The Renaissance was the fourth of the great events in the history of the Christian Era; the first being the decline of Rome, the second the introduction of the Christian cult, and the third, the intrusion into Southern Europe of the Teutonic and Slavonic tribes. With none of these however, save the fourth, is this paper primarily concerned, and not even with the fourth save indirectly, though it deals with a special feature of it. Protestants and Catholics alike impeded progress and the self-evolution of reason in every possible way. Italy gave the world the Roman Republic, then the Roman Empire and finally the Roman Church; after that arose a new storm centre in the North which swept toward the Mediterranean. The Teutons effaced the Western Empire, adopted Christianity, and completely modified what remained of Latin civilization. Then the Roman Bishops separated the Latin from the Greek Church, and under the captious title of The Holy Roman Empire bound Western Europe into what has been called a "cohesive whole." While Romans and Teutons never actually blended homogeneously, they had yet a common bond of union. When this coalition was for a time freed from both Papacy and Empire—then began intellectual activity and independence of thought, taking form in Italy as the Renaissance; in Germany as the Reformation. In the South it was known as the Revival of Learning. It furnished a lux a non lucendo. Italy gave freedom rather to the mind, Germany rather to the soul. Toward the South men still took refuge behind that form of modified paganism which became Catholicism. In the North they attained a more complete emancipation because of their violent opposition to the Papacy and all that went with it.

In the long run both attained the same result, i. e., liberation of the mind from artificial impediments and fetters, though they of the North achieved it in its full extent far earlier. (I am speaking of course, relatively; men's minds are far from free even today, but the state we have reached is a great advance upon that of Bruno's time). The Reformation led men to be far more outspoken than they dared be in the South; the free thinkers of Italy were still content to do homage to a thoroughly corrupt Papal hierarchy. As critics and warriors Luther and Calvin rank as liberators of the human mind, but later, as founders of mutually hostile sects, they only retarded civilization, and the churches they founded are today as stagnant pools.

In 1548, in the midst of this stormy period in Italian history Bruno was born, in the little village of Nola, not far from Naples, whence Vesuvius was visible in the picturesque distance. His father was a soldier, his mother of very humble origin. Of his family history nothing is known; little explanation is thus afforded, by the doctrine of heredity, for the marvelous mental faculties which he subsequently displayed. Nevertheless his father was a man of some culture, at least, for he was a friend of Tansillo, a poet, under whose influence the growing boy subsequently came. Bruno has told us himself how one Savolino (probably an uncle) annually confessed his sins to his CurÉ, of which "though many and great" his boon companion readily absolved him. But only once was full confession necessary; each subsequent year Savolino would say: "Padre mio, the sins of a year—to-day,—you may know them;" to which the CurÉ would reply "son, thou knowest the absolution of one year ago;—go in peace, and sin no more."

In those days as in many others superstition was everywhere rife and effective. Its influence must not be disregarded as one studies the formation of Bruno's character.

When he was about eleven years old Bruno was sent to Naples to be taught logic, dialectics and humanities. When fifteen he entered the Dominican Monastery in Naples, and assumed the clerical habit of that order. Here he gave up his baptismal name of Filippo and assumed that of Giordano, according to the monastic custom. In 1572 he was ordained priest.

His reasons for thus entering the Church are scarcely far to seek. Of intellectual bent, and studious rather than martial in his habits and inclinations, there was but one career open to him. To be sure the Dominican Order was the most narrow and most bigoted of all, as the current punning expression "Domini canes" will indicate. Still it was at that time the most powerful, especially in the kingdom of Naples, which was then ruled by Spain. The old cloister had been once the home of St. Thomas Aquinas, whose works Bruno claimed at his trial he had always by him, "continually reading, studying and restudying them, and holding them dear."

This was the age when efforts to put down every heresy had been redoubled. The fanaticism of Loyola, and the decision of the Council of Trent "to erase with fire and sword the slightest traces of heresy," made a poor frame work in which to place the picture of a liberal minded scholar. Bruno soon learned this at his cost. Even during his novitiate he was accused of giving away images of the saints, and of giving bad advice to his associates. In 1576 he was accused of apologizing for the heresy of Arius, that the Son was begotten of the Father, and so not consubstantial nor coeternal with Him, but created by Him and subordinate to Him; (which was condemned by the Council of Nice, 325, and contradicted in the Nicene Creed;) admiring its scholastic form, rather than its abstract truth. Disgusted with his treatment he left Naples and went to Rome. Even here he was molested in the Cloister of Minerva (note the pagan name), and was met with an accusation of 130 specifications. He then abandoned his garb and his cloister and escaped from Rome, beginning thus the nomadic life which he continued until immured in the dungeons of the Inquisition at Venice, sixteen years later. Through these wanderings one must follow him, if one would become familiar with his life and traits.

