Giordano Bruno 1548 – 1600
Giordano Bruno was an Italian philosopher, cosmologist, and former Dominican friar. Drawing on the new heliocentric astronomy of Copernicus and on Hermetic and Neoplatonic sources, he taught that the universe is infinite, that the sun is one star among many, and that other worlds may host intelligent life. He defended a pantheistic metaphysics in which God is identical with nature and developed sophisticated arts of memory. After years of wandering through Europe, he was tried by the Roman Inquisition for heresy and burned at the stake in 1600.
Key facts
- Nationality
- Italian
- Era
- Modern
- Movements
- