Giordano Bruno: Philosopher of the Renaissance

449 Pages·2002·14.36 MB·English

by  Hilary Gatti

Giordano Bruno

Giordano Bruno
Philosopher of the Renaissance
Edited by
HILARY GATTI
First published 2002 by Ashgate Publishing
Published 2016 by Routledge
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Copyright © Hilary Gatti and the contributors, 2002
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Giordano Bruno: Philosopher of the Renaissance.
1. Bruno, Giordano, 1548–1600. 2. Philosophy, Renaissance.
3. Philosophy, Italian.
I. Gatti, Hilary.
195
Library of Congress Control Number: 2001099632
ISBN 13: 978-0-7546-0562-1 (hbk)
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
List of Contributors xiii
Preface xv
Acknowledgements xix
List of Abbreviations xxi
Part One Introduction
1 Giordano Bruno as Philosopher of the Renaissance 3
Giovanni Aquilecchia
Part Two Bruno and Italy
2 The Image of Giordano Bruno 17
Lars Berggren
3 Philosophy versus Religion and Science versus Religion:
the Trials of Bruno and Galileo 51
Maurice A. Finocchiaro
4 Giordano Bruno and Neapolitan Neoplatonism 97
Ingrid D. Rowland
5 Images of Literary Memory in the Italian Dialogues: Some
Notes on Giordano Bruno and Ludovico Ariosto 121
Lina Bolzoni
Part Three Bruno in England
6 Giordano Bruno and the Protestant Ethic 145
Hilary Gatti
7 John Charlewood, Printer of Giordano Bruno’s Italian
Dialogues, and his Book Production 167
Tiziana Provvidera
vi CONTENTS
8 Giordano Bruno’s Infinite Worlds in John Florio’s
Worlds of Words 187
Michael Wyatt
9 Ultima Thule: Contrasting Empires in Bruno’s Ash
Wednesday Supper and Shakespeare’s Tempest 201
Elisabetta Tarantino
Part Four Philosophical Themes
10 Giordano Bruno and Astrology 229
Leen Spruit
11 Simulacra et Signacula: Memory, Magic and Metaphysics
in Brunian Mnemonics 251
Stephen Clucas
12 Metempsychosis and Monism in Bruno’s nova filosofia 273
Ramon G. Mendoza
13 The Necessity of the Minima in the Nolan Philosophy 299
Ernesto Schettino
14 Meanings of ‘contractio’ in Giordano Bruno’s Sigillus
sigillorum 327
Leo Catana
Part Five Influence and Tradition
15 Giordano Bruno’s Mnemonics and Giambattista Vico’s
Recollective Philology 345
Paul Colilli
16 Macrocosm, Microcosm and the Circulation of the Blood:
Bruno and Harvey 365
Andrew Gregory
17 Monadology and the Reception of Bruno in the Young
Leibniz 381
Stuart Brown
18 Being a Modern Philosopher and Reading Giordano Bruno 405
Paul Richard Blum
Index 417
Illustrations
1.1 Frontispiece of Giordano Bruno, Camoeracensis
Acrotismus, Wittenberg, 1588, with a Latin dedication in
Bruno’s hand to M. Casperj Keglero Rostochiensi which
reads: Clarissimo Doctissimoque D. Dno. M. CASPERJ
KEGLERO ROSTOCHIENSI amico insigni atque optimé
merito in suj memoria et obsequij signu Jordanus
B[runus] Nolanus D D. D. Thanks are due to the Library
of University College London for permission to publish
this photograph, taken from a book held by their Rare
Books Library. 5
2.1 Anonymous painting (oil on canvas, 117 x 94 cm),
allegedly representing Giordano Bruno, Juleum,
Helmstedt. 39
2.2 Giordano Bruno, engraving by Raffaele (?) Morghen
after a design by Aniello d’Aloisi, in Biografia degli
uomini illustri del Regno di Napoli, Naples, 1813. 40
2.3 Galileo Galilei, engraving by Ottavio Leoni, 1624. 40
2.4 Giordano Bruno, engraving attributed to Johann Adam
Delsenbach, in Neue Bibliotecoder Nachricht und Urtheile von
neuen Büchern und allerhand zur Gelehrsamkeit dienenden
Sachen, no. 38, Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1715. 40
2.5 Giordano Bruno, lithograph by Carl Meyer, in Rixner
and Siber, Leben und Lehrmeinungen berühmter Physiker
am Ende des XVI. und am Anfang des XVII. Jahrhunderts,
als Beyträge zur Geschichte der Physiologie in engerer und
weiterer Bedeutung, V. Heft: ‘Jordanus Brunus’, Sulzbach,
1824. 40
2.6 Giordano Bruno, xylograph by Caterina Piotti Pirola, in
Iconografia italiana degli uomini e delle donne celebri
dall’epoca del risorgimento delle scienze e delle arti fino
ai nostri giorni, vol. 2, Milan, 1837. 41
2.7 Statue representing Giordano Bruno in prison, lithograph
by Michele Fanoli after an original executed in the 1840s
by Bartolomeo Ferrari. Published in Di sei statuette