He now resumed for a time his baptismal name, and traveled to a town on the Gulf of Genoa, where he taught youth and young gentlemen. Then he passed on to Turin and Venice, where he spent weeks in futile attempts to find work. But the schools and the printing houses were closed because of the plague. In Venice however he managed to print his first book on "The Signs of the Times;" or rather this was his first book to appear in print. It seems that before he left Naples he wrote "The Ark of Noah," a satirical allegory. In this he represented that the animals held a formal meeting in the Ark, to settle questions of precedence and rank, and that the presiding officer, the Ass, was in danger of losing his position and his influence, because his power lay rather in hoofs than horns. Throughout most of his life Bruno constantly scored and criticised Asinity; it was frequently the topic of his invective, and those who read between his lines were probably quite justified in regarding these frequent allusions as references to the ignorance, bigotry and credulity of the Monks.

From Venice Bruno went to Padua, where some of the Dominican friars persuaded him to resume monastic costume, since it made travel easier and safer. Thence by way of Brescia and Milan he may be followed to Bergamo. At Milan he first heard of his future friend Sir Philip Sydney. From Bergamo he resolved to go to Lyons, but learning that he would find anything but welcome there he turned aside and crossed the Alps, arriving in Geneva in the Spring of 1579. Here he was visited by a distinguished Neapolitan exile, the Marquis De Vico, who persuaded him again to lay aside his clerical garb, and who gave him the dress of a gentleman, including a sword.

Here is raised the great question,—Did Bruno adopt Calvinism? Before the Inquisition fifteen years later he practically denied this, yet acknowledged attending the lectures of Balbani, of Lucca, as well as of others who taught and preached in Geneva. Under the regulations of the Academy (University), where he had already registered, certain regulations must be complied with, and Bruno appears to have obeyed them in at least a certain degree. But the immediate cause for his departure from Geneva appears to have been one of his outbreaks of cynicism and accurate scholarship, since in 1579 he was called before the Council for having caused to be printed a document enumerating twenty errors made by the Professor of Philosophy (de la Faye) in one of his lectures. The latter was incensed and outraged at this criticism and disparagement of his views and learning, and the quarrel assumed unexpected magnitude, since Bruno, on his second appearance before the Consistory or supreme tribunal of the Church, denied the charges and called the ministers "pedagogues." These gentlemen decided to refuse him communion unless he should confess and repent of his faults and make due apology. His acceptance of these conditions not being hearty enough to suit his judges, he was admonished and excluded from the communion. These steps lead to greater contrition on his part, and the ban of excommunication was withdrawn. This sentence of exclusion was the only one within the power of the Consistory to pass, but does not prove that Bruno had accepted the protestant faith, nor partaken of its communion. In fact at his trial he steadfastly denied this. It seemed however, to disgust him with Calvinism, against which thereafter he never ceased to inveigh. Later he contrasted it with Lutheranism which was far more tolerant, and still later gave him a heartier welcome. Calvin, it must be remembered, had written a polemic against Servetus, "in which it is shown to be lawful to coerce heretics by the sword." As between the council of Trent and Calvin it certainly must have been hard, in those days, to select either a faith, or an abiding place where that faith might be peaceably practised. Doubtless Bruno's views concerning the philosophy of Aristotle conflicted with those of the church authorities, for Beza (Calvin's follower), had stated that they did not propose to swerve one particle from the opinions of that Greek philosopher, to whom, though of pagan origin, the Church, both Roman and Protestant, was for centuries so firmly bound.

And so shaking the dust of Geneva from his feet he journeyed to Lyons, where he failed utterly to find occupation, and then on to Toulouse, where he remained about two years. Here he took a Doctorate in Theology in order to compete for a vacant chair. To this he was elected by the students, as the custom then was in most of the scholia or universities. For two sessions he lectured on Aristotle. Had this University required of him that he should attend mass, as did some others, he could not have done so, owing to his excommunication; though just why exclusion from a Calvinistic academy should debar him from Catholic mass does not appear. Toulouse was a warm place for heretics; the burning of 14,000 of them at its capture will prove this. A few years (35) after he left it Vanini was burned for heretic notions. It is hardly to be believed that Bruno could pass two years or more here without controversies arising from his teaching. But his nominal reason for leaving, in 1581, and going to Paris, was the war then raging in Southern France, under Henry of Navarre.

Before leaving Toulouse he completed his "Clavis Magna" or "Great Key," the last word—as he seemed to think—on the art of memory. Only one volume of this great work, which, in his peculiarly egotistical way, he said is "superlatively pregnant," was ever published, and that in England, the "Sigillus Sigillorum." It must not be forgotten that it was on both teaching and practising this art of memory that Bruno, throughout his career, prided himself. He was even not averse, at least at certain periods of his career, to the belief that he had some secret system for this purpose, or even received occult aid. But when summoned before Henry III, to whose ears had come his fame, and asked whether the memory he had and the art he professed were natural or due to magic, he proved that a good memory was a cultivated natural product. He then dedicated to the King a book on "The Art of Memory."

But this was shortly after his arrival in Paris, in 1581, where he quickly became famous. A course of thirty lectures on "The Thirty Divine Attributes" of St. Thomas Aquinas would have given him a chair, could he have attended mass.

