Renaissance in Italy Volume VI Part 41

[Footnote 99: They were published at Frankfort, and dedicated to the friendly Prince of Wolfenb.u.t.tel.]

At Helmstadt he came into collision with Boetius, the rector of the Evangelical church, who issued a sentence of excommunication against him. Like a new Odysseus, he set forth once again upon his voyage, and in the spring of 1590 anch.o.r.ed in Frankfort on the Main. A convent (that of the Carmelites) sheltered him in this city, where he lived on terms of intimacy with the printers Wechel and Fischer, and other men of learning. It would appear from evidence laid before the Venetian Inquisitors that the prior of the monastery judged him to be a man of genius and doctrine, devoid of definite religion, addicted to fantastic studies, and bent on the elaboration of a philosophy that should supersede existing creeds.[100] This was a not inaccurate portrait of Bruno as he then appeared to conservatives of commonplace capacity. Yet nothing occurred to irritate him in the shape of persecution or disturbance. Bruno worked in quiet at Frankfort, pouring forth thousands of metaphysical verses, some at least of which were committed to the press in three volumes published by the Wechels.

[Footnote 100: Britanno's Deposition, Berti's _Vita di G.B._ p. 337.]

Between Frankfort and Italy literary communications were kept open through the medium of the great fair, which took place every year at Michaelmas.[101] Books formed one of the princ.i.p.al commodities, and the Italian bibliopoles traveled across the Alps to transact business on these important occasions. It happened by such means that a work of Bruno's, perhaps the _De Monude_, found its way to Venice.[102] Exposed on the counter of Giambattista Ciotto, then plying the trade of bookseller in that city, this treatise met the eyes of a Venetian gentleman called Giovanni Mocenigo. He belonged to one of the most ill.u.s.trious of the still surviving n.o.ble families in Venice. The long line of their palaces upon the Grand Ca.n.a.l has impressed the mind of every tourist. One of these houses, it may be remarked, was occupied by Lord Byron, who, had he known of Bruno's connection with the Mocenighi, would undoubtedly have given to the world a poem or a drama on the fate of our philosopher. Giovanni Mocenigo was a man verging on middle life, superst.i.tious, acknowledging the dominion of his priest, but alive in a furtive way to perilous ideas. Morally, he stands before us as a twofold traitor: a traitor to his Church, so long as he hoped to gain illicit power by magic arts; a traitor to his guest, so soon as he discovered that his soul's risk brought himself no profit.[103] He seems to have imagined that Bruno might teach him occult science or direct him on a royal way to knowledge without strenuous study. Subsequent events proved that, though he had no solid culture, he was fascinated by the expectation of discovering some great secret. It was the vice of the age to confound science with sorcery, and Bruno had lent himself to this delusion by his whimsical style. Perhaps the booksellers, who then played a part scarcely less prominent than that of the barbers in diffusing gossip, inflamed Mocenigo's curiosity by painting the author of the puzzling volume in seductive colors. Any how this man sent two letters, one through Ciotto, and one direct to Bruno, praying him to visit Venice, professing his desire for instruction, and offering him an honorable place of residence.

[Footnote 101: Sarpi mentions the return of Ciotto from the fair (_Lettere_, vol. i. p. 527).]

[Footnote 102: Ciotto, before the Inquisition, called the book _De Minimo Magno et Mensura_. It may therefore have been the _De Triplici Minimo et Mensura_, and not the _De Monade_ (_Vita di G.B._ p. 334).]

[Footnote 103: Mocenigo told Ciotto: I wish first to see what I can get from him of those things which he promised me, so as not wholly to lose what I have given him, and afterwards I mean to surrender him to the censure of the Holy Office' (Berti, p. 335).]

In an evil hour Bruno accepted this invitation. No doubt he longed to see Italy again after so many years of exile. Certainly he had the right to believe that he would find hospitality and a safe refuge in Venice.

Had not a Venetian n.o.ble pledged his word for the former? Was not the latter a privilege which S. Mark extended to all suppliants? The Republic professed to shield even the outlaws of the Inquisition, if they claimed her jurisdiction. There was therefore no palpable imprudence in the step which Bruno now took. Yet he took it under circ.u.mstances which would have made a cautious man mistrustful. Of Mocenigo he knew merely nothing. But he did know that writs from the Holy Office had been out against himself in Italy for many years, during which he had spent his time in conversing with heretics and printing works of more than questionable orthodoxy.[104] Nothing proves the force of the vagrant's impulse which possessed Bruno, more than his light and ready consent to Giovanni Mocenigo's proposal.

