Giordano Bruno: An Introduction

135 Pages·2012·0.904 MB·English

by  Paul Richard Blum

GIORDANO BRUNO
VIBS
Volume 254
Robert Ginsberg
Founding Editor
Leonidas Donskis
Executive Editor
Associate Editors
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Heta Aleksandra Gylling James R. Watson
Matti Häyry John R. Welch
Brian G. Henning Thomas Woods
a volume in
Values in Italian Philosophy
VIP
Daniel B. Gallagher, Editor
GIORDANO BRUNO
An Introduction
Paul Richard Blum
Translated from the German by
Peter Henneveld
Amsterdam - New York, NY 2012
Cover image: Bronze statue of Giordano Bruno by Ettore Ferrari, Campo
de’ Fiori, Rome. (photo: dreamstime)
Cover Design: Studio Pollmann
The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO
9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents -
Requirements for permanence”.
ISBN: 978-90-420-3555-3
E-Book ISBN: 978-94-012-0829-1
© Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2012
Printed in the Netherlands
CONTENTS

EDITORIAL FOREWORD vii

FOREWORD ix

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT xi

ONE Pleasant Campania: Education Before and In the Convent 1

TWO Fleeing into Exile—Northern Italy, Geneva, Toulouse:
Astronomy as a Means of Earning a Living 9

THREE Paris: The Power of Memory 13

FOUR Off to London: Satire, Metaphysics, and Ethics in Italian 25

FIVE God Is Not Idle: Infinite Possibilities and Infinite Reality 31

SIX Religion and Ethics for the People and the Hero 51

SEVEN Return to Paris: Challenging Mathematics
and Aristotelianism 69

EIGHT “Houses of Wisdom” in Germany:
History, Magic, and Atomism 79

NINE Off to Venice: The Trial of the Heretic 101

TEN Afterlife: From Heretic to Hermeticist 109

CHRONOLOGY 117

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 119

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 123

INDEX 125
EDITORIAL FOREWORD

If only the statue of Giordano Bruno in Rome’s Campo de’ Fiori could speak.
It might remind college students of the price their forerunners had to pay to
ensure that it would stand there, gazing down on them as they caroused in the
pubs below. It might relate the details of the trial and execution of the man it
commemorates. It might even give him voice, allowing him to explain his
theory of an infinite universe and infinite worlds so that students might com-
pare it with the inflationary cosmology and the multiverse they learned about
in physics class.
But alas, Ettore Ferrari’s statue cannot speak, and university students
may never know how hard their predecessors worked to raise the money for
the monument and how they clamored in the streets to have it finally erected
and unveiled in 1889. As for Bruno’s trial, students today know only a bit
more than students did back then, thanks to Cardinal Angelo Mercati’s redis-
covery of the Miscelleanea Armadi in 1940.
Perhaps the most important conversation, however, would be about Bru-
no’s infinite universe and infinite worlds and our inflationary cosmology and
the multiverse. In other words, the story of Bruno’s trial and execution, alt-
hough fascinating, are in many ways secondary to the story of his ideas. For
far too long those ideas have been overshadowed by Bruno’s enshrinement as
an icon of academic freedom. His relentless drive to think for himself and ex-
press those ideas, regardless of the consequences, are integral to his story. But
to understand his story we must first understand the ideas he felt so compelled
to express.
That is where this book comes in. As with every volume in the Values in
Italian Philosophy Series, it revolves around ideas. Paul Richard Blum expert-
ly interweaves the history and the ideas into this brief introductory text, but
the emphasis is on the latter. If Bruno did not receive a fair trial back then, he
certainly deserves one today. Too often we approach him with a rigid view of
how we think science and religion should or should not be related. That is
why Blum’s readers will feel a twinge of embarrassment when they realize
how prone we are to construe the “science and religion” question solely in
twenty-first-century terms. Although there are similarities, the issues were
different in Bruno’s day, and that is all the more reason to read him today. He
was deeply imbued in classical and Renaissance literature, devouring the
works of Aristotle and the Scholastics. Bruno, like many of his contemporar-
ies, strove to understand the new with the help of the old and to reexamine the
old in light of the new—a good lesson for us today.
Admittedly, Bruno can be extremely arcane and even esoteric, hence the
need for an accomplished interpreter like Blum. But Bruno is not alone in this
regard. Marsilio Ficino can be equally arcane and esoteric, yet the Tatti Re-
naissance Library deems his work worthy of editing and translating, a clear
viii Editorial Foreword

indication of the high interest in early-Renaissance scholarship. The late-
Renaissance was no less fecund and deserves no less scrutiny, especially in
the English-speaking world. That is why the Values in Italian Philosophy se-
ries is pleased to feature Peter Henneveld’s translation of Blum’s book, origi-
nally published in German in 1999. May it say what Ferrari’s statue cannot
and promote a greater interest in Giordano Bruno’s contribution to Italian phi-
losophy and beyond.

Daniel B. Gallagher, Editor
Values in Italian Philosophy Special Series
Rome, Italy
FOREWORD
“There is nothing new under the sun”—this was Giordano Bruno’s motto.
Nonetheless it is appropriate to introduce him as a thinker who produced a
peculiar philosophy. As one can see in the final chapter about his afterlife, he
was mostly recited in order to take sides—be it against Catholics, in favor of
tolerance, for or against current strands in philosophy, or as a representative
of his era. However, one of his most constant impulses was resistance against
monopolization. On the other hand, the thinker from Nola makes it difficult
for the reader to follow him in the hopes of finding clear statements. The hec-
tic speaker, with “names and titles longer than his body,” pulling back his
arms like a juggler and continually talking to his audience—this is not just a
spiteful exterior description (at that time in Oxford) but also emblematic of
Bruno’s way of philosophizing: He is not looking for outright solutions but
rather for the depth of the problems; he knows the literature and the strategies
combined with their weaknesses. Therefore, he does not obediently study in
the monastery what scholasticism has to offer; rather he loses his composure
in light of the unsolved questions of long dismissed heresies. In a particular
way, however, he is looking for allies in matters of his own insights, and he
makes himself a propagator on his own account. Thus his fascination lies
more outside than inside of professional philosophy. An attempt shall be
made, through the convolutions and turning points of his argumentations, to
find the identical Bruno in his various and different works—the same Bruno
who proudly said about himself: “Philosophy is my profession!”
Unlike some other philosophers of his era, Bruno was neither holding an
office nor was he a politician; he was neither a businessman nor an artist.
Therefore, his way of thinking will be presented along the stations of his jour-
ney through Western Europe. On that way, key topics will offer themselves,
as will be announced in the chapter titles.
Although footnotes are absent, this book is very much indebted to the
literature listed in the bibliography (and there the emphasis was put on more
recent research). Some citations regarding certain factual information have
been put in parentheses. Ancient sources are being cited according to their in-
ner structure so they can be consulted in any edition. Sigla of abbreviations
are found in the bibliography. All translations have been provided by the au-
thor and the translator.
This book partly has been written during a research visit at the Center
for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. I would
like to express my heartfelt thanks for this opportunity and the manifold help
and assistance.
Baltimore, 6 December 2011 Paul Richard Blum
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The publication of this book was made possible with the support of The Center
for the Humanities and the Faculty Technology Center of Loyola University
Maryland.