Italian Giordano Bruno is perhaps the most famous victim of the Inquisition's court. But until now, few people can intelligibly explain why, in fact, he was sentenced to death and what prevented Bruno's acquittal in our time? It turns out that the church was frightened by his esoteric views, and by no means scientific research.
Why did the Inquisition burn Giordano Bruno?
From school, we know that Giordano Bruno, an Italian Dominican monk, thinker and poet, made a number of guesses ahead of the era and confirmed by subsequent astronomical discoveries. He argued that the stars are distant suns; that within the limits of the solar system there are unknown planets in his time; that in the Universe there are countless bodies, similar to our Sun, around which the planets revolve. According to the recognized version, it was for these seditious statements that Bruno, as a heretic, was condemned by the Catholic Church and burned at the stake in 1600. Almost three centuries later, in 1889, the place of his execution was marked with a monument. However, even 400 years later, the Pope refused to consider the issue of his rehabilitation. How was everything really?
Apprentice magicians
Giordano was born in 1548 in the town of Nola in the vicinity of Naples. He spent his youth as a monk in one of the local monasteries. Already there he was first noticed in heresy: he read the forbidden works of Erasmus of Rotterdam, the works of the Hermeticist Marsilio Ficino and the Cabbalist Pico della Mirandola. And also, on the basis of what he had read, he publicly expressed doubts about the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
At the age of 28, Bruno renounced his religious brotherhood and took off his robe. Having learned that the Inquisition was preparing a case against him, which consisted of no less than 130 counts of heresy, he wisely decided to go on the run. By that time, he had thoroughly studied the works of not only his contemporaries, but also the ancient authors - Pythagoras, Plato, Lucretius, as well as the medieval mystic Raymund Lull. Most of all in these writings he was interested in what had to do with numerology, sympathetic magic and the occult.
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After reading Ficino, especially his translation of "Hermetica", or "Books of Knowledge of Hermes Trismegistus, Grizh the greatest)", allegedly created once in Egyptian Alexandria on the basis of ancient records made by the god of wisdom Thoth, Greek Hermes), Bruno became a zealous admirer of the "Egyptian »Religion. Now he cherished dreams of her complete revival. Moreover, Bruno conceived a radical revolution: to replace Christianity with the "magic religion" of Hermeticism.
Is it any wonder that Giordano was pursued by the Inquisition, and he was forced to leave Italy? However, he left his homeland without haste, alternately visiting different Italian cities.
In 1577 he spent several weeks in Venice, where he published his first book, unfortunately now lost. The next stop was in Padua, famous for its craze for astrology and astral magic. Then he visited Milan, where he first heard about the English nobleman Philip Sydney, who later played an important role in his life.
Court lecturer
In 1581, Bruno took refuge in Paris at the court of Henry III. Both the king himself and his mother Catherine de Medici had a fondness for alchemists and astrologers. In Paris, the former monk lectured and became familiar with the heliocentric theory of Nicolaus Copernicus. After a couple of years, Bruno sailed to England and settled in London, in the house of the French ambassador and under his patronage. There he wrote his most important works.
Queen Elizabeth I ruled on the island at that time, openly at war with papal Rome, because of which many Protestants and free-thinking scientists found themselves in her. At his lectures at Oxford, Bruno talked about Copernicus theory, but unlike others, he insisted that this system should be placed "in the context of astral magic and the solar Egyptian cult."
One of the first lectures was attended by a young and distinguished Englishman Philip Sydney, a friend of the famous astrologer John Dee. Sydney became interested in the ideas of the Italian and began to show him signs of attention. No wonder Bruno mentioned Sydney in the dedicatory inscription to his main book The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast. By "beast" the prophet of Hermes understood the Pope, and by "exile" - clearing the way for a new religion based on the teachings of the Three Times Greatest.
Bruno writes: "It is a good religion that was plunged into darkness when Christians destroyed it, banned it with their decrees and replaced it with a cult of dead things, stupid rituals, immoral behavior and continuous wars." In addition, the treatise "The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast" endlessly mentions the stars, the zodiac and the constellations, provides a detailed description of how to attract their powers to Earth and use them with the help of "magic and the divine cult of the Egyptians." Thus, Giordano Bruno made it clear that it is not the idolatry of the Greeks, not the Christian commandments, but the Egyptian cult that should be considered "the best religion and the best code of laws." In his opinion, "the heavenly sign proclaiming the return of the Egyptian light, which will disperse the present darkness," was the Sun of Copernicus.
Suddenly, in 1585, Bruno left the coast of Foggy Albion and sailed back to the mainland. The reasons for this were different: nostalgia for the homeland, quarrels with English professors, a spat with the French ambassador.
Spy and Heretic
Some time ago, John Bossi, a professor at the University of York, expressed his point of view on Bruno's activities in England. He believes he may have found the answer to one of the most poignant mysteries of fanatical religious life in 16th century England. That is, he answered the question of who Henry Fagot really was - a mysterious figure whose secret letters led to the arrest, torture and execution of English Catholics who intended to overthrow Elizabeth and put on the throne the Catholic Queen Mary of Scots (Stuart).
As early as the mid-19th century, some scholars suspected that Fagot, whoever he was, was one of two spies who had infiltrated the staff of the French embassy in London. It was believed that the so-called "first person" was the ambassador's secretary. But the "second person", says Bossi, was Giordano Bruno, recruited by Philip Sydney.
For two and a half years, the former monk lived in the residence of the French ambassador in London and thus could inform the British about everything that he could learn from his hospitable hosts. “First, Bruno had a fanatical hatred of the papacy,” writes Bossi. - Secondly, he was by no means bathed in money and knew what to spend it on. And, finally, thirdly, I got a lot of pleasure from my work”.
France, where Bruno returned, was engulfed in a war between irreconcilable opponents - Catholics and Huguenots (Protestants), so he did not linger here. Not knowing a refuge and having no means of subsistence, he tried to settle down in Germany. He lectured at Wittenberg, lived in Helmstedt, Frankfurt am Main, but returned to Italy in 1591. He lived for several months in Venice, where no one seemed to bother him. However, in the end he fell into a trap, cunningly arranged for him by the Inquisition, he was captured and sent to Rome.
After seven years in prison and vain attempts to persuade him to publicly renounce his teachings, Giordano Bruno was sentenced to death as a heretic and violator of the monastic vow. On the morning of February 17, 1600, dressed in a white shirt, he was brought to Campo dei Fiori ("Field of Flowers") - a square located near the Roman Pantheon. There they were firmly tied to a wooden post, around which were stacked heaps of firewood and bundles of brushwood.
Perhaps in those minutes Bruno remembered his pseudonym - Fagot. After all, this word in English just means logs for setting fire to a pillar with a heretic. When the monk who went to the fire showed Bruno the image of the Savior, the one whose legs were already burned to the bone found the strength to turn away with disgust.
Magazine: Secrets of the 20th century, №13 Irina Strekalova