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

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

Persecuted practically his entire life for being contrary to the religious dogmatisms of his time, there was no place that became his habitual residence. He was a professor at several universities, sometimes expelled from them, having a most hectic and turbulent life.

The final fate of him was tragic, who, contrary to what both Catholics and Protestants believed, ended up being executed for his thought and work.

Following you will find a biography of Giordano Bruno in summary format.

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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 outweighed the Copernican model, proposing that the Sun was merely one more star. and that the universe could host 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 he only paid devotion to the cross as a representative element of God's grace. He differed considerably from the cosmological view held by the different branches of Renaissance Christianity.

His theological claims led him to be tried by the Holy Inquisition, burned alive at the stake for not retracting 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 rule.. His parents were Giovanni Bruno, a man at arms of the Spanish army, and Fraulissa Savolino. He was baptized with the name of Filippo.

He began his studies at Nola but in 1562 he moved to Naples to receive lessons from Giovanni Vincenzo de Colle and Teófilo da Vairano. Three years later, in 1565, Giordano Bruno entered the Dominican Order at the monastery of Santo Domingo Mayor in Naples. While there he devoted himself to the study of Aristotelian philosophy and the theology of Saint Thomas. That same year he decided to change his Christian name to Giordano.

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

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

He was opened a new process for recommending 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. Due to these and many other frictions with his monastery, Bruno decided to flee the convent in 1576.

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Life of scandals

Being only 28 years old, Giordano Bruno already had a life full of scandals that forced him to be in constant movement, fleeing from those who did not see his opinions favorably. 130 articles of impeachment were brought against him and, fearing the Inquisition, he fled Rome in 1576, beginning a wandering life.

He traveled throughout northern Italy, visiting large cities such as Genoa, Savona, Turin, Venice, and Padua. He made a living 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 Nicolás de He cusa, Bernardino Telesio and adopted the system of Nicolaus Copernicus, earning the enmity of both Catholics and Protestants.

Giordano Bruno was quite advanced, expressing his scientific ideas on the plurality of the worlds and solar systems, heliocentrism, the infinity of space and the universe and on the movement of the stars.

He ended up in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1579, being received by the Marquis de Vico, a Calvinist of Neapolitan origin. It is in that city where Giordano Bruno definitively abandons the life of priest and enrolls at the University of Geneva. Shortly afterwards he publishes an attack on Antoine de La Faye, a Calvinist professor, exposing the twenty mistakes made by this intellectual in one of his lectures. For this Bruno was arrested and had to leave Geneva quickly.

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Doctor of theology

His new refuge was France. He received his doctorate in theology from the University of Toulouse and taught during the 1580s and 1581s. He wrote "Clavis magna" and explained Aristotle's treatise "De Anima". After several conflicts due to the religious wars of the moment and the discordant opinions of him with practically any religious, he was accepted by Henry III of France as 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 to the country.. On English soil he would frequently attend the meetings of the poet Philip Sidney and teach at the University of Oxford the new Copernican cosmology, attacking traditional thinking. He would end up leaving Oxford after several arguments.

Among his most important writings of this time we find "De umbris idearum" (1582), "The supper of the ashes", "Of the infinite universe and the worlds", and "On the cause, the beginning and the one" (the last three written in 1584). In 1585 he wrote "The Heroic Fury" in which he describes the way to God through wisdom.

Shortly afterwards he returns to Paris with the ambassador and goes to Marburg where he published his works written by him in England. In your new place of residence 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 various Protestant countries where he wrote many Latin texts 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 Emperor Rudolph II.

He gave some math classes at Helmstedt University 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 dedicated himself to writing poetry.

Giordano Bruno returned to Italy invited by Giovanni Mocenigo, who would become his protector, and he fixed his residence in Venice. There he would dedicate himself to teaching a private chair to Mocenigo.

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Process and conviction

On May 21, 1591, Mocenigo, not satisfied with the doctrines of Giordano Bruno and annoyed by the speeches, in his opinion, heretics of Bruno, denounced him to the Inquisition. On May 23, 1592, Giordano was imprisoned and claimed by Rome on September 12. On January 27, 1593, the confinement of the philosopher was ordered in the Palace of the Holy Office of the Vatican.

He spent eight years in jail awaiting trial in which He was charged with blasphemy, heresy and immorality, in addition to having taught his theories about the multiple solar systems and the infinity of the universe.

The process was led by Cardinal Roberto Belarmino, a character 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 was trying to dominate the minds of others and that Bruno refused to teach him. However, Mocenigo was never arrested.

In 1599 the charges against Bruno were exposed, compiled by Bellarmine and the Dominican Alberto Tragagliolo, general commissioner of the Holy Office. Giordano Bruno decided to reaffirm his ideas, despite the fact that there is evidence of multiple offers of retraction previously dismissed. For this reason, on January 20, 1600, Pope Clement VIII ordered that he be brought before the secular authorities.

The charges that were brought against Bruno by the Inquisition are:

• Have opinions against the Catholic faith and speak out against it and its ministers.
• Have opinions contrary to the Catholic faith about the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, and the incarnation.
• Have opinions contrary to the Catholic faith in relation to Jesus as Christ.
• Have opinions contrary to the Catholic faith in relation to the virginity of Mary, the mother of Jesus.
• Have opinions contrary to the Catholic faith in relation to transubstantiation and the Mass.
• Say that there are multiple worlds.
• Have favorable views of the transmigration of the spirit into 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 entire accusation against him. All of them were censored by the Holy See, and many were burned in Saint Peter's Square.

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Execution

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

During the process he was stripped naked and tied to a pole. In addition, a wooden press was attached to 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 for him to kiss, but Bruno rejected him and said that he would die a martyr and that his soul would rise with fire to the paradise.

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

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His thought and his 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 claimed that the stars seen in the night sky were actually other suns. that they had their own planets, worlds that could well host life like ours.

Bruno claimed that the universe was homogeneous, made up of water, earth, fire, and air, and that the stars did not have a separate quintessence. The same physical laws would be operating everywhere and affirmed that space and time were infinite. He believed in atomism and spoke of relative motion.