His residence in Paris was marked by an extraordinary literary activity. He published in succession De Umbris Idearum (Shadow of Ideas), dedicated to Henry III, (this included the Art of Memory just mentioned) Cantus Circaeus (Incantation of Circe) dedicated to Prince Henry; De Compendiosa Architectura et Complemento Artis Lulli (Compendious Architecture); Il Candelaio (The Torchbearer); these all appeared in 1582. These varied greatly in character. The first was devoted to the metaphysics of the art of remembering, with an analysis of that faculty, and these second was given up to the same general topic. It was all obscure, hence perhaps its popularity. Brunnhofer says that it was "a convenient means of introducing Bruno to strange universities, gaining him favor with the great, or helping him out of pressing need of money. It was his exoteric philosophy with which he could carefully drape the philosophy of a religion hostile to the Church, and ride as a hobby horse in his unfruitful humors." Nevertheless we must believe in his sincerity. The "Compendious Architecture" is the first of his works in which Bruno deals with the views of Raymond Lully, a "logical calculus and mnemonic scheme in one" (McIntyre) that had many imitators. For Lully Bruno seems to have the greatest regard, this appearing in many ways. Lully, by the way, was a Spanish scholastic and alchemist, who was born on one of the Balearic Islands in 1235. He went as a missionary to the Mahommedans, and spent much time in Asia and Africa. He figures largely in the history of the alchemists and as a practitioner of the occult.

The "Torchbearer" was a work of very different character. It was described as a "Comedy" by one who described himself as "Academico di nulla academia, ditto il fastidito: In tristitia hilaris, hilaritate tristis." It is essentially a satire on the predominant vices of pedantry, superstition and selfishness or sordid love. Though lacking in dramatic power it is regarded as second to nothing of its kind and time. Its dramatis personae are personified types, not individuals. It was realistic even in its vulgarity, for obscenity was prevalent in the literature of those days. But in it Bruno struck at what seemed to him his greatest enemy, i. e. pedantry.

There were at this time in Paris two great Universities, one the College de France, with liberal tendencies, and opposed to the Jesuits and all pedantry; the other the Sorbonne, for centuries the guardian of the Catholic faith, endowed with the right of censorship, which must have been exercised over Bruno's works. In which of these, though surely in one of them, Bruno was made an Extraordinary Lecturer history has failed to record. He must have offended both, since he was anxious to be taken back into the Church, yet was revolutionary in his teaching. More than thirty years later Nostitz, one of his pupils, paid tribute to his versatility and skill, saying "he was able to discourse impromptu on any suggested subject, to speak extensively and elaborately without preparation, so that he attracted many pupils and admirers in Paris." (McIntyre). But Bruno belonged to the literally peripatetic school, and in 1583 he forsook Paris for London, because as he says of "tumults," leaving it to the imagination whether these were civil or scholastic.

Elizabeth reigned at this time; her influence made England a harbor of safety for religious and other mental suspects. She had a penchant for Italians and their language; two of her physicians were Italians, and Florio was ever welcome at her court. To this court Bruno also was welcomed, and, basking for sometime in the sunshine of her regard and patronage, passed there the happiest portion of his unhappy life. Oxford was at that time the stronghold of Aristotelianism. One of its statutes ordained that "Bachelors and Masters who did not follow Aristotle faithfully were liable to a fine of five shillings for every point of divergence, and for every fault committed against the Logic of the Organon." (McIntyre). In Oxford at this time, unfortunately, theology was the only live issue; of science as of real scholarship there was little or none. (Its predominant trait of those days is still, perhaps, its dominant feature to-day). To this university Bruno addressed a letter, couched in vainglorious and egotistical terms, craving permission to lecture there. This was not received with favor, while his doctrines met with small encouragement at this ancient seat of learning, which Bruno later stigmatized as the "widow of true science." But opportunity was afforded him to dispute publicly before a noble visitor in June, 1583, a Polish prince; one Alasco, for whom great public entertainment had been provided. His opponent, defeated by fifteen unanswerable syllogisms, resorted to scurrility and abuse. This public exhibition put an end to the lectures on the Immortality of the Soul which Bruno had been allowed to give, and he returned to London.

Shortly after this he published his Cena (Ash Wednesday Supper) in which he ridiculed the Oxford doctors, saying among other things that they were much better acquainted with beer than with Greek. But he criticised too cynically and lost thereby in popularity. This led to the appearance of the Causa, a dialogue, in which he was less vindictive. He admitted in this that there was much in the old institution which was admirable; that it was even the first in Europe, that speculative philosophy first flourished there, and that thence, "the splendor of one of the noblest and rarest spheres of philosophy, in our times almost extinct, was diffused to all other academies in civilized lands." What he most condemned was the too great attention given to language and words while the realistics for which words stand were neglected. Doctors were easily made and doctorates too cheaply bought. His charge in brief was that they mistook the shadow for the substance; a charge even yet too commonly justified among the strongholds of theology and other speculative dogmas.

