The Forbidden Universe: The Origins of Science and the Search for the Mind of God

by Lynn Picknett

  At this time, when Catholicism seemed on the brink of triumph, a strangely symbolic event took place in Rome. In 1586 a great ancient Egyptian obelisk that had remained neglected for over a thousand years was moved to the centre of St Peter’s Square. During the Roman Empire, many obelisks and statues were carried off to the imperial hub from Egypt and erected around the city, usually in honour of some emperor or another. Unsurprisingly, they had been knocked over and vandalized as nasty pagan monuments when Christianity became the state religion, but many were left where they fell, either in pieces or whole, to disappear beneath the ground over the centuries. In the sixteenth century only one obelisk was still standing, albeit with its base deeply buried, in a dingy alley behind St Peter’s. Nearly three thousand years old, it had been taken to Rome on the orders of Caligula.

  In 1586 Pope Sixtus V ordered that the obelisk be moved to its prominent place and following a monumental engineering effort that stretched the resources and skills of the day to their very limit, this 83-foot-tall (25-metre), 350-ton monument stood tall in the centre of the square. After being duly exorcised, it was topped with a large iron cross and had inscriptions honouring Christ (and of course Sixtus) carved into it.

  Sixtus’ declared motive was to assert the triumph of Catholic Christianity over paganism and to ‘eradicate the memory of the superstitions of antiquity by raising the greatest footing ever for the Holy Cross’.33 At first glance, this seems rather strange, since Christianity had put an end to paganism long before and the major threat to Catholicism at the time was Protestantism. But in the context of the Hermetic, Egyptian undercurrent the desire of this ultra-conservative and reactionary ex-Inquisitor – of whom it was said that he wouldn’t even forgive Christ of his sins – to symbolize his Church’s superiority over Egypt certainly makes sense.

  For his part, Bruno became much more confrontational, publicly denouncing the Catholic Church and the Pope as both tyrannical and the cause of disorder and violence in Europe. He also changed strategy and decided that the Hermetic revolution would now be brought about by stealth, using more clandestine methods. He devoted much of his time in Germany to organizing a secret society, the Giordanisti, to further his ambitions. This underground network would act as contingency should there be a Catholic take-over of Europe, which seemed only too likely. The Giordanisti were effectively a Hermetic resistance movement. One fellow guest of the Inquisition in Rome said that Bruno had declared:

  … that he had begun a new sect in Germany, and if he could get out of prison he would return there to organize it better, and that he wished that they would call themselves Giordanisti.34

  The chief informer against him, Zuan Mocenigo, said that shortly before his arrest Bruno had ‘revealed a plan of founding a new sect’ to him.35 Although this revelation suggests that Bruno was still at the initial planning stages, his activities just before returning to Italy suggest otherwise. In retrospect it seems improbable that such a messianic figurehead would not have organized cells of disciples wherever he went, linking them into an underground network. Forming secret groups is what Hermeticists do.

  Bruno had certainly acquired disciples and devotees in France and England. During his return to Paris he published works under his followers’ names in order to disguise his authorship – although this may not have been favourable for those whose names he adopted – another sign that he was becoming more cautious and secretive. He was now building a following in the states of Germany. And despite restrictions caused by the problems of transport, because the formal organization was university-based, there would have been a constant movement of professors and students to other parts of Europe, all carrying Bruno’s message.

  Part of Bruno’s new project involved the publication, in 1590 and 1591, of three lengthy poems expounding his magical philosophy, the progress of which he controlled more meticulously than any of his more overtly arcane and philosophical works. He even travelled to Frankfurt to oversee their production. One of the poems, On the Threefold Minimum and Measure (De triplici minimo et mensura) included symbols and diagrams for which – uniquely – Bruno made the woodcuts himself.

  It has been suggested that Bruno lavished all this love on this particular work because it incorporated the Giordanisti’s secret symbols and contained ciphered messages for its initiates.36 Again, this makes sense in terms of a feared Catholic clampdown, in which his overtly Hermetic treatises would be banned. Of all Bruno’s works this was the one that was ultimately responsible for his downfall.

  Being such a high-profile possessor of Hermetic secrets was never going to be a passport to freedom of speech and a guarantee of personal safety, but clearly something in Bruno’s character either persuaded him he would always lead a charmed life or he simply craved danger. Perhaps he also craved martyrdom.

  A fiery fate was already waiting in the wings. While in Frankfurt, Bruno met Giovanni Battista Ciotto, an innocent-seeming book dealer from Venice. Back home, Ciotto sold a copy of Bruno’s poem On the Threefold Minimum and Measure to a wealthy Hermetic dabbler, Zuan Mocenigo, which prompted him to invite Bruno to be his guest and teacher. At the age of forty-three, and after ten years away from Italian soil, Bruno accepted the offer. This would not turn out to be his best idea.

  To modern eyes it seems as if Bruno was somewhat overoptimistic, seeing his return to Italy as a golden opportunity to inveigle himself into the Pope’s favour. He even wrote to an old Dominican acquaintance in Venice that he hoped to receive papal absolution. Certainly further political change had rekindled his hopes of establishing a new age of Hermetic religion through an internal transformation of the Catholic Church. He still envisaged a French monarch who would bridge the divide between Catholics and Protestants, but fate would ultimately act against him there, too.

  In the struggle over the succession that had followed the assassination of Henri III, another Henri, the King of Navarre, had triumphed (with the aid of English soldiers sent by Elizabeth). Navarre was a kingdom in southern France, on the Atlantic coast, the remnant of a larger and once predominantly Spanish kingdom that had straddled the Pyrenees. In 1589 the Huguenot king of Navarre also became King of France. In a politically expedient move, the new Henri IV converted to Catholicism, but as an ex-Huguenot it was widely anticipated he would unify the religious divide in France. Curiously and probably not coincidentally, he had his marriage annulled and married a Medici, Marie, daughter of Francesco de’Medici. Hermetic hopes once centred on Henri III now segued onto Henri IV. Bruno went so far as to tell his Inquisitors that he hoped that the new king would ‘confirm the orders of the late King’ (Henri III) for the favours granted to him.37

  Bruno’s sense of destiny had also been bolstered by other events, and without the grim knowledge provided by hindsight, perhaps it is easy to understand how he might have been so tragically misled. In 1591, Francesco Patrizi, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ferrara, published a new edition of the Hermetica. In his dedication to Pope Gregory XIV, Patrizi urged him to decree that Hermetic philosophy be incorporated into the heart of Catholic education. Gregory died soon afterwards, but his successor, Clement VIII, rewarded Patrizi for his efforts by bestowing him with the Chair in Platonic Philosophy at the University of Rome. Bruno told Mocenigo that he had taken heart from this, and expected the same kind of treatment from Clement. There was, however, a major difference. Patrizi was advocating the incorporation of Hermeticism into Catholicism, not vice versa like Bruno. And, of course, while ostensibly rewarding Patrizi – or perhaps buying him off – Clement never actually acted on his proposition.

  It was in this climate that Bruno accepted Mocenigo’s suggestion to travel to Venice. Accompanied by his secretary, Jerome Besler, Bruno initially declined Mocenigo’s invitation of hospitality, and stayed in his own lodgings. He gave talks at Ciotto’s bookshop and frequented intellectual salons in private homes, besides spending three months at Padua, hometown of the eminence grise Gian Vincenzo Pinelli, whom he undoubtedly met
. Only in the spring of 1592 did he finally give in and agree to stay with Mocenigo. During his two-month visit his host made notes of their conversations, which no doubt seemed innocent enough, perhaps even flattering at the time, but they were to provide the basis of the case against him.