He set off at once from Frankfort, leaving the MS. of one of his metaphysical poems in Wechel's hands to print, and found himself at the end of 1591 a guest of his unknown patron. I have already described what Mocenigo hoped to gain from Bruno--the arts of memory and invention, together with glimpses into occult science.[105] We know how little Bruno was able to satisfy an in satiable curiosity in such matters. One of his main weaknesses was a habit of boasting and exaggerating his own powers, which at first imposed upon a vulgar audience and then left them under the impression that he was a charlatan. The bookseller Ciotto learned from students who had conversed with him at Frankfort, that 'he professed an art of memory and other secrets in the sciences, but that all the persons who had dealt with him in such matters, had left him discontinued.'[106]

[Footnote 104: Mere correspondence with heretics exposed an Italian to the Inquisition. Residence in heretical lands, except with episcopal license, was forbidden. The rules of the Index proscribed books in which the name of a heretic was cited with approval.]

[Footnote 105: Bruno speaks himself of 'arte della memoria et inventiva'

(_op. cit._ p. 339). Ciotto mentions 'la memoria et altre scientie'

(_ib._ p. 334).]

[Footnote 106: _Op. cit._ p. 335.]

Another weakness in his character was extraordinary want of caution.

Having lived about the world so long, and changed from town to town, supporting himself as he best could, he had acquired the custom of attracting notice by startling paradoxes. Nor does he seem to have cared to whom he made the dangerous confidence of his esoteric beliefs.

His public writings, presumably composed with a certain circ.u.mspection--since everybody knows the proverb _litera scripta manet_--contain such perilous stuff that--when we consider what their author may have let fall in unguarded conversation--we are prepared to credit the charges brought against him by Mocenigo. For it must now be said that this man, 'induced by the obligation of his conscience and by order of his confessor,' denounced Bruno to the Inquisition on May 23, 1592.

When the two men, so entirely opposite in their natures, first came together, Bruno began to instruct his patron in the famous art of memory and mathematics. At the same time he discoursed freely and copiously, according to his wont, upon his own philosophy. Mocenigo took no interest in metaphysics, and was terrified by the audacity of Bruno's speculations. It enraged him to find how meager was Bruno's vaunted method for acquiring and retaining knowledge without pains. In his secret heart he believed that the teacher whom he had maintained at a considerable cost, was withholding the occult knowledge he so much coveted. Bruno, meanwhile, attended Andrea Morosini's receptions in the palace at S. Luca, and frequented those of Bernardo Secchini at the sign of the Golden Ship in the Merceria. He made friends with scholars and men of fashion; absented himself for weeks together at Padua; showed that he was tired of Mocenigo; and ended by rousing that man's suspicious jealousy. Mocenigo felt that he had been deceived by an impostor, who, instead of furnishing the wares for which he bargained, put him off with declamations on the nature of the universe. What was even more terrible, he became convinced that this charlatan was an obstinate heretic.

Whether Bruno perceived the gathering of the storm above his head, whether he was only wearied with the importunities of his host, or whether, as he told the Inquisitors, he wished to superintend the publication of some books at Frankfort, does not greatly signify. At any rate, he begged Mocenigo to excuse him from further attendance, since he meant to leave Venice. This happened on Thursday, May 21. Next day, Mocenigo sent his bodyservant together with five or six gondoliers into Bruno's apartment, seized him, and had him locked up in a ground-floor room of the palace. At the same time he laid hands on all Bruno's effects, including the MS. of one important treatise _On the Seven Liberal Arts_, which was about to be dedicated to Pope Clement VIII.

This, together with other unpublished works, exists probably in the Vatican Archives, having been sent with the papers referring to Bruno's trial from Venice when he was transported to Rome. The following day, which was a Sat.u.r.day, Mocenigo caused Bruno to be carried to one of those cellars (_magazzeni terreni_) which are used in Venice for storing wood, merchandise or implements belonging to gondolas. In the evening, a Captain of the Council of Ten removed him to the dungeons of the Inquisition. On the same day, May 23, Mocenigo lodged his denunciation with the Holy Office.

The heads of this accusation, extracted from the first report and from two subsequent additions made by the delator, amount to these. Though Bruno was adverse to religions altogether, he preferred the Catholic to any other; but he believed it to stand in need of thorough reform. The doctrines of the Trinity, the miraculous birth of Christ, and transubstantiation, were insults to the Divine Being. Christ had seduced the people by working apparent miracles. So also had the Apostles. To develop a new philosophy which should supersede religions, and to prove his superiority in knowledge over S. Thomas and all the theologians, was Bruno's cherished scheme. He did not believe in the punishment of sins; but held a doctrine of the transmigration of souls, and of the generation of the human soul from refuse. The world he thought to be eternal. He maintained that there were infinite worlds, all made by G.o.d, who wills to do what he can do, and therefore produces infinity. The religious orders of Catholicism defile the earth by evil life, hypocrisy, and avarice. All friars are only a.s.ses. Indulgence in carnal pleasures ought not to be reckoned sinful. The man confessed to having freely satisfied his pa.s.sions to the utmost of his opportunities.

