Such ideas inevitably became the talk of intellectual Venice. However, Mocenigo soon began to grow jealous of all the brilliant men who called at his palazzo, but were only interested in talking with Bruno. It appears that Mocenigo was no giant of an intellect, but he had his pretentions, and he had been hoping that Bruno’s memory system might gain him entree into the intellectual circles of Venice. At any rate, from the outset Mocenigo found difficulty in mastering even the basic principles of Bruno’s memory system. This he blamed on his teacher. Relations between the resentful aristocrat and his arrogant tutor soon began to deteriorate, to the point where Bruno informed his host that he had decided to break off his teaching and return to Frankfurt to publish a new book that he had written. Outraged at Bruno’s perceived ingratitude, Mocenigo accused him of being a charlatan, claiming that his so-called memory system, which he found impossible to comprehend, was nothing more than a fraud. Mocenigo was determined not to let Bruno leave Venice and reported him to the city’s Inquisition for holding heretical views.
Bruno was now put on trial, and proceeded to defend himself against the none-too-pressing questions of his inquisitors. It appeared that he would probably escape with a reprimand and be allowed to go on his way. Although Bruno had travelled the courts of Europe and in the course of this must have encountered many of the finest portraitists, there are in fact no surviving portraits of him. The only descriptions we have stem from his trial in Venice. Like the man and his ideas, these are appropriately incompatible. The clerk of the court described him as middle-aged, of medium build, with a chestnut-coloured beard. On the other hand, a local bookseller called Ciotto who was summoned as a witness described him as short and thin, with a black beard. Many remarked on how Bruno spoke with great speed and flamboyant gestures, in the manner of southern Italians; others, who had attended his lectures, emphasised his earnest and deliberate manner of speech, which was accompanied by such concentration as to make him appear absent-minded, unselfconscious and oblivious to all but what he was saying.
Either way, Bruno adopted a prudent tactical approach to his trial, which was conducted in the Hall of the Council of Ten in the Doge’s Palace. Right from the start Bruno decided to concede that in the course of his teaching he had perhaps committed certain minor doctrinal errors. Yet these were all concerned with his scientific ideas, and thus could surely not be seen as serious theological errors. Apart from this, he believed utterly in the message of Christ and in no way contradicted the teachings of the Church. This was an undeniably disingenuous approach, prompted perhaps by his characteristic arrogance. The ‘minor errors’ that he appeared so willing to recant were nothing less than his original scientific ideas – his heliocentric theory, the infinity of solar systems in the universe, and atomism. Likewise, where his religious beliefs were concerned, he chose to overlook his belief in the dark arts of alchemy, hermeticism and magic, all of which were based on utterly heretical beliefs. However, Bruno was convinced that the Venetian Inquisition was not deeply concerned and was merely going through the motions.
And such would probably have been the case. But word soon came through that the Roman Inquisition had been informed of Bruno’s trial, and they insisted that the Venetians despatch their prisoner to them at once. This was a much more serious matter. The Roman Inquisition was a powerful force in the Counter-Reformation, which had been launched almost half a century previously to combat the influence of Protestantism and exterminate any other unorthodox religious ideas. On top of this, Bruno still had charges of heresy to face, dating from sixteen years previously when he had fled from his monastery in Naples – meanwhile his cause had hardly been assisted by his travels about Europe attempting to convert Catholics and Protestants alike to his scientific and metaphysical ideas.
There is evidence that it was Mocenigo who tipped off the Roman Inquisition about Bruno’s trial in Venice. Indeed, there is more than a suspicion that Mocenigo had been playing an extremely devious role from the outset of his relationship with Bruno. Mocenigo made no secret of the fact that he had links with the Venetian Inquisition – with his family connections it is unlikely to have been otherwise. Less evident was the fact that he also had connections with some members of the Roman Inquisition. In the opinion of his biographer, Michael White, ‘It was these men who encouraged Mocenigo to forge a relationship with Bruno with the deliberate intention of trapping the philosopher.’
Initially, it seems, the Venetian Inquisition was reluctant to surrender its prisoner to the more vindictive court in Rome. However, pressure was soon brought to bear upon the Republic: Bruno was not even Venetian, and besides he still faced a charge of heresy in Rome. By retaining Bruno in their custody, treating him leniently and perhaps even letting him escape back across the Alps, Venice would be guilty of a dangerous act of defiance against Rome. The Venetian authorities soon caved in. Here, if needed, was further evidence of Venice’s decline. The Republic was no longer a proud imperial power, with possessions all over the eastern Mediterranean, or even a major ruler over much of northern Italy. Those days were over: Venice was now a marginal provincial power, keen to retain whatever friends it could find in order to protect its independence. The Republic had no wish to make an unnecessary enemy of Rome. In February 1593 Bruno was unceremoniously surrendered to the papal authorities, clapped in irons and transported to Rome. Here he was taken to the notorious dungeons of the Castel Sant’ Angelo, the papal fortress in the Vatican.
Even at this juncture Bruno was not unduly worried. Clement VIII, a man known for his liberal views, had been elected pope in January 1592 and had already given evidence of his broad-mindedness by consulting on matters of doctrine with Francesco Patrizi, an occultist who had published his own ‘new philosophy’, which included both Christian and hermetic ideas. Bruno felt sure that if he could but gain an audience with the pope he would soon be able to persuade him of the validity of his ideas and their effectiveness in combating the attractiveness of the simpler spirituality embraced by the Protestants. But such meetings were not so easy to arrange. The papal Curia was an intricate balance of opposing hierarchies and power structures, held together by all manner of intricate protocol, which the pope interfered with at his peril. In order to rule effectively, a pope was frequently forced to make compromises with the demands of these disparate elements. In Bruno’s case, the Roman Inquisition made sure that any contact between the pope and Bruno was out of the question – there was to be no repeat of the Patrizi affair.
Bruno was kept in the dungeons and eventually brought to trial. As was often the case in Rome, this dragged on for years, with Bruno becoming increasingly confident that his views would prevail over the objections put forward by prosecutors who were simply no match for his superior intellect. No longer did he admit, as he had in Venice, that he had committed minor errors: boldly he began insisting upon the veracity of all his scientific and hermetic claims. His inquisitors put forward orthodox, but otherwise ineffectual, objections.
By now Clement VIII was becoming increasingly disturbed at the mockery that Bruno appeared to be making of the Inquisition, and consulted on the matter with his senior adviser, Roberto Bellarmino (usually known by his English equivalent Robert Bellarmine). The fifty-seven-year-old Bellarmine was a Jesuit, a man of considerable intellect and strict orthodoxy who had been a professor of theology for some twenty years. Clement VIII soon came to a decision. In 1599 Bruno’s trial was placed in the charge of Bellarmine, who had been appointed a cardinal for the purpose. (Strict protocol had to be observed: as a Jesuit, Bellarmine would not otherwise have been able to preside over a court of the Inquisition, which was an institution of the Dominicans.)
After years of futile bickering, Bruno’s trial now began to move more swiftly. When confronting Cardinal Bellarmine, he hoist himself on his own petard. His self-confident claims for his scientific and hermetic beliefs were quickly demonstrated to be heresy by Bellarmine. Bruno was found guilty and condemned to be burned at the stake. On 19 F
ebruary 1600, as Bruno was led out towards the unlit pyre of kindling wood in the Campo di Fiore (Field of Flowers), it was noticed by the crowd that his mouth had been stuffed with a gag and his lips bound with a leather strap.* There was to be no possibility of him proclaiming his ideas in public before the flames reduced his mind to silence and his body to ashes. The Inquisition was taking no chances: in order to preserve one true faith of the Catholic Church, all new ideas had to be silenced.
The man who succeeded in obtaining the chair of mathematics at Padua the year after Bruno had been turned down for the post was Galileo Galilei, who is seen by many as the founder of the modern scientific era. He had been born in Pisa, on the west coast of Tuscany, in February 1564. His father was a highly skilled lutenist, who had in fact studied musical theory in Venice; however, he would never achieve the success he deserved, owing to his rebellious character. Like father, like son. Galileo grew to be a bumptious, self-confident youth, with a shock of flaming red hair, whose obvious extrovert charms concealed a rather more complex temperament. At the age of seventeen he returned to Pisa to study medicine at the university, but soon rebelled against the stale medieval curriculum and began embracing the humanistic Renaissance ideas that were themselves now beginning to emerge from the shadow of classical learning into the light of modern reality. The spirit of originality that in its different ways had inspired Copernicus, and would inspire Bruno and Harvey, was very much in the air. Glaring mistakes were being discovered in the science of Aristotle and Galen; a new science was being born that studied the workings of the world rather than the authority of the ancients.
At the age of twenty-one Galileo left Pisa without having gained a degree, and for the next few years precariously supported himself in Florence and Siena by tutoring – at one point even giving lessons to Cosimo de’ Medici, the young son of Grand Duke Ferdinand II, the ruler of Florence. Whilst in Florence, Galileo came under the influence of the Medici court mathematician Ostilio Ricci, a man of some brilliance, who quickly recognised a fellow spirit and encouraged Galileo to pursue the study of mathematics, a subject that had long fascinated him. Indeed, Galileo soon made such progress in this field that he managed to obtain the chair in mathematics at his old university in Pisa. According to legend, it was here that he publicly disproved Aristotle’s theory that heavier bodies fall more quickly to the ground than lighter ones, by dropping objects of differing weights from the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and showing that both reached the ground simultaneously. Whether or not this incident actually took place, its brazenness and scientific intent were characteristic, making Galileo a great favourite with the students, amongst whom he enjoyed the boisterous life of the taverns. Such scandalous behaviour, as well as Galileo’s openly contemptuous regard for his more orthodox academic colleagues, meant that in 1592 his contract was not renewed.
It was now, at the age of twenty-eight, that he applied for the vacant chair of mathematics at Padua and was accepted for the post that had eluded Bruno. From a purely intellectual point of view, the authorities had made an astute choice: Galileo’s ideas were not allied to any anomalous metaphysical hermeticism. Unlike Bruno, who speculated on the nature of the world around him, Galileo experimented. This meant that his science was permeated with exactitude. He confidently pronounced, ‘The book of the world is written in mathematics.’ Likewise, he insisted that the way forward in science lay in ‘measuring what is measurable, and rendering measurable what is at present not so.’ Yet with a dangerous arrogance similar to that of Bruno, he was not afraid of expressing himself on matters of theology: ‘I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who endowed us with sense, reason and intellect intended us to forgo their use.’ Here too he was contemptuous of fellow academics who clung to outmoded medieval ideas, especially ‘the foremost philosophers of this university, who refuse, with the obstinacy of bloated adders, to see the truth of my ideas’.
Fortunately Padua retained its intellectual freedom – despite the Bruno debacle, which was soon to move to Rome and its grisly climax. Although the university curriculum required Galileo to lecture on such orthodox topics as the Ptolemaic universe and Aristotelian science (which decreed that everything was made up of a mixture of earth, air, fire and water), he also was able to give private lectures explaining his more modern scientific ideas. Not all of these were original – Galileo was not above ‘improving’ on the ideas of others and claiming them for himself. Yet such was his genius that this activity invariably rose above the level of mere plagiarism. Thus, in line with what Tartaglia had discovered some fifty years previously, Galileo too contradicted Aristotle’s belief that cannonballs travelled in straight lines, maintaining that their trajectory did in fact follow the course of a parabola. Yet where Tartaglia had only written of this discovery, producing a handbook of tables, Galileo went a significant step further, producing a hinged mechanical range-finder, which could be placed in the mouth of a cannon to determine the angle to which its barrel should be raised in order for its trajectory to reach a certain range. This was the device that he would sell to armies all over Europe, and in this way make his fortune. Unfortunately, the unsatisfactory state of the current patent law was such that competitors were soon manufacturing their own cheap versions of Galileo’s range-finder and undercutting his market. Undaunted, Galileo would continue over the years creating a number of other inventions and ingenious devices – ranging from the first modern thermometer to instructions on how to reinforce ancient battlements so as to withstand the latest artillery. These too were soon copied, and riches continued to elude Galileo.
Making a fortune would become a lasting preoccupation with Galileo. However, he was not naturally given to the quest for fame and fortune, and this was largely thrust upon him by his financial circumstances. Although his professorial salary at Padua was far from meagre, it was not enough to support his continuing extravagant lifestyle and the financial burdens that had now been forced upon him.