  There were other good reasons why Bruno and his network wanted to shift their focus to Venice. The republic was becoming a centre of opposition to the Pope’s authority and there were moves to forge a political and religious alliance with England (although this only gathered momentum in the years after Bruno’s death). Astonishingly there were even hopes that Venice might adopt Anglicanism, which probably explains why the Pope excommunicated the whole republic in 1606. The key figures in this plan were all associated with Bruno. They included the English ambassador (and former spy) Sir Henry Wotton, who had been at the Italian’s controversial lecture in Oxford and was a great friend of Alberic Gentilio, the professor of law who facilitated Bruno’s career in Germany. Another was Traiano Boccalini, author of News From Parnassus (Ragguagli di Parnaso), which, modelled on The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast, called for a ‘general reformation of the whole wide world’.38

  The unravelling of events such as these in Venice and Padua (part of the republic of Venice) in the aftermath of Bruno’s visit was unlikely to have been coincidental. Neither was it much of a coincidence that Padua appears to have become a sudden magnet for Hermeticists when Bruno left.

  And then, suddenly, it all became too obvious. In May 1592, when Bruno was preparing to return to Frankfurt, Mocenigo refused to let him leave, hiring a gang of gondoliers to lock him in a room, and sent for the Inquisition. Bruno was to be their prisoner for the remaining eight years of his life, with the resulting agonizing ending usually reserved for those who spoke out against ignorance and tyranny.

  No evidence remains to suggest why Mocenigo decided to play the villain. Some believe his invitation was a trap from the start, or even that he had been in the pay of the Inquisition from the moment he bought On the Threefold Minimum and Measure. Others think that Mocenigo’s enthusiasm for Bruno’s philosophy was genuine but that he became disillusioned or alarmed. Perhaps Mocenigo simply feared for his immortal soul.

  Bruno was questioned by the Inquisition and then tried in Venice. The major concern was the ‘great reform’ he preached. He did recant his heresies and begged for mercy from the judges, but the Supreme Inquisitor in Rome sent for him. Bruno was kept in prison in Rome for five years without so much as being questioned. After finally being interrogated, he was kept imprisoned for a further three years, without being tried. Heretics who admitted their errors – as Bruno appears to have done – were generally either given a prison sentence or released, albeit with restricted movements. Those who didn’t were tried and, if found guilty, imprisoned or executed. Either way, a prisoner was generally dealt with relatively swiftly. Why the Inquisition dithered over Bruno is a puzzle, although we can offer a possible explanation that relates to the Hermetic undercurrent.

  The inexorable endgame for Bruno finally began with the arrival of the newly appointed Cardinal Inquisitor Roberto Bellarmino (1542–1621, canonized in 1930). One of the most formidable intellects of the Church, Bellarmino was a loyal and capable pair of hands trusted by a succession of popes. He was a member of the Society of Jesus – another prong of the Counter-Reformation formed some sixty years earlier. The Society, known commonly as the Jesuits, was and is a notoriously unsentimental brotherhood, zealously committed to the unswerving maintenance of Catholic doctrine. Bellarmino’s speciality was combating heresy, about which he knew a great deal, having taken infinite pains to comprehend the mindsets and arguments of heretics (although in his case, studying the subject was unlikely to see him accused of being suspect of a suspicion of heresy). A fierce and clever polemicist, he even engaged in a pamphlet war with James I of England.

  Bellarmino had been an assistant to the papal emissary sent to negotiate with the Catholic League over the successor to Henri III after they assassinated him, negotiations that were trumped by the accession of Henri of Navarre. So he was aware of the Protestant and Hermetic expectations centred on the French kings.

  When Pope Clement VIII appointed Bellarmino Cardinal Inquisitor in 1599, he reopened proceedings against Bruno, who asked that he be allowed to write a petition to Pope Clement VIII declaring that he was prepared to defend the beliefs he was charged with, but that if Clement proclaimed them to be heretical, he would abide by his decision. Bellarmino didn’t even show the petition to the Pope. According to the Cardinal Inquisitor, when Bruno was presented with a list of specific heresies in his work he abjured them, but then later withdrew this admission. This, as Bruno must have known, was the worst thing he could have done, as the most severe sentences were reserved for relapsed heretics. It was inevitable that he would be burnt at the stake. So had Bruno really changed his mind? No one will ever know. When he was led out to the pyre, his tongue was tied to prevent him speaking.