viii ILLUSTRATIONS
d’illustri italiani fatte da Bartolomeo Ferrari al nob.
Antonio Papadopoli, Venice, 1862. 41
2.8 Giordano Bruno, marble statue by Raffaele da Crescenzo,
unveiled in Nola in 1867. 42
2.9 Giordano Bruno, marble statue by Pietro Masulli, in the
Cortile del Salvatore of the University in Naples, unveiled
in 1864. 42
2.10 The Dying Gaul, probably executed in Pergamon
c. 200 BC, in the Capitoline Museums, Rome. 42
2.11 Detail of Figure 2.9. 42
2.12 Giordano Bruno in the prison of the Venetian Inquisition,
lithograph by Gino de’ Bini, in Memorie inedite d’un
gesuita. Giordano Bruno. Scene storico-romantiche del
secolo XVI, Rome, 1889. 43
2.13 The cover of Giordano Bruno. Numero Unico a benefizio
del fondo per il monumento, Rome, 1885, design by
Ettore Ferrari. 44
2.14 Giordano Bruno, bozzetto for a monument in the Campo
de’ Fiori, by Riccardo Grifoni, 1879. 45
2.15 Giordano Bruno, model for a monument in the Campo
de’ Fiori, design by Ettore Ferrari, in Giordano Bruno.
Numero Unico a benefizio del fondo per il monumento,
Rome, 1885. 45
2.16 Giordano Bruno, first plaster model for the Campo de’
Fiori monument, Ettore Ferrari, 1886. 45
2.17 Giordano Bruno, watercolour representing a statue of
the same, by Ettore Ferrari, c. 1886–88. 46
2.18 Saint Bruno, marble statue in S. Maria degli Angeli, Rome,
by Jean Antoine Houdon, 1766. 47
2.19 Giordano Bruno, detail of the statue in Campo de’ Fiori,
Rome, by Ettore Ferrari, 1888. 48
2.20 Giordano Bruno, lithograph by Edoardo Matania, 1889. 49
2.21 The inauguration of the Bruno monument in Campo de’
Fiori, Rome, on 9 June 1889. 49
3.1 Frontispiece of Galileo Galilei, Dialogo sopra i due
massimi sistemi del mondo, Florence, 1632, which
develops many cosmological themes anticipated in Bruno’s
Cena de le Ceneri, London, 1584. Thanks are due to the
Library of University College London for permission to
publish this photograph, taken from a book held by their
Rare Books Library. 53
ILLUSTRATIONS ix
4.1 Frontispiece of Bruno’s Cantus Circaeus, Paris, 1582, a
work dedicated to the Duc d’Anjou, the illegitimate
brother of the French King, Henri III, whose court was
particularly receptive to Italian Neoplatonic influences.
Thanks are due to the Library of University College
London for permission to publish this photograph, taken
from a book held by their Rare Books Library. 99
5.1 A page of Ariosto’s Orlando furioso [1516], Venice,
1580, quoted by Bruno in his Cena de le Ceneriwhere
Bruno (the Nolan philosopher) and John Florio, during
a night-time journey by boat down the Thames, sing
passages from Ariosto’s celebrated text. Thanks are due
to the Library of University College London for permission
to publish this photograph, taken from a book held by
their Rare Books Library. 123
6.1 Illustration of an early post-Copernican astronomical
model attributed to Giordano Bruno, the Nolan, by
William Gilbert in his posthumous De mundo, London,
1651. Thanks are due to the Library of University College
London for permission to publish this photograph, taken
from a book held by their Rare Books Library. 147
7.1 A page of Robert Recorde, The Castle of Knowledge
[1551], London, 1596, a work containing the first public
debate on Copernicanism in England, published by John
Charlewood, who was also Bruno’s publisher in London.
Thanks are due to the Library of University College
London for permission to publish this photograph, taken
from a book held by their Rare Books Library. 169
8.1 A page from the dialogue between Torquato and Nolano
in John Florio’s language-teaching text The second frutes,
London, 1591. Torquato was the name of a character in
Bruno’s Cena de le Ceneri, said to have debated with
Bruno himself (the Nolan) in the house of Fulke Greville.
Thanks are due to the Library of University College
London for permission to publish this photograph, taken
from a book held by their Rare Books Library. 189
9.1 Frontispiece of Ovid, The XV bookes of P. Ovidius Naso,
entituled Metamorphosis, translated out of Latine into
English meter by Arthur Golding, London, 1567. Thanks
are due to the Library of University College London for
permission to publish this photograph, taken from a
book held by their Rare Books Library. 203