In 1591 Galileo’s father had died, leaving his large family in dire financial straits. He now had to provide for six brothers and sisters, as well as an elderly complaining mother, none of whom he could even travel to see. During his earlier years as a tutor in Florence, his extravagances in the taverns and elsewhere had left such a trail of unpaid bills that his mother had written to warn him not to visit Florence as his creditors were now ‘threatening to have you clapped in irons as soon as you set foot in the city’.
On top of this, Galileo now had a family of his own in Padua. He had taken up with a twenty-two-year-old local woman called Marina Gamba, known equally for her striking beauty and her volatile temperament. This proved a fine match for Galileo’s own character, and Marina would eventually produce two daughters and a son by Galileo – though he never married her.
Despite his busy life supporting two families, and performing his professorial duties as a public and private lecturer whilst constantly searching for some invention that would make his fortune, Galileo also found time to advance his theoretical ideas. During his early years at Padua he had quickly come to the conclusion that the Copernican heliocentric view of the universe was correct, and had begun corresponding with the astronomer Johannes Kepler in Prague, who was at the time calculating the elliptical orbits of the planets about the sun. However, even the ebullient Galileo felt it best to refrain from publishing his Copernican views in the light of Bruno’s fate in Rome.
In the summer of 1609 news reached Venice of a sensational new type of perspicillum that had been invented in Holland. Previously a perspicillum had consisted of a lens or a pair of glasses, but this new instrument was said to be made up of two lenses arranged in a single tube and enabled a distant object to appear close up, enlarging its image by as much as three times that seen by the naked eye. When Galileo heard of this instrument, ‘by which a man two miles away can be distinctly seen’, it immediately sparked his scientific curiosity. Without even seeing one, he quickly grasped the optical principle upon whi
ch it was based and began constructing a perspicillum of his own. As ever he improved on this purloined idea, and after a number of experimental versions produced an instrument capable of almost three times the power of the orginal. Here, surely, was the invention that would guarantee his future. But this time, guided by astute Venetian friends, Galileo curbed his financial ambitions and took the unprecedented step of offering his invention to the Venetian authorities for free. Accompanied by a number of senior senators, Galileo climbed the stairs to the top of the Campanile and demonstrated his new instrument, so that they were able ‘to observe at sea sails and vessels so far away that, coming under full sail to port, two hours and more were required before they could be seen without my spyglass’. He further claimed that his instrument could ‘represent an object which is for example fifty miles away as large and near as if it were but five’. The defensive uses of such an instrument for a city like Venice were obvious: there would be no further surprise attacks from the sea.
The Senate voted to accept Galileo’s gift, and gratefully awarded him an immediate grant of 500 ducats, as well as doubling his university salary to more than 1,000 ducats a year for life. Fortunately the headstrong Galileo had heeded the advice of his friends: by selling manufactured examples of his perspicillum he could never have earned such a sum, especially since he had no patent on the idea. Within no time instrument-makers all over Europe were producing what two years later came to be known as a telescope,* which Galileo now insisted he had invented. When presented with incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, his reply was characteristically robust: ‘Any idiot can discover such a thing by accident. I was the one who discovered it by reason, which requires genuine originality.’
Within months of his original ‘invention’ Galileo had improved upon his telescope so that it magnified the original object twenty times. But this was only the beginning. Though he was certainly not the first to raise a telescope to the night sky, he was the first to understand the full significance of what he was seeing. Indeed, he was hardly exaggerating when he now referred to himself as ‘the new Columbus’. His drawing of what he saw would cause a revolution in science and transform humanity’s entire understanding of the world and our place in it. Galileo’s drawings of the moon showed that it was not a perfect sphere, as it was described according to the dictates of Aristotelianism. Instead, it was another world, in many ways resembling our own, complete with volcanic craters and mountains, which cast shadows across its sunlit surface. And when he turned his telescope to the Milky Way, instead of a diaphanous haze it became transformed into a vast rash of stars extending through the heavens. There were even stars that were not visible to the naked eye, completely disproving Aristotle’s claim that there could be no such thing. Galileo went on to observe, and record in remarkably accurate drawings, four moon-like satellites of Jupiter, sunspots which darkened and then disappeared from the surface of the sun, as well as the ‘phases of Venus’, which showed that this planet waxed and waned like the moon. This could only have taken place if Venus orbited the sun. Here was incontrovertible evidence for the solar system, utterly disproving the Ptolemaic model.
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