On being questioned before the Inquisitors, Mocenigo supported these charges. He added that when he had threatened Bruno with delation, Bruno replied, first, that he did not believe he would betray his confidence by making private conversation the groundwork of criminal charges; secondly, that the utmost the Inquisition could do, would be to inflict some penance and force him to resume the cowl. These, which are important a.s.sertions, bearing the mark of truth, throw light on his want of caution in dealing with Mocenigo, and explain the att.i.tude he afterwards a.s.sumed before the Holy Office.

Mocenigo's accusations in the main yield evidences of sincerity. They are exactly what we should expect from the distortion of Bruno's doctrines by a mind incapable of comprehending them. In short, they are as veracious as the image of a face reflected on a spoon. Certain gross details (the charges, for example, of having called Christ a _tristo_ who was deservedly hung, and of having sneered at the virginity of Mary) may possibly have emanated from the delator's own imagination.[107]

[Footnote 107: They remind us of the blasphemies imputed to Christopher Marlowe.]

Bruno emphatically repudiated these; though some pa.s.sages in his philosophical poems, published at Frankfort, contain the substance of their blasphemies. A man of Mocenigo's stamp probably thought that he was faithfully representing the heretic's views, while in reality he was drawing his own gross conclusions from skeptical utterances about the origin of Christianity which he obscurely understood. It does not seem incredible, however, that Bruno, who was never nice in his choice of language, and who certainly despised historical Christianity, let fall crude witticisms upon such and other points in Mocenigo's presence.

Bruno appeared before the Venetian Inquisition on May 29. His examination was continued at intervals from this date till July 30. His depositions consist for the most part of an autobiographical statement which he volunteered, and of a frank elucidation of his philosophical doctrines in their relation to orthodox belief. While reading the lengthy pages of his trial, we seem to overhear a man conversing confidentially with judges from whom he expected liberal sympathy. Over and over again, he relies for his defense upon the old distinction between philosophy and faith, claiming to have advocated views as a thinker which he does not hold as a Christian. 'In all my books I have used philosophical methods of definition according to the principles and light of nature, not taking chief regard of that which ought to be held in faith; and I believe they do not contain anything which can support the accusation that I have professedly impugned religion rather than that I have sought to exalt philosophy; though I may have expounded many impieties based upon my natural light.'[108] In another place he uses the ant.i.thesis, 'speaking like a Christian and according to theology'--'speaking after the manner of philosophy.'[109] The same ant.i.thesis is employed to justify his doctrine of metempsychosis: 'Speaking as a Catholic, souls do not pa.s.s from one body into another, but go to paradise or purgatory or h.e.l.l; yet, following philosophical reasonings, I have argued that, the soul being inexistent without the body and inexistent in the body, it can be indifferently in one or in another body, and can pa.s.s from one into another, which, if it be not true, seems at any rate probable according to the opinion of Pythagoras.'[110]

[Footnote 108: _Op. cit._ p. 352.]

[Footnote 109: _Ibid._ p. 355.]

[Footnote 110: _Ibid._ p. 362.]

That he expected no severe punishment appears from the terms of his so-called recantation. 'I said that I wished to present myself before the feet of his Holiness with certain books which I approve, though I have published others which I do not now approve; whereby I meant to say that some works composed and published by me do not meet with my approbation, inasmuch as in these I have spoken and discussed too philosophically, in unseemly wise, not altogether as a good Christian ought; in particular I know that in some of these works I have taught and philosophically held things which ought to be attributed to the power, wisdom and goodness of G.o.d according to the Christian faith, founding doctrine in such matters on sense and reason, not upon faith.'[111] At the very end of his examination, he placed himself in the hands of his judges, 'confessing his errors with a willing mind,'

acknowledging that he had 'erred and strayed from the Church,' begging for such castigation as shall not 'bring public dishonor on the sacred robe which he had worn,' and promising to 'show a noteworthy reform, and to recompense the scandal he had caused by edification at least equal in magnitude.'[112] These professions he made upon his knees, evincing clearly, as it seems to me, that at this epoch he was ready to rejoin the Dominican order, and that, as he affirmed to Mocenigo, he expected no worse punishment than this.

In attempting to estimate Bruno's recantation, we must remember that he felt no sympathy at all for heretics. When questioned about them, he was able to quote pa.s.sages from his own works in which he called the Reformation a Deformation of religion.[113] Lutheran and Calvinist theologians were alike pedants in his eyes.[114] There is no doubt that Bruno meant what he said; and had he been compelled to choose one of the existing religions, he would have preferred Catholicism. He was, in fact, at a period of life when he wished to dedicate his time in quiet to metaphysical studies. He had matured his philosophy and brought it to a point at which he thought it could be presented as a peace-offering to the Supreme Pontiff. Conformity to ecclesiastical observances seemed no longer irksome to the world-experienced, wide-reaching mind of the man. Nor does he appear to have antic.i.p.ated that his formal submission would not be readily accepted. He reckoned strangely, in this matter, without the murderous host into whose clutches he had fallen.

[Footnote 111: _Op. cit._ p. 349]

[Footnote 112: _Ibid._ p. 384]

[Footnote 113: _Ibid._ p. 364]

[Footnote 114: _Ibid._ p. 363]

Searching interrogations touching other heads in the evidence against him, as blasphemous remarks on sacred persons, intercourse with heretics, abuse of the religious orders, dealings in magic arts, licentious principles of conduct, were answered by Bruno with a frank a.s.surance, which proves his good conscience in essentials and his firm expectation of a favorable issue to the affair. Mocenigo had described him as _indemoniato_; and considering the manifest peril in which he now stood, there is something scarcely sane in the confidence he showed. For Mocenigo himself he reserved words of bitterest scorn and indignation.

When questioned in the usual terms whether he had enemies at Venice, he replied: 'I know of none but Ser Giovanni Mocenigo and his train of servants. By him I have been grievously injured, more so than by living man, seeing he has murdered me in my life, my honor and my property, having imprisoned me in his own house and stolen all my writings, books, and other effects. And this he did because he not only wished that I should teach him everything I know, but also wished to prevent my teaching it to any one but him. He has continued to threaten me upon the points of life and honor, unless I should teach him everything I knew.'[115]

The scene closes over Bruno in the Venetian Inquisition on July 30, 1592. We do not behold him again till he enters the Minerva at Rome to receive his death-sentence on February 9, 1600. What happened in the interval is almost a blank. An exchange of letters took place between Rome and Venice concerning his extradition, and the Republic made some show of reluctance to part with a refugee within its jurisdiction. But this diplomatic affair was settled to the satisfaction of both parties, and Bruno disappeared into the dungeons of the Roman Inquisition in the month of January 1593.

Seven years of imprisonment was a long period.[116]

[Footnote 115: _Op. cit._ p. 378.]

[Footnote 116: These years were not all spent at Rome. From the Records of the Inquisition, it appears that he arrived in Rome on February 27, 1598, and that his trial in form began in February 1599. The Pope ratified his sentence of death on January 20, 1600; this was publicly promulgated on February 8, and carried into effect on the subsequent 17th. Where Bruno was imprisoned between January 1593, and February 1598 is not known.]

We find it hard to understand why Bruno's prosecution occupied the Holy Office through this s.p.a.ce of time. But conjectures on the subject are now useless. Equally futile is it to speculate whether Bruno offered to conform in life and doctrine to the Church at Rome as he had done at Venice. The temptation to do so must have been great. Most probably he begged for grace, but grace was not accorded on his own terms; and he chose death rather than dishonor and a lie in the last resort, or rather than life-long incarceration. It is also singular that but few contemporaries mention the fact of his condemnation and execution. Rome was crowded in the jubilee year of 1600. Bruno was burned in open daylight on the Campo di Fiora. Yet the only eye-witness who records the event, is Gaspar Schoppe, or Scioppius, who wrote a letter on the subject to his friend Rittershausen. Kepler, eight years afterwards, informed his correspondent Breugger that Bruno had been really burned: 'he bore his agonizing death with fort.i.tude, abiding by the a.s.severation that all religions are vain, and that G.o.d identifies himself with the world, circ.u.mference and center.' Kepler, it may be observed, conceived a high opinion of Bruno's speculations, and pointed him out to Galileo as the man who had divined the infinity of solar systems in their correlation to one infinite order of the universe.[117]

[Footnote 117: Doubts have recently been raised as to whether Bruno was really burned. But these are finally disposed of by a succinct and convincing exposition of the evidence by Mr. R.C. Christie, in _Macmillan's Magazine_, October 1885. In addition to Schoppe and Kepler, we have the reference to Bruno's burning published by Mersenne in 1624; but what is far more important, the _Avviso di Roma_ for February 19,1600, records this event as having occurred upon the preceding Thursday. To Signor Berti's two works, _Doc.u.menti intorno a G. Bruno_ (Roma, 1880), and _Copernico e le vicende_, etc. (Roma, 1876), we owe most of the material which has been lucidly sifted by Mr. R.C.

Christie.]

Scioppius was a German humanist of the elder Italianated type, an elegant Latin stylist, who commented indifferently on the _Priapeia_ and the Stoic philosophy. He abjured Protestantism, and like Muretus, sold his pen to Rome. The Jesuits, in his pompous panegyric, were first saluted as 'the praetorian cohort of the camp of G.o.d.' Afterwards, when he quarreled with their Order, he showered invectives on them in the manner of a Poggio or Filelfo. The literary infamies of the fifteenth century reappeared in his polemical attacks on Protestants, and in his satires upon Scaliger. Yet he was a man of versatile talents and considerable erudition. It must be mentioned in his honor that he visited Campanella in his prison, and exerted himself for his liberation. Campanella dedicated his _Atheismus Triumphatus_ to Scioppius, calling him 'the dawn-star of our age.' Schoppe was also the first credible authority to warn Sarpi of the imminent peril he ran from Roman hired a.s.sa.s.sins, as I hope to relate in my chapter upon Sarpi's life. This man's letter to his friend is the single trustworthy doc.u.ment which we possess regarding the last hours of Bruno. Its inaccuracies on minor points may be held to corroborate his testimony.

Scioppius refers to Bruno's early heresies on Transubstantiation and the Virginity of Mary. He alludes to the _s.p.a.ccio della Bestia Trionfante_, as though it had been a libel on the Pope.[118]

[Footnote 118: 'Londinam perfectus, libellum istic edit de Bestia triumphante, h.e. de Papa. quem vestri honoris causa bestiam appellare solent.']

He then enumerates Bruno's heterodox opinions, which had been recited in the public condemnation p.r.o.nounced on the heresiarch. 'Horrible and most utterly absurd are the views he entertained, as, for example, that there are innumerable worlds; that the soul migrates from body to body, yea into another world, and that one soul can inform two bodies; that magic is good and lawful; that the Holy Spirit is nothing but the Soul of the World, which Moses meant when he wrote that it brooded on the waters; that the world has existed from eternity; that Moses wrought his miracles by magic, being more versed therein than the Egyptians, and that he composed his own laws; that the Holy Scriptures are a dream, and that the devils will be saved; that only the Jews descend from Adam and Eve, the rest of men from that pair whom G.o.d created earlier; that Christ is not G.o.d, but that he was an eminent magician who deluded mankind, and was therefore rightly hanged, not crucified; that the prophets and Apostles were men of naught, magicians, and for the most part hanged: in short, without detailing all the monstrosities in which his books abound, and which he maintained in conversation, it may be summed up in one word that he defended every error that has been advanced by pagan philosophers or by heretics of earlier and present times.' Accepting this list as tolerably faithful to the terms of Bruno's sentence, heard by Scioppius in the hall of Minerva, we can see how Mocenigo's accusation had been verified by reference to his published works. The _De Monade_ and _De Triplici_ contain enough heterodoxy to substantiate each point.

On February 9, Bruno was brought before the Holy Office at S. Maria sopra Minerva. In the presence of a.s.sembled Cardinals, theologians, and civil magistrates, his heresies were first recited. Then he was excommunicated, and degraded from his priestly and monastic offices.

Lastly, he was handed over to the secular arm, 'to be punished with all clemency and without effusion of blood.' This meant in plain language to be burned alive. Thereupon Bruno uttered the memorable and monumental words: 'Peradventure ye p.r.o.nounce this sentence on me with a greater fear than I receive it.' They were the last words he spoke in public. He was removed to the prisons of the State, where he remained eight days, in order that he might have time to repent. But he continued obdurate.

Being an apostate priest and a relapsed heretic, he could hope for no remission of his sentence. Therefore, on February 17, he marched to a certain and horrible death. The stake was built up on the Campo di Fiora. Just before the wood was set on fire, they offered him the crucifix.[119] He turned his face away from it in stern disdain. It was not Christ but his own soul, wherein he believed the Diety resided, that sustained Bruno at the supreme moment.

[Footnote 119: We may remember that while a novice at Naples, he first got into trouble by keeping the crucifix as the only religious symbol which he respected, when he parted with images of saints.]

No cry, no groan, escaped his lips. Thus, as Scioppius affectedly remarked, 'he perished miserably in flames, and went to report in those other worlds of his imagination, how blasphemous and impious men are handled by the Romans.'