Part 15

The Inquisition examined four other witnesses. Two booksellers, Ciotto and Bertano, deposed that they had known Bruno at Frankfort-on-the-Main, whither they went to attend the famous book-fairs; that they had not heard him say aught which caused them to believe he was not a Catholic and a good Christian; but that he had the reputation of being a philosopher, who spent his time in writing and “in meditating new things.” Andrea Morosini, a gentleman of noble birth, testified that during the recent months Bruno had been at his house, whither divers gentlemen and also prelates were wont to meet to discuss letters, and principally philosophy; but that he had never inferred from Bruno’s remarks that he held opinions contrary to the faith. Finally, Fra Domenico da Nocera, of the Order of Preachers, deposed that “one day, near the feast of Pentecost, as I was coming out of the sacristy of the church of John and Paul, a layman, whom I did not know, bowed to me, and presently engaged in conversation. He said he was a friar of our province of Naples, a man of letters; Fra Giordano of Nola, his name. So we sought out a retired part of the aforesaid church. Then he told me how he had renounced the gown; of the many kingdoms he had traversed, and the royal courts, with his important exercises in letters; but that he had always lived as a Catholic. And I asking him what he was doing in Venice, and how he was living, he said that he had been in Venice but very few days, and was living comfortably; that he proposed to get tranquillity and write a book he had in his head, and to present it to his Holiness, for the quiet of his conscience and in order to be allowed to remain in Rome, and there devote himself to literary work, to show his ability, and perhaps to obtain a lectureship.”

So far as we know, the Holy Office examined no other witnesses. That tribunal of the Inquisition at Venice was composed, in 1592, of the Apostolic Nuncio, Monsignor Taberna; of the Patriarch, Monsignor Lorenzo Priuli; of the Father Inquisitor, Giovanni Gabriele da Saluzzo, a Dominican; and of three nobles appointed by the State, and called the _savii all’ eresia_ (sages or experts in heresy), who reported all proceedings to the Doge and Senate, and stopped the deliberations when they deemed them contrary to the laws and customs of the State, or to the secret instructions they had received. These three sages were, in that year, Luigi Foscari, Sebastian Barbarigo, and Tomaso Morosini.

Before this tribunal, which sat at the prison of the Inquisition, appeared the prisoner, Giordano Bruno, on Tuesday, May 26, 1592. He was a small, lean man, in aspect about forty years old, with a slight chestnut beard. On being bidden to speak, he began:--

“I will speak the truth. Several times I have been threatened with being brought to this Holy Office, and I have always held it as a jest, because I am ready to give an account of myself. While at Frankfort last year, I had two letters from Signor Giovanni Mocenigo, in which he invited me to come to Venice, as he wished me to teach him the art of memory and invention, promising to treat me well, and that I should be satisfied with him. And so I came, seven or eight months ago. I have taught him various terms pertaining to these two sciences; living at first outside of his house, and latterly in his own house. And, as it seemed to me that I had done and taught him as much as was necessary, and as was my duty in respect to the things he had sought me for, and deliberating, therefore, to return to Frankfort to publish certain of my works, I took leave of him last Thursday, so as to depart. He, hearing this, and doubting lest I wished to leave his house to teach other persons the very sciences I had taught him and others, rather than to go to Frankfort, as I announced, was most urgent to detain me; but I none the less insisting on going, he began at first to complain that I had not taught him all I had agreed, and then to threaten me by saying that, if I would not remain of my own accord, he would find means to compel me. And the following night, which was Friday, seeing me firm in my resolution of going, and that I had put my things in order, and arranged to send them to Frankfort, he came, when I was in bed, with the pretext of wishing to speak to me; and after he had entered, there followed his servant Bortolo, with five or six others, who were, as I believed, gondoliers of the sort near by. And they made me get out of bed, and conducted me up to an attic, and locked me in there, Master Giovanni saying that, if I would remain and instruct him in the terms of memory and of geometry, as he had wished hitherto, he would set me at liberty; otherwise, something disagreeable would happen to me. And I replying all along that I thought I had taught him enough, and more than I was bound, and that I did not deserve to be treated in that fashion, he left me till the next day, when there came a captain, accompanied by certain men whom I did not know, and had them lead me down to a storeroom on the ground-floor of the house, where they left me till night. Then came another captain, with his assistants, and conducted me to the prison of this Holy Office, whither I believe I have been brought by the work of the aforesaid Ser Giovanni, who, indignant for the reason I have given, has, I think, made some accusation against me.

“My name is Giordano, of the Bruno family, of the city of Nola, twelve miles from Naples. I was born and brought up in that town; my profession has been, and is, that of letters and every science. My father’s name was Giovanni, my mother’s Fraulissa Savolina; he being a soldier by profession, who died at the same time with my mother. I am about forty-four years old, being born, according to what my people told me, in the year 1548. From my fourteenth year I was at Naples, to learn humanity, logic, and dialectics, and I used to attend the public lectures of a certain Sarnese; I heard logic privately from an Augustinian father, called Fra Theofilo da Vairano, who subsequently lectured on metaphysics at Rome. When I was fourteen or fifteen, I put on the habit of St. Dominick at the convent of St. Dominick at Naples. After the year of probation I was admitted to the profession, and then I was promoted to holy orders and to the priesthood in due time, and sang my first mass at Campagna, a town in the same kingdom. I lived there in a convent of the same order, called St. Bartholomew, and continued in this garb of St. Dominick, celebrating mass and the divine offices, and obedience to the superiors of the said order and of the priors of monasteries, till 1576, the year after the Jubilee. I was then at Rome, in the convent of the Minerva, under Master Sisto de Luca, procurator of the order, whither I had come because at Naples I had been brought to trial twice: the first time for having given away certain representations and images of the saints, and kept only a crucifix, wherefore I was charged with spurning the images of the saints; and, again, for saying to a novice, who was reading _The History of the Seven Joys_ in verse, what business he had with such a book,--to throw it aside, and to read sooner some other work, like _The Lives of the Holy Fathers_; and this case was renewed against me at the time I went to Rome, together with other charges, which I do not know. On this account I left the order, and put off the gown.

“I went to Noli, in Genoese territory, and stayed there about four months, teaching small boys grammar, and reading lectures on the sphere [astronomy] to certain gentlemen; then I went away, first to Savona, where I tarried about a fortnight, and thence to Turin. Not finding entertainment there to my taste, I came to Venice by the Po, and lived a month and a half in the Frezzaria, in the lodging of a man employed at the Arsenal, whose name I do not know. Whilst I was here, I had printed this work [_On the Signs of the Times_], to make a little money for my support; I showed it first to Father Remigio de Fiorenza. Departing hence, I went to Padua, where I found some Dominican fathers, acquaintances of mine, who persuaded me to wear the habit again, even if I should not choose to return to the order; for it seemed to them more proper to wear that habit than not. With this view I went to Bergamo, and had made a garment of cheap white cloth, and over it I put the scapular, which I had kept when I left Rome. Thus attired I set out for Lyons; and at Chambèry, going to lodge with the order, and being very decently entertained, and talking about this with an Italian father who was there, he said to me, ‘Be warned, for you will not meet with any sort of friendliness in these parts; and you will find less the farther you go.’ So I set out for Geneva. There I lodged at the hostelry; and, a little after my arrival, the Marquis de Vico, a Neapolitan who was in that city, asked me who I was, and whether I had gone there to settle and to profess the religion of that place. I replied to him, after giving an account of myself and the reason why I had left the order, that I did not intend to profess that religion, because I did not know what it was; and that therefore I wished to abide there to live in liberty and to be safe, rather than for any other purpose. Being persuaded to put off that habit in any case, I took these clothes, and had a pair of hose made, and other things; and the marquis, with some other Italians, gave me a sword, hat, cloak, and other necessary articles, and, in order that I might support myself, they procured proof-reading for me. I kept to that work about two months, going, however, sometimes to preaching and sermons, whether of the Italians or of the French who lectured and preached there: among others, I heard more than once Nicolo Balbani, of Lucca, who read the Epistles of St. Paul, and preached on the Evangelists. But when I was told that I could not stay long in that place unless I should accept its religion, because I would have no employment from them, and finding, too, that I could not earn enough to live on, I went thence to Toulouse, where there is a famous university. Having become acquainted with some intelligent persons, I was asked to lecture on the sphere to divers students, which I did--with other lectures on philosophy--for perhaps six months. At this point, the post of ‘ordinary’ lecturer in philosophy, which is filled by competition, falling vacant, I took my doctor’s degree, presented myself for the said competition, was admitted and approved, and lectured in that city two years continuously on the text of Aristotle’s _De Anima_ and other philosophical works. Then, on account of the Civil Wars, I quitted and went to Paris, where, in order to make myself known, and to give proof of myself, I undertook an ‘extraordinary’ lectureship, and read thirty lectures, choosing for subject Thirty Divine Attributes, taken from the first part of St. Thomas. Later, being requested to accept an ‘ordinary’ lectureship, I would not, because public lecturers in that city go generally to mass and the other divine offices, and I have always avoided this, knowing that I was excommunicated because I had quitted my order and habit; and although I had that ‘ordinary’ lectureship at Toulouse, I was not forced to go to mass, as I should have been at Paris. But conducting the ‘extraordinary’ there, I acquired such a name that the king, Henry III, sent for me, and wished to know whether my memory was natural or due to magic art. I satisfied him, both by what I said, and proved to him, that it was not by magic art, but by science. After this I published a work on the memory, under the title _De Umbris Idearum_, which I dedicated to his Majesty,--on which occasion he made me ‘lecturer extraordinary,’ with a pension; and I continued to read in that city perhaps five years, when, on account of the tumults which arose, I took my leave, and with letters from the king himself I went into England to reside with his ambassador, Michael de Castelnau. In his house I lived as a gentleman. I stayed in England two years and a half, and when the ambassador returned to France I accompanied him to Paris, where I remained another year. Having quitted Paris on account of the tumults, I betook myself to Germany, stopping first at Mayence, an archiepiscopal city, for twelve days. Finding neither here nor at Würzburg, a town a little way off, any entertainment, I went to Wittenberg, in Saxony, where I found two factions,--one of philosophers, who were Calvinists, the other of theologians, who were Lutherans. Among the latter was Alberigo Gentile, whom I had known in England, a law-professor, who befriended me and introduced me to read lectures on the _Organon_ of Aristotle; which I did, with other lectures in philosophy, for two years. At that time, the son of the old Duke having succeeded his father, who was a Lutheran, and the son being a Calvinist, he began to favor the party opposed to those who favored me; so I departed, and went to Prague, and stayed six months. Whilst there, I published a book on geometry, which I presented to the Emperor, from whom I had a gift of three hundred thalers. With this money, having quitted Prague, I spent a year at the Julian Academy in Brunswick; and the death of the Duke[28] happening at that time, I delivered an oration at his funeral, in competition with many others from the university, on which account his son and successor bestowed eighty crowns of those parts upon me; and I went away to Frankfort to publish two books,--one _De Minimo_, and the other _De Numero, Monade, et Figura_, etc. I stayed about six months at Frankfort, lodging in the convent of the Carmelites,--a place assigned to me by the publisher, who was obliged to provide me a lodging. And from Frankfort, having been invited, as I have said, by Ser Giovanni Mocenigo, I came to Venice seven or eight months ago, where what has since happened I have already related. I was going anew to Frankfort to print other works of mine, and one in particular on _The Seven Liberal Arts_, with the intention of taking these and some other of my published works which I approve--for some I do not approve--and of going to Rome to lay them at the feet of his Holiness, who, I have understood, loves the virtuous, and to put my case before him, with a view to obtain absolution from excesses, and permission to live in the clerical garb outside of the order.... I said I wish to present myself at the feet of his Holiness with some of my approved works, as I have some I do not approve, meaning by that that some of the works written by me and sent to the press I do not approve, because in them I have spoken and discussed too philosophically, unbecomingly, and not enough like a good Christian; and in particular I know that in some of these works I have taught and maintained philosophically things which ought to be attributed to the power, wisdom, and goodness of God according to the Christian faith; founding my doctrine on sense and reason, and not on faith. So much for them in general; concerning particulars, I refer to the writings, for I do not now recall a single article or particular doctrine I may have taught, but I will reply according as I shall be questioned and as I shall remember....

[28] “Who was a heretic” is written on the margin of the original _procès-verbal_.

“The subject of all my books, speaking broadly, is philosophy. In all of them I have always defined in the manner of philosophy and according to principles and natural light, not having most concern as to what, according to faith, ought to be believed; and I think there is nothing in them from which it can be judged that I professedly wish to impugn religion rather than to exalt philosophy, although I may have set forth many impious matters based on my natural light.

“I have taught nothing directly against Catholic Christian religion, although [I may have done so] indirectly; as was judged at Paris, where, however, I was allowed to hold certain disputes under the title of _One Hundred and Twenty Articles against the Peripatetics and Other Vulgar Philosophers_ (printed with permission of the superiors); as it was permitted to treat them by the way of natural principles, without prejudice to the truth according to the light of faith, in which manner the books of Aristotle and Plato may be read and taught, which are in similar fashion, indirectly contrary to faith,--nay, much more so than the articles propounded and defended by me in the manner of philosophy: all these can be known from what is printed in my last Latin books from Frankfort, entitled _De Minimo_, _De Monade, de Immenso et Innumerabilibus_, and in part in _De Compositione Imaginum_. In these particularly you can see my intention and what I have held, which is, in a word, I believe in an infinite universe,--that is, the effect of infinite divine power; because I esteemed it unworthy of the divine goodness and power that, when it could produce besides this world another, and infinite others, it should produce a single finite world: so I have declared that there is an infinite number of particular worlds similar to this of the earth, which, with Pythagoras, I consider a star, like which is the moon, other planets, and other stars, which are infinite; and that all these bodies are worlds, without number, which make up the infinite university in infinite space, and we call this the infinite universe, in which are numberless worlds: so that there is a double infinitude, that of the greatness of the universe, and that of the multitude of the worlds,--by which indirectly it is meant to assail the truth according to faith.

“Moreover, in this universe I place a universal Providence, in virtue of which everything lives, vegetates, moves, and reaches its perfection; and I understand Providence in two ways: one in which it is present as the soul in all matter, and all in any part whatsoever, and this I call Nature, the shadow and footprint of the Deity; the other in the ineffable way with which God, by essence, presence, and power, is in all things and over all things, not as a part, but as Soul, in a manner indescribable. In the Deity I understand all the attributes to be one and the same substance,--just as theologians and the greatest philosophers hold; I perceive these attributes, power, wisdom, and goodness, or will, intelligence, and love, by means of which things have, first, being (by reason of the will), then, orderly and distinct being (by reason of the intelligence), and third, concord and symmetry (by reason of love); this I believe is in all and above all, as nothing is without participation in being, and being is not without its essence, just as nothing is beautiful without the presence of beauty; so nothing can be exempt from the divine presence. In this manner, by use of reason, and not by use of substantial [theological] truth, I discern distinctions in the Deity.

“Regarding the world as caused and produced, I meant that, as all being depends on the First Cause, I did not shrink from the term ‘creation;’ which I believe even Aristotle expressed, saying that God is, on whom the world and Nature are dependent; so that, according to the explanation of St. Thomas, be the world either eternal or temporal according to its nature, it is dependent on the First Cause, and nothing exists in it independently.

“Next, concerning that which belongs to faith--not speaking in the manner of philosophy--about the divine persons, that wisdom and that son of the mind, called by philosophers _intellect_ and by theologians the _Word_, which we are to believe took upon itself human flesh, I, standing within the bounds of philosophy, have not understood it; but I have doubted, and with inconstant faith maintained,--not that I recall having shown a sign of it in writing or in speech, excepting as in other things indirectly one might gather from my belief and profession concerning those things which can be proved by the reason and deduced from natural light. And then concerning the divine spirit in a third person, I have been able to comprehend nothing in the way in which one ought to believe; but in the Pythagorean way, conformable to that way which Solomon points out, I have understood it to be the soul of the universe, or assistant in the universe, according to that saying in the _Wisdom of Solomon_, ‘The Spirit of the Lord filleth the world; and that which containeth all things hath knowledge of the voice.’[29] This seems to me to agree to the Pythagorean doctrine explained by Vergil in this passage of the _Æneid_:--

‘Principio coelum ac terras camposque liquentes, Lucentemque globum Lunae Titaniaque astra, Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus Mens agitat molem.’[30]

[29] Chap. I, v, 7.

[30] Book VI, 724-27.

“I teach in my philosophy that from this spirit, which is called the Life of the Universe, the life and soul of everything which has life and soul springs; that it is immortal, just as bodies, so far as concerns their substance, are all immortal, death being nothing else than division and coming together; this doctrine seems to be expressed in _Ecclesiastes_, where it says, ‘There is no new thing under the sun. Is there anything whereof it may be said, See, this is new?’ and so on.”

_Inquisitor._ “Have you held, do you hold and believe, the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, one in essence, but distinct in person, as is taught and believed by the Catholic Church?”

_Bruno._ “Speaking as a Christian, and according to theology, and as every faithful Christian and Catholic ought to believe, I have indeed had doubts about the name ‘person’ as applied to the Son and the Holy Spirit; not understanding these two persons to be distinct from the Father, except as I have said above, speaking in the manner of philosophy, and assigning the intelligence of the Father to the Son, and his love to the Holy Spirit, but without comprehending this word ‘persons,’ which in St. Augustine is declared to be not an ancient but a new word, and of his time: and I have held this opinion since I was eighteen years old till now, but in fact I have never denied, nor taught, nor written, but only doubted in my own mind, as I have said.”

_Inquisitor._ “Have you believed, and do you believe, all that the Holy Mother Catholic Church teaches, believes, and holds about the First Person, and have you ever in any wise doubted concerning the First Person?”