Returning to London after this experience Bruno went to live with Mauvissiere, the French Ambassador. While the English records make no mention of his presence it is yet quite certain that he was frequently at Court, and that men like Sydney, Greville, Temple and others were his frequent associates. But as the Ambassador's influence was on the wane, he was not equal to his great trust. At this time our philosopher spoke of himself as one "whom the foolish hate, the ignoble despise, whom the wise love, the learned admire," etc. (McIntyre). Of Queen Elizabeth he wrote in most fulsome phrases, such as she too dearly loved. Before his judges, a few years later, Bruno apologized for his exaggerated expressions concerning a Protestant ruler, claiming that when he spoke of her as "divine" he meant it not as a term of worship, but as an epithet like those which the ancients bestowed upon their rulers; claiming further that he knew he erred in thus praising a heretic.

Bruno published seven works in England. The first was "Explicatio triginta Sigillorum," the Thirty Seals thus explained being hints for acquiring, arranging and remembering all arts and sciences. To it was added his Sigillus Sigillorum for comparing and explaining all mental operations. Then came an Italian dialogue "La Cena de le Ceneri" or Ash Wednesday Supper. This was written in praise and extension of the Copernican theory, indeed quite exceeding it in teaching the identity of matter, the infinity of the universe, the possibility of life on other spheres, with a painstaking attempt to show that these notions do not conflict with those of Mother Church. Next came "De Causa, Principio et Uno." (Cause, Principle and Unity). This treated of the immanence of spirit, the eternity of matter, the potential divinity of life, the origin of sin and death, and many other similar abstruse topics. It was followed by De l'Infinito Universo ed Mondi, with numerous reasons for believing the universe to be infinite and full of innumerable worlds, with the divine essence everywhere pervading.

All these works appeared in 1583. In 1584 appeared his "Spacio de la Bestia Triofante" or Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast. In this prose poem Jupiter, repenting his errors, resolves to expel the many beasts that occupy his heavenly sphere—the constellations—and to substitute for them the virtues. In the council of the gods convened by him many subjects are discussed, among them the history of religions, the contrasts between natural and revealed religions and the fundamental forms of morality. In this allegory Jupiter represents of course the human spirit; the Bear, the Scorpion, etc., are the vices to be expelled. Unfortunately the book was quite generally regarded as attack upon the Church or the Pope, though what he really struck at was the credulity of mankind. It was dedicated to Sir Philip Sydney. Then came his "Cabala del Cavallo Pegasio" or Cabal, dedicated to a suppositious Bishop who was made to impersonate the spirit of ignorance and sloth. It is a mordant satire on Asinity, including credulity and unquestioning faith. After this he dedicated another work to Sidney. "Degl' Heroici Furori" (Enthusiasms of the Noble), a collection of sonnets with prose commentaries, like Dante's Vita Nuova, touching on the love for spiritual beauty arising from that for physical beauty attaining a climax in a sort of ecstasy by union with the divine. These sonnets possess a very high literary value aside from their other interest.

When his ambassadorial patron was recalled Bruno probably returned to Paris with him, during the latter part of 1585. Here he spent a year amidst constant turmoil and excitement, and at his own expense. Though he attempted reconciliation with the Church he was regarded as an apostate. He held one more public disputation in which he advanced one hundred and twenty theses against the teaching of the Sorbonne, his side being taken by its rival, the College de France. The outcome cannot have been brilliantly favorable, since he soon after left Paris, in June, 1586. The collection of charges above alluded to was published in Paris after Bruno's departure, and again in Wittenberg, under the title "Excubitor" (The Ambassador). It was an arraignment of the Aristotelians, based on the words of that great master himself. Bruno claimed the same right to criticise Aristotle that the latter claimed to criticise his predecessors. In it Bruno says, "It is a poor mind that will think with the multitude because it is a multitude; truth is not altered by the opinions of the vulgar or the confirmation of the many;"—and again—"it is more blessed to be wise in truth in face of opinion than to be wise in opinion in face of truth." (McIntyre, p. 50).

In addition to this Bruno had also published, before leaving Paris, a commentary on the Physics of Aristotle.

Tarrying somewhat by the wayside Bruno reached Wittenberg, where, in 1586, he matriculated at its University, Marburg having curtly rejected him. Describing him here McIntyre styles him the "Knight Errant of Philosophy." Here Lutheranism dominated the theological faculty, while the philosophical faculty was dominated by Calvinism; views concerning the person of Christ, the "Real Presence," and the doctrine of Predestination keeping them apart in spite of Melancthon's attempt to reunite the two factions. From the Lutheran party Bruno obtained permission to lecture, and so for two years he taught from the Organon of Aristotle, as well as the writings of Raymond Lulli. To the University senate he dedicated a work on Lulli, "De Lampade Combinatoria Lulliana," whose chief purpose was to teach one how to find "an indefinite number of propositions and middle terms for speaking and arguing." He regarded it as the only key to the Lullian writings, as well as a clue to a great many of the mysteries of the Pythagoreans and Cabalists. It was soon followed by "De Progressu et Lampade Venatoria Logicorum," intended to enable one to "dispute promptly and copiously on any subject."

But again fate compelled a change of residence, for the Calvanistic and Ducal party gained in political ascendancy, to which party Bruno, as a Copernican, would have appeared as a heretic. After delivering an eloquent address of farewell he moved on, his next abiding place being Prague, where Rudolph II, of Bohemia, was posing as the friend of all learned men. Here he already had friends at court, and here he introduced himself with another Lullian work. To the Emperor he next dedicated a work of iconoclastic type, "One hundred and sixty articles against the mathematicians and philosophers of the day." For this the Emperor granted him the sum of three hundred dollars, and in January, 1589, he shifted again to Helmstadt, in Brunswick, where he matriculated again in the then youngest of the German Universities. This had been founded only twelve years before by Duke Julius, who was extremely liberal in his views, and intended to found a model institution, in which theology should not play too dominant a part. But while he received here a certain recognition fate again sported with him, for the Duke died four months after his arrival. Bruno obtained permission to pronounce a funeral oration, desiring to express his gratitude to the memory of one who had opened such an institution, so free to all lovers of the Muses and to exiles like himself, who were here protected from the greedy maw of the Roman wolf, whereas in Italy he had been chained to a superstitious cult. It was full of allusions to the papal tyranny which was infecting the world with the rankest poison of ignorance and vice.

The fatuous simplicity and the worldly blindness which Bruno displayed, in ever setting foot inside of Italian or papal territory after the delivery of this Oratio Consolatoria, may in one way be appreciated but never understood or explained. Moreover he had made himself persona non grata as well to the Protestants, who were scarcely more liberal than the Catholics. It appears that the great Boethius, superintendent of the Church at Helmstadt, had acted both as judge and executioner, and publicly excommunicated Bruno without a hearing, since there is extant a letter appealing from his arbitrary judgment and malice. The grounds for this judgment were never made clear, since no attention was ever paid to the appeal; but inasmuch as Bruno never really joined the Protestant profession it must have been meant to inflict some species of social ostracism. Boethius had himself to be suppressed later. But Bruno, finding too many enemies, left for Frankfort in 1590, "in order to get two books printed."

These were his two great Latin Works, "De Minimo" and "De Immenso," the introduction to the latter being the "De Monade." He worked at these with his own hands. In the introduction to the former his publisher stated that before its final revision Bruno had been hurriedly called away by an unforseen chance. This sudden departure may have been due to a refusal of the town Council to permit his residence there, or it may have been a call to ZÜrich, where he spent a few months with one Hainzel, who had a leaning toward the Black Arts. Bruno wrote for him "De Imaginum Compositione," a manual of his Art of Memory. In this Swiss city he also dictated a work "Summa Terminorum Metaphysicorum," which was not published until 1609, and then in Marburg. But Bruno returned to Frankfort in 1591, where he obtained permission to publish his De Minimo. This work was on the "three fold minimum and measurement, being the elements of three speculative and several practical sciences." This like the two next mentioned was a Latin poem, after the fashion of Lucretius. The De Monade, Numero et Figura dealt with the Monad, and with the elements of a more esoteric science, while in the De Immenso et Innumerabilibus, the Immeasurable and Innumerable, he dealt with the Universe and the worlds. These three poems contain Bruno's complete philosophy of God and Nature.

While thus staying in Frankfort for the second time Bruno was invited by a young Venetian patrician to pay him a visit, and become his tutor in those arts in which the philosopher excelled. It was the most unfortunate event in Bruno's unhappy life when he accepted this apparently tempting invitation. Mocenigo, his host, was of good family, but shallow, vain, weak-minded and dishonest, with the fashionable taste of his day for the black arts. It is quite possible that he was moreover the tool of the Inquisition, which had long desired to entrap Bruno. It is probable moreover that the latter quite failed to appreciate how unenviably he was regarded by that Church to which he still felt that he belonged. Furthermore Venice was then a Republic and free, and he longed for his beloved Italy again.

En route to Venice he spent three months in Padua, teaching there and gathering around himself pupils, even in that short time. He had barely left it when Galileo was invited there to teach; as Riehl has said, "the creator of modern science following in the steps of its prophet."

Early in 1592 Bruno went to live in Mocenigo's house. Trouble soon began. Entirely apart in temperament and characteristics, they soon disagreed. The pupil was deeply disappointed at not acquiring that mastery over the secrets of nature for which he had hoped, and found that there was no quick way to acquire a retentive and replete memory. And so Mocenigo announced to his friend Ciotto, the bookseller, his intent to gain from Bruno all he could and then denounce him to the Holy Office. While others were thus conspiring against him Bruno was writing a work on "The Seven Liberal Arts" and on "Seven Other Inventive Arts," intending to present it to the Pope, hoping thus to obtain absolution and be released from the ban of excommunication.

When Bruno at last appreciated the dangers by which he was surrounded he announced his intent to go again to Frankfort to have some of his books printed, and so took his leave of Mocenigo. On the following day, in May, 1592, Bruno was seized by six men, using force, who locked him in an upper story of Mocenigo's house. The next day he was transferred to an underground cellar, and the following night to the prison of the Inquisition. May 23rd his former host denounced him, with a cunning and lying statement concerning some of his views and teachings. Thus he was reported as stating that Christ's miracles were only apparent, that He and the apostles were magicians, that the Catholic faith was full of blasphemies against God, that the Friars befouled the world and should not be allowed to preach, that they were asses, and the doctrines of the Church were asses' beliefs, etc. (McIntyre). This was followed two days later by a second denunciation in which Mocenigo went to a diabolical extreme of deceit and hypocrisy; stating that all the time he was entertaining Bruno he was promising himself to bring him before the Holy Office. Within forty-eight hours the Holy Tribunal met to consider the matter; before them appeared the book-sellers who had known Bruno in ZÜrich and Frankfort, and before them came Bruno in his own behalf, professing his entire willingness to tell the whole truth. Within a few days Mocenigo made yet another deposition, denouncing Bruno's statements about the infallible Church. On the following day Bruno was again heard in his own defense, and appealed to the famous and fallacious doctrine of two-fold truth, acknowledging that he had taught too much as a philosopher rather than as an honest man and Christian, and that he had based his teachings too much on sense and reason and not enough on faith;—so specious had become his argument with the terrors of the Inquisition before him. He further claimed that his intent had been not to impugn the faith but to exalt philosophy. He then beautifully epitomized his own views, claiming that he believed in an infinite universe, in an infinite divine potency, holding it unworthy of an infinite power to create a finite world, when he could produce so vast an infinity; with Pythagoras he regarded this world as one of many stars,—innumerable worlds. This universe he held to be governed by a universal providence, existent in two forms;—one nature, the shadow or footprint of deity, the other the ineffable essence of God, always inexplicable. Concerning the triune Godhead he confessed certain philosophic doubts as well as concerning the use of the term "persons" in these distinctions, while he quoted St. Augustine to the same effect. The miracles he had always believed to be divine and genuine; concerning the Holy Mass and the Transubstantiation he agreed with the Church. As the days went by he became the more insistent upon his orthodoxy. He condemned the heretic writings of Melancthon, Luther and Calvin, expressed respect for the writings of Lulli because of their philosophical bearings, while for St. Thomas Aquinas he had the most profound regard.

Other counts in the indictment which he had to face were his doubts concerning the miracles, the sacraments and the incarnation, his praise of heretics and heretic princes and his familiarity with the magic arts. He finally made a formal solemn abjuration of all the errors he had ever committed, and the heresies he had ever uttered, or doubts expressed or believed, praying only that the Holy Office would receive him back into the Church where he might rest in peace. Further examinations were held and the earlier processes against him in Naples and Rome recalled. After this there was a period of apparent quiet save that he remained in prison. It is not known to what tortures he may have been subjected, but it is recorded that he knelt before his judges asking their pardon, and God's, for all his faults, and professed himself ready for any penance, apparently not yet realizing the fate in store for him.

A little later it transpired that the Sacred Congregation of the Supreme Tribunal of the Holy Office, in Rome, desired to assume all further responsibility for the process against so distinguished a heretic. Accordingly the machinery of the Church was put in motion to this end. Negotiations with the Venetian Republic, somewhat tedious and complicated, which need not detain us now, were at last concluded. January 7, 1603, the Venetian procurator reported of Bruno that "his faults were exceedingly grave in respect of heresies, though in other respects he was one of the most excellent and rarest natures, and of exquisite learning and knowledge," (McIntyre) but that the case was of unusual gravity, Bruno not a Venetian subject, the Pope most anxious, etc. It was then decided to remit him to the Tribunal of the Inquisition at Rome; whereat it is duly reported, the Pope was deeply gratified.

To Rome then he went and here he was lost, so far as documentary records go, for a period of six years. How to explain this fact and this apparent clemency has bothered the biographers not a little. Whether this time was spent in an examination of his voluminous writings, which would seem incredible, or whether the Dominicans labored so long to procure his more absolute recantation in order to prevent scandal in and reflection on their order, or whether Pope Clement himself regarded kindly—in some degree— the great scholar who was so anxious to dedicate to him a magnum opus;—to these queries history answereth not. The Dominicans pretended—years later—to doubt if he ever had been put to death, or whether he had ever really belonged to their order. These statements are too characteristic to provoke more than a sad smile.

Finally matters were hastened to an end by the efforts of Fathers Commisario and Bellarmino; the latter being the zealous bigot who decided that Copernicanism was a heresy, who later laid the indictment against Galileo. Through their machinations Bruno was, in February, 1599, decreed on eight counts as a dangerous heretic, who might still admit his heresies, and he was to be granted forty days in which to recant and repent. But this period was stretched out some ten months, until December, when it was reported that Bruno refused to recant, having nothing to take back. Among the Tribunal at this time was San Severino, fanatical, bitter because of his failure to secure the papacy, who had declared that St. Bartholomew's was "a glorious day, a day of joy for Catholics." It was decided that the high officers of the Dominicans should make one last effort to compel or coax Bruno to abjure. This he declined to do, Whereupon, January 20th, 1600, it was decreed that "further measures be proceeded to, servatis servandis, that sentence be passed, and that the said Friar Giordano be handed over to the secular authority." A few days later Bruno was degraded, excommunicated and handed over to the Governor of Rome, with the usual hypocritical recommendation to "mercy," and that he be punished "without effusion of blood," which meant of course burning at the stake.

