many millions of Suns. He also went on to state in his writings that they also inhabited by intelligent beings.
In 1591 he received an invitation to Venice from one Zuane Mocenigo, who wished to be instructed in the art of memory, and also heard of a vacant chair in mathematics at the University of Padua. Apparently believing that the Inquisition might have lost some of its impetus, he returned to Italy.
He went first to Padua, where he taught briefly, but the chair he sought went instead to one Galileo Galilei, so he went to the University of Venice. For two months he functioned as a tutor to Mocenigo, who probably was an agent of the Venetian Inquisition. Upon attempting to leave Venice, Mocenigo denounced Bruno to the Inquisition, which had prepared a total of 130 charges against him. He was arrested May 22, 1592, and given a first trial hearing before being sent for trial in Rome in 1593.
In Rome he was imprisoned for six years before he was tried, lastly in the Tower of Nona. The numerous charges against him included blasphemy, immoral conduct, and heresy in matters of dogmatic theology, and involved some of the basic doctrines of his philosophy and cosmology. He tried in vain to obtain a personal audience with Pope Clement VIII, hoping to make peace with the Church through a partial recantation. His trial, when it finally occurred, was overseen by the inquisitor, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, who demanded a full recantation, which Bruno refused. Consequently, he was declared a heretic, handed over to secular authorities on January 8, 1600. At his trial, he said: "Perhaps you, my judges, pronounce this sentence against me with greater fear than I receive it." A month or so later he was brought to the Campo de' Fiori, a central Roman market square, his tongue in a gag, hung upside-down naked and burned at the stake, on February 17, 1600.
Since 1889, there has been a monument to Bruno on the site of his execution, erected by Italian Masonic circles.
All his works were placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in 1603. Four hundred years after his execution, official expression of "profound sorrow" and acknowledgement of error at Bruno's condemnation to death was made, during the papacy of John Paul II.

Very interesting! Thanks for posting!

In January 2001 I gave a lecture to Astronomy Ireland called - "Galileo: Hero or Heretic?"

Before that I had been raised with the idea that Bruno was a martyr to science. On further investigation, I came to the opinion that Bruno was a raving mystic at the time of his execution. His pronouncements were like those of Nostradamus: so numerous that it's hardly surprising we recognise some of them as correct in the light of present assumptions about the cosmos.

On what did Bruno base his belief in Pluralism - i.e. the Earth being just one among many inhabited planets, and not occupying any special place?

He had no evidence. And like Galileo, he overplayed his hand. Galileo too believed in the Copernican system, as did most of the hierarchy of the Catholic church of the time. What got Galileo in to trouble was to directly contravene an order by the Church to teach Copernicanism as theory only, and leave pronouncements about the nature of the cosmos to the Bible and the Pope.

Galileo thought that his detection of the phases of Venus were 'proof' that Copernicans was the only explanation to replace the already beleaguered Aristotelian cosmology that had persisted for centuries. During his trail his 'proof' was demolished by basic geometry.

Copernicanism, and the notion of pluralism had been around for about 1800 years by the early 17th century. They attracted little support because the earth-centred aristotlelianism had the balance of evidence on its side. It's a pity Galileo was not a little more humble - he was a better dynamicist than Aristotle, and a less arrogant attitude, and more sensitive exposition of his beliefs could have retained for him the patronage and support of the church he had enjoyed for over 30 years. He is no martyr.

As for Bruno - I'll give the following illustration. -
Suppose I, Emmet Mordaunt of Ireland, declare the Galaxy to be awash with advanced life. Should anyone believe me? Should I not rather be told to hold my tongue until I have evidence for such an assertion, even though many would expect these assertions to be borne out by future discoveries?

Just because you get yourself burned, that doesn't make you a martyr.

Very interesting story. Stirs some anger at how he was muffled. Still, if it wasn't for brazen men like him, and Galileo, and Copernicus among others, astronomy may not have readily survived those 'dark times'.

Seanie.

Yes Bruno had no proof to back up his claim, but the mere fact that he said these things was enough for some to see him as a heretic.

Just over ten years ago the first exoplanet was found now that number over two hundred. So the first part of Bruno claim(that they are other worlds) took four hundred years to prove it might take a thousand years to prove the next.

:twisted: This is a hot subject. :arrow: :twisted: