Giordano Bruno: biography and contributions of this Italian astronomer and philosopher.

In this biography of Giordano Bruno we will see the life of this scientist executed for his beliefs.

Giordano Bruno was a man of great knowledge and wandering life due to his convictions and theories about religion, physics and astronomy. He was born in Renaissance Italy, but had the opportunity to visit France, England, the Holy Roman Empire and Switzerland, meeting great personalities and arguing with them on more than one occasion.

Persecuted practically all his life for being contrary to the religious dogmatism of his time, there was no place that became his habitual residence. He was a professor in several universities, sometimes expelled from them, having a very busy and turbulent life.

His final destiny was tragic and, contrary to what both Catholics and Protestants believed, he was executed for his thought and work.

Below you will find a biography of Giordano Bruno in abridged format.

Brief biography of Giordano Bruno

Filippo Bruno, better known as Giordano Bruno, was an Italian astronomer, theologian, poet and philosopher, freethinker and scientific critic with the Christian doctrines of his time. His cosmological theories surpassed the Copernican model, proposing that the Sun was merely one star more and that the universe could harbor an infinite number of worlds inhabited by animals and intelligent beings.

He was a member of the Dominican Order, but he was not a follower of Christian dogma and was devoted only to the cross as a representative element of God's grace. He differed considerably from the cosmological vision held by the different branches of Renaissance Christianity.

His theological affirmations led him to be judged by the Holy Inquisition, burned alive at the stake for not recanting his scientific affirmationsburned alive at the stake for not recanting his scientific claims. That is why he is considered a martyr of knowledge against fundamentalism.

Childhood and youth

Giordano Bruno was born at the beginning of 1458, probably in January or February, in Nola, located a few kilometers from Naples under Spanish domination. His parents were Giovanni Bruno, a man-at-arms in the Spanish army, and Fraulissa Savolino. He was baptized with the name of Filippo.

He began his studies in Nola but in 1562 he moved to Naples to receive lessons from Giovanni Vincenzo de Colle and Teofilo da Vairano. Three years later, in 1565, Giordano Bruno entered the Dominican Order in the monastery of St. Dominic Major in Naples. While there he dedicated himself to the study of Aristotelian philosophy and the theology of St. Thomas. That same year he decided to change his given name to Giordano.

In 1571 he appeared before Pope Pius V to present his mnemonic system, dedicating his work "On Noah's Ark" to the Supreme Pontiff dedicating his work "On Noah's Ark" to the Supreme Pontiff. A year later he was ordained a priest and in 1575 he received his doctorate in theology.

Despite his clear interest in the Christian faith, his problems began precisely during his indoctrination. Giordano Bruno was prosecuted for refusing to have images of saints in his cell and accepting only the crucifix.

A new trial was opened against him for recommending to other novices to read more interesting books than one that spoke about the life of the Virgin, and he was accused of defending the Arian heresy. Because of these and other frictions with his monastery, Bruno decided to flee the convent in 1576.

Life of scandals

Being only 28 years old, Giordano Bruno already had a life full of scandals that forced him to be constantly on the move, fleeing from those who did not look favorably on his opinions. 130 articles of accusation were formulated against him and, for fear of the Inquisition and, fearing the Inquisition, he fled Rome in 1576, beginning a life of wandering.

He traveled throughout northern Italy, visiting major cities such as Genoa, Savona, Turin, Venice and Padua. He earned his living by teaching grammar and cosmogony to noble children. He wasted no time at all because, despite his busy life, he also devoted himself to the study of the works of Nicholas of Cusa, Bernardino Telesio and adopted the system of Nicolaus Copernicus, earning the enmity of both Catholics and Protestants.

Giordano Bruno was an advanced scientist, expressing in writings and lectures his scientific ideas about the plurality of worlds and solar systems, heliocentrism, the infinity of space and the universe, and the motion of the stars.

He went to Geneva, Switzerland, in 1579, being received by the Marquis de Vico, a Calvinist of Neapolitan origin. It was in that city that Giordano Bruno definitively abandoned his life as a priest and enrolled at the University of Geneva. Shortly afterwards he published an attack against Antoine de La Faye, a Calvinist professor, exposing the twenty errors committed by this intellectual in one of his lessons. For this Bruno was arrested and had to leave Geneva quickly.

Doctor of theology

His new refuge was France. He received his doctorate in theology from the University of Toulouse and taught during the years 1580 and 1581. He wrote "Clavis magna" and explained Aristotle's treatise "De Anima". After several conflicts due to the religious wars of the time and his views discordant with virtually any religious, he was accepted by Henry III of France as a professor at the University of Paris in 1581. At this time he published "The Shadows of Ideas" and "The Song of Circe".

In 1583 he traveled to England when he was appointed secretary to the French ambassador in the country. On English soil he would frequently attend the meetings of the poet Philip Sidney and would teach at Oxford University the new Copernican cosmology, attacking traditional thought. He would end up leaving Oxford after several discussions.

Among his most important writings of this period are "De umbris idearum" (1582), "The Supper of Ashes", "Of the Infinite Universe and the Worlds", and "On the Cause, the Principle and the One" (the last three written in 1584). In 1585 he wrote "The Heroic Furies" in which he describes the way to God through wisdom.

Shortly after he returned to Paris with the ambassador and went to Marburg where he gave press to his works written in England. In his new place of residence he challenged the followers of Aristotelianism to a public debate at the College of Cambrai. He was ridiculed, physically assaulted and expelled from the country.

During the following years he lived in several Protestant countries where he wrote many texts in Latin on cosmology, physics, magic and mnemonics. At this time he proved, albeit by fallacious methods, that the Sun is larger than the Earth.

In 1586 he expounded his ideas at the Sorbonne and at the College of Cambrai, and taught philosophy at the University of Wittenberg. In 1588 he traveled to Prague where he wrote articles dedicated to the Spanish ambassador, Guillem de Sant Climent and to the emperor Rudolph II.

He gave some mathematics classes at the University of Helmstedt but had to flee because he was excommunicated by the Lutherans. In 1590 he went to the Carmelite convent in Frankfurt and Zurich where he devoted himself to writing poetry.

Giordano Bruno returned to Italy at the invitation of Giovanni Mocenigo, who became his protector. took up residence in Venice. There he would dedicate himself to teaching a particular chair to Mocenigo.

• You may be interested in "The origins of religion: how did it appear and why?"

Trial and condemnation

May 21, 1591, Mocenigo, dissatisfied with Giordano Bruno's doctrines and annoyed by Bruno's heretical speeches, in his opinion, denounced him to the Inquisition. On May 23, 1592 Giordano was imprisoned and recalled by Rome on September 12. On January 27, 1593 was ordered the confinement of the philosopher in the Palace of the Vatican Holy Office.

He spent eight years in prison awaiting the trial in which he was to be charges of blasphemy, heresy and immorality, in addition to having taught his theories on the He was imprisoned for eight years awaiting trial on charges of blasphemy, heresy and immorality, in addition to having taught his theories about multiple solar systems and the infinity of the universe.

The process was led by Cardinal Roberto Belarmino, a person who in 1616 would carry out a similar process against Galileo Galilei. Giovanni Mocenigo would also be investigated in this process, accused of heresy when it was discovered that he tried to dominate the minds of others and that Bruno refused to teach him. However, Mocenigo was never apprehended.

In 1599 the charges against Bruno, compiled by Bellarmine and the Dominican Alberto Tragagliolo, commissary general of the Holy Office, were exposed. Giordano Bruno decided to reaffirm his ideas, despite the fact that there are records of multiple offers of recantation previously rejected. Therefore, on January 20, 1600, Pope Clement VIII ordered that he be brought before the secular authorities.

The charges brought against Bruno by the Inquisition are:

• Holding opinions against the Catholic faith and speaking against it and its ministers.
• Holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith on the Trinity, the divinity of Christ and the incarnation.
• Holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith regarding Jesus as Christ.
• Holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith regarding the virginity of Mary, the mother of Jesus.
• Hold opinions contrary to the Catholic faith regarding transubstantiation and the Mass.
• To say that there are multiple worlds.
• Having favorable opinions of the transmigration of the spirit in other human beings after death.
• Witchcraft.

All the works of Giordano Bruno had been investigated during the last decade of the 16th century, giving shape to the whole accusation against him against him. All of them were censured by the Holy See, and many were burned in St. Peter's Square.

Execution

At the time the most common and "civilized" thing was that those condemned for heresy were first executed and then their body burned. This was not the case of Giordano Bruno who, after a sentence of more than eight years, was burned alive on February 17, was burned alive on February 17, 1600 in the Campo de' Fiori, Rome. He was 52 years old.

During the trial he was stripped naked and tied to a stick. In addition, a wooden press was clamped on his tongue so that he could not speak. Before being burned at the stake, one of the Catholic monks who accompanied him as executioners offered him a crucifix to kiss, but Bruno refused and said that he would die as a martyr and that his soul would ascend with the fire to paradise.

Three centuries later, on June 9, 1889, Giordano Bruno would officially become one of the martyrs of freedom of thought and new ideals.

His thought and contributions to science

Giordano Bruno believed that the Earth revolved around the Sun and that night and day were the product of our planet rotating on its axis. He also believed that the universe could be infinite by reflecting this quality of God. He asserted that the stars seen in the night sky were in fact other suns that had their own planets, worlds that could well harbor life like our own.

Bruno claimed that the universe was homogeneous, composed of water, earth, fire and air, and that the stars had no separate quintessence. The same physical laws would be operating everywhere, and he asserted that space and time were infinite and claimed that space and time were infinite. He believed in atomism and spoke of relative motion.