The Folly of Giordano Bruno

Fillipo Bruno (1548-1600) was born in Nola near Naples. Taking the name Giordano upon becoming a member of the Dominican order, he was educated in the Aristotelian and Thomist traditions and eventually came to espouse a mystical Neoplatonism mixed with ideas imbibed from a resurgent interest of that time in the works of the apocryphal Hermes Trismegistus. His heterodox beliefs soon attracted the attention of the Inquisition, first in Naples and then in Rome. To …

…with arguments resonant with a barely understood Copernicanism. It also does not hurt his mystique that he came to a rather spectacular and violent ending, ostensibly as punishment for his beliefs by the reigning authorities of his day. In the end, Bruno bet on the right horse (if perhaps for questionable reasons), and thus has become a kind of culture hero instead of a footnote in books on Renaissance philosophy. History is funny that way.