Bruno's reply to his judges deserves to be printed in letters of gold whenever it can be recorded;—"Greater perhaps is your fear in pronouncing my sentence than mine in hearing it."

Let us spare ourselves a too minute account of his execution. Some reports are to the effect that his tongue was tied, because he refused to listen to the exhortations of those members of the Company of St. John the Beheaded, better known as the Brothers of the Misericordia, who accompanied the condemned to the scaffold or the stake, resorting to the most cruel methods in order to provoke at least some appearance of recantation or repentance during the last moments of life.

Right here let it be said of Bruno that whatever may have been his weaknesses before the Inquisition at Venice, he stood firmly by his creed when put to the final test, and died an ideal martyr's death because his creed did not agree with that of his persecutors.

And so terminated the life of one of Italy's greatest ornaments and scholars. The occasion had not then the importance we assign it now. The burning of a heretic was a frequent spectacle, and the year 1600 was the year of Jubilee, in which the death of one unbeliever more was but the incident of a day. He had himself foreseen it, saying, "Torches, fifty or a hundred, will not fail me, even though the march past be at mid-day, should it be my fate to die in Roman Catholic Country."

There remains yet to comment on his character and to analyze his views.

The greatest blot upon the former is his attitude before the Venetian Tribunal. Here he was at first defiant, even polemical, strong in his asserted right to use the natural light of sense and reason. Under greater stress he modified this to one of absolute and indignant denial, and finally became submissive to the last degree, cringing and finally begging for pardon on bended knees. That this attitude changed with his better realization of his predicament is undeniable. Moreover what keen and sensitive natures may do under the influence of torture is never to be predicated. How many of us could resist the persuasiveness of the rack when it came to modifying our beliefs? But whatever may have been his weakness at that time, he completely rehabilitated himself before his end, for were not his ashes scattered to the winds as a token that he completely failed to recant? Surely no martyr to science or dogma ever died a more dignified death, for the edification or example of others.

What shall be said of his persecutors and prosecutors? Let us here be charitable; let us be just. Have we yet that absolute knowledge of right and wrong which can enable us to pass final judgment on men of the past, their motives and actions? Moral perceptions are the product of the race, the age and the environment; they vary greatly with the times. There is no crime in or out of the Decalogue which has at all times and by all peoples been regarded as such. The Church during several centuries enjoyed a monopoly of wisdom or learning as well as of opportunities for acquiring them. Zealotry, bigotry, intolerance, fanaticism, were the natural products of such conditions. So were cruelty and disregard of human life. Join the mind of a bigot to the body of one who knows not fear, and the result will be a Loyola, or a St. Louis of France, who held that the only argument a layman should engage in with a heretic should be a sword thrust through the body. If then heresy was a crime, punishable by a cruel death in all the capitals of Europe, let us blame less the men who were trained and grew up with these notions, but rather more the Church which preached them, whether Catholic or Protestant. Only if one of these really were, as it still claims to be, infallible, then what has become of its infallibility? Or if heresy be held still a crime then what shall we say of the Church's ethics? If one were God-given the other is un-Christ-like. But no free thinker can engage in theological polemics, or with jesuitical sophistries, without letting his reason excite his emotions; and when the emotions enter the door logic flies out of the window.

Let us say then that Bruno was in some respects so far ahead of his day and generation that they understood him not. And yet he was a torch bearer, save at his own last funeral pyre, shedding forth a light which illumed the centuries to come, and helping to make the period of the Italian Renaissance one of the most important and glorious in the world's history. If better known and more widely studied, he would be by English and American students placed on that pinnacle which he deserves in the Hall of Fame.

What shall be said of Bruno as a philosopher? He, first of all men in the middle ages, taught that Nature was lovable and worthy of study. Loving her, trusting, confiding in her, he found himself at outs with all the mental processes of his fellow scholars. In this way the natural method was brought into direct opposition with the ponderously artificial and strained methods of his day. He held that our eyes were given us that we might open and look upward. "Seeing, I do not pretend not to see, nor fear to profess it openly," he says. His philosophy was rather a product of intuition than of ratiocination, which became his real religion, for which Catholicism was a cloak, because in those days one was compelled to wear a cloak or live but a short life, and that within prison walls. What the medieval church, Catholic and even Protestant, has to answer for, as to the suppression of truth and provocation of hypocrisy, is beyond the mensuration of man. For the argument from authority he had the greatest contempt, and herein he set the world of thinkers a valuable lesson. "To believe with the many because they were many, was the mark of a slave," (McIntyre). Before Bacon, before Descrates, he saw the necessity of "first clearing the mind of all prejudice, all traditional beliefs that rest on authority." He thus begins one of his sonnets:—

"Oh, holy assinity! Oh, holy ignorance, holy folly and pious devotion; which alone makest souls so good that human wit and zeal can go no further," etc.

By the independence of his mental processes he was thrown quite upon his own resources, and his nature, already dignified and reserved, was made more introspective and self-conscious. In this way he developed strains of vanity and egotism which led him at times to the bombastic self-laudation of a Paracelsus. He had nothing but disgust for the common people and the sort of scholars (pedants) whom they admired. The vulgar mind was more influenced by sophisms, by appearance, by failure to distinguish between the shadow and the substance. Take but two or three of Bruno's conceptions:—

He perhaps first during the middle ages taught the transformation of lower into higher organisms, following the Greeks who first enunciated the doctrine of evolution, which it remained for Darwin and Wallace to edit and illustrate as that law of the organic continuity of life, which we call evolution. He further wrote of the human hand as a factor in the evolution of the human race, in a way which should have commended him to the author of the Bridgewater treatise. He wrote of the changes on the earth's surface brought about by natural processes, which have changed not only the external configuration of the same but the fate and destiny of nations; of the identity of matter throughout the universe; of the universal movement of matter. Long before Lessing he showed how myths may contain the germs of great truths, and should be regarded as indications thereof. In this way, he told us, the Bible was to be regarded, holding its more or less historical statements to be quite subordinate to its moral teachings.

When we realize how to such highly developed reasoning powers as Bruno possessed, were added a phenomenal memory, a tremendous power of assimilation, a developed imagination, a poetic nature, the gift of easy and accurate speech and a temperament easily excited to fervor in attack or defense, we may the better appreciate his dominating greatness as well as his trifling weakness; the former being entirely to his own credit while the latter are ascribed largely to the faults of his time, and the fact that he was really living far ahead of his day and generation. He was not only the forerunner of modern science, he was the prototype of the modern biblical critic, foreshadowing the modern higher criticism, albeit in veiled terms, and as a matter of esoteric teaching; because the biblical critic of those days was burned at the stake, while to-day he is barely ostracized by the shallow and narrow minded, with whom he has at best nothing mentally in common. So much have four centuries of labor and vicarious suffering accomplished for the emancipation of the human mind.

Bruno had a creed, but it was too simple for his times. He rejected certain orthodox dogmas, (e. g. the Trinity, the Immaculate Conception) which commend themselves still less to the emancipated and cultivated minds of to-day. He absolutely rejected authority, which was a step toward reason comparable to the freeing of the slaves or serfs. He evolved a theory of evolution from a priori concepts, which it remained for Darwin to complete and demonstrate. He believed in the natural history of religions. His motives were of the loftiest, though his methods were not always those of to-day. He believed that the essence of truth inhered in those differences which kept men apart, and still sever them. He believed the law of love and that it sprang from God, which is the Father of All, that it was in harmony with nature, and that by love we may be transformed into something of His likeness. As Bruno himself says:—"This is the religion, above controversy or dispute, which I observe from the belief of my own mind, and from the custom of my fatherland and my race." (McIntyre, p. 110).

And yet this sublime man was burned as a heretic! Let us stop when we hereafter pass through the Campo dei Fiori, as I have done many a time, and take off our hats to the memory of this great man, who, while small in some human traits, yet was the greatest thinker in Italy during the sixteenth century, whose memory may help us to forget some of the hypocrisies and cant so generally prevalent during the age which and among the men who condemned him. Let us also thank God that there is no Tribunal of the Inquisition to-day, to pass misguided judgment upon us for having gone further than Bruno ever dreamed, though along the same lines, and to condemn us therefore to the Flames.

This paper has already been prolonged, perhaps tiresomely, nevertheless I cannot refrain from quoting a few paragraphs from that most versatile student of this period, Symonds, whose estimate of Bruno is as follows:—(Renaissance in Italy; Catholic Reaction, II Chap. ix).

"Bruno appears before us as the man who most vitally and comprehensively grasped the leading tendencies of his age in their intellectual essence. He left behind him the mediaeval conception of an extra-mundane God, creating a finite world, of which this globe is the center, and the principal episode in the history of which is the series of events from the Fall, through the Incarnation and Crucifixion, to the Last Judgment. He substituted the conception of an ever-living, ever-acting, ever-self-effectuating God, immanent in an infinite universe, to the contemplation of whose attributes the mind of man ascends by the study of Nature and interrogation of his conscience.

"Bolder even than Copernicus, and nearer in his intuition to the truth, he denied that the universe had "flaming walls" or any walls at all. That "immaginata circonferenza," "quella margine immaginata del cielo," on which antique science and Christian theology alike reposed, was the object of his ceaseless satire, his oft-repeated polemic. What, then, rendered Bruno the precursor of modern thought in its various manifestations, was that he grasped the fundamental truth upon which modern science rests, and foresaw the conclusions which must be drawn from it. He speculated boldly, incoherently, vehemently; but he speculated with a clear conception of the universe, as we still apprehend it. Through the course of three centuries we have been engaged in verifying the guesses, deepening, broadening and solidifying the hypotheses, which Bruno's extension of the Copernican theory, and his application of it to pure thought suggested to his penetrating and audacious intellect."

Bruno was convinced that religion in its higher essence would not sufferer from the new philosophy. Larger horizons extended before the human intellect. The soul expanded in more exhilarating regions than the old theologies had offered.