  The record of the prosecution in Rome was lost after being taken to Paris in 1810 with the papal archives on the orders of Napoleon. However, we discovered from a summary of the Roman Inquisition’s evidence found in 1942 (among the personal papers of the nineteenth-century Pope Pius IX) that Bruno was condemned for holding opinions contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church, in particular about the Trinity, Jesus’ divinity and transubstantiation and speaking out against the Church; denying Mary’s virginity; practising magic and divination; and claiming that there were many worlds in an infinite universe, and that the Earth moved. The German scholar Caspar Schoppe, who witnessed the execution, listed the heresies for which Bruno was being burned. These included the belief that there are innumerable other worlds; the promotion of the practice of magic; the claim that the Holy Spirit and the anima mundi are one and the same; that Moses learned magic from the Egyptians; and, finally, that Jesus Christ, too, was a magus. Any one of these would have ensured that Bruno be roasted alive – perhaps the Inquisition was furious Bruno had only one life to lose in the crackling flames.

  MINERVA’S MAN

  Bruno was sent to the pyre on 17 February 1600, ironically, or maybe deliberately, the day after Ash Wednesday, recalling the title of his infamous book. First he was taken from prison to the Inquisition’s basilica, where he was handed over to the secular authorities (as was the procedure for the execution of heretics). Bruno may have seen the choice of location either as a cruel irony or perhaps as a source of comfort. The basilica is dedicated to Santa Maria sopra Minerva and was built on the foundations of a pagan Roman temple, which we now know was dedicated to Isis. However, when the basilica was built the deity was mistakenly identified as Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom and magic (among other things). Ironically, Minerva was the form of the goddess to whom Bruno had specifically chosen to dedicate himself.

  From the basilica, Bruno was led to the Campo de’ Fiori (Field of Flowers), then a meadow (and now a market square in the heart of the city), where he was tied to a stake and burnt alive. Schoppe says that he turned his head aside when offered a crucifix to kiss – demonstrating he was a pagan Hermeticist to the very last, and perhaps indicating that his alleged recantation was in fact an Inquisitorial invention. Or perhaps, in the one final moment when he had nothing to lose, he felt that he could reveal his true self.

  In 1870, when the city of Rome passed from the control of the Pope to secular authorities, there were immediate calls to erect a statue in Bruno’s honour in the Campo de’ Fiori. Luminaries such as Herbert Spencer, Victor Hugo and Henrik Ibsen supported the petition. This is probably what prompted the Pope of that time, Pius IX, to call for the documents on Bruno’s trial that were later found in his personal papers. However, it took until 1889 for the bronze statue, showing a rather sinister Bruno in his monk’s robes and cowl, to be erected. The statue is today the focus for a variety of pilgrims even though they tend to be atheists, freethinkers and New Agers. But the original driving force behind the
statue was Italian Freemasonry – the sculptor, Ettore Ferrari, was Grand Master of Italy and the statue was unveiled with the Campo ‘festooned with flags bearing Masonic symbols’.39

  The nineteenth-century adulation of Bruno was based on a serious misconception, which endured because of the gap in the official records. Many had come to believe that Bruno had been put to death solely for advocating the heliocentric theory or the infinity of worlds, making him a kind of forerunner of Galileo. This belief encouraged what one commentator calls ‘a misguided interpretation of Bruno as a martyr for science’.40

  Bruno was actually a martyr for Hermeticism. Although there was a connection with the Copernican theory, but Bruno was condemned not for preaching heliocentricity, but because of its special significance to him, particularly his vision that proving it would herald the coming Hermetic age.

  Even today, the Catholic Church’s attitude to Bruno remains startlingly unchanged. When, in the Holy Year of 2000, a suggestion was made that Pope John Paul II might finally forgive him – as they had Galileo – the official response was that Bruno ‘had deviated too far from Christian doctrine to be granted Christian pardon’.41

  But the question remains: why had it taken eight years for Bruno to be condemned? Why had his teachings suddenly become too hot for the Inquisition?