Bruno’s stand for
truth proved fatal

In 1543 Copernicus published his methods of calculating the positions of planets in the sky based on a heliocentric system.

Although often referred to as the "Copernican Revolution," the heliocentric system advocated by Copernicus was not considered controversial because he stated that the calculations were only thus, and not intended to represent a physical model of reality.

Although the Church, the dominant political and social authority at the time, favored the geocentric system advocated by Aristotle, it used Copernicus' methods to bring the calendar back in synch with the heavens, creating the Gregorian calendar that we use today.

Copernicus was not seen as a direct threat by the Church, but his writings resonated for a century and set into motion philosophical speculations that would lead to Galileo's run-in with the Church.

More than any other, one man was responsible for the growing awareness of the implications of a universe in which Earth was not the center.

Giordano Bruno attended school at the Monastery of Saint Domenico, where the most famous and prestigious Dominican, St. Thomas Aquinas, had lived and taught. There he was trained in Aristotelian philosophy and Thomistic theology.

Bruno had been widely known at the monastery for his keen memory. He had developed a mnemonic system that he taught others to use. Some thought it to be the tools of the devil.

Bruno became a Dominican priest, but it soon became apparent to his colleagues that there was something troubling about his demeanor. He was frank, outspoken and lacking in reticence, and got himself into trouble for not giving his teachers the answers they wanted.

He was independent in thinking and tempestuous in personality. In 1576, a formal accusation of heresy was brought against him. He went to Rome to atone but did not mend his manners. The accusations against him were renewed and within a few months of his arrival he fled the city and cast off all allegiance to his order.

For the next seven years, he lived in France, lecturing on various subjects and attracting the attention of powerful patrons. From 1583 to 1585 he lived at the house of the French ambassador in London. In 1584 he published two important books, "The Ash Wednesday Supper" and "On the Infinite Universe and Worlds."

In these two works, Bruno defended the heliocentric theory of Copernicus and argued that the universe was infinite, contained an infinite number of worlds, and that these are all inhabited by intelligent beings.

In his philosophy, Bruno held that ideas are only the shadows of truth, an idea that was extremely novel for his time and difficult for his contemporaries to accept.

It was part of Bruno's method to object to the cramming of Aristotle's statements of "fact" when they were at variance with the new experiences that science was producing.

Bruno coined the phrase "Libertes philosophical," the right to think, to dream, to make philosophy free of constraints.

Bruno began to directly criticize Aristotle, who was revered by university scholars of the time as the ultimate authority on everything. It was thought that something must be believed because Aristotle said it to be so.

Between 1582 and 1592 there were few teachers in Europe who were openly and actively spreading the news of Copernicus' universe. But Bruno began to spread the Copernican doctrine openly

Throughout Europe, Bruno's passionate expression of his opinions led to opposition.

In 1591, for reasons unknown, he accepted an invitation to live in Venice where he was turned in by his host, angered at being unable to obtain the secret of his "natural magic" -- Bruno's system of memory training.

He was arrested by the Inquisition and held in Venice, but was later surrendered to Rome where he was held in the prison of Castel Sant' Angelo from 1593 to 1600.

We do not know the exact nature of his "crimes" as the records concerning his trials have disappeared. It appears that his personality was used against him as much as were his ideas in the accusations of being an atheist, infidel and heretic.

Finally he was taken to the palace of the Grand Inquisitor to hear his sentence of death by fire.

He answered the sentence with a defiant reply: "Perhaps you pronounce this sentence with greater fear than I receive it."

Given eight more days to repent, to no avail he was led to the stake and burned alive, the harshest execution of the Inquisition. Normally a heretic was executed first and the corpse burned to cleanse it of its satanic ways, but Bruno was deemed to be especially dangerous and was burned alive.

As the fire burned he was offered a crucifix, but he pushed it away with fierce scorn.

Today, in the square of Campo de' Fiora, on the site of his execution in Rome stands a statue of Giordano Bruno.

When the statue was erected in 1889 local riots overcame objections by the Vatican against honoring a heretic.

The statue faces the Vatican Chancellory, and its pedestal reads simply, "And the flames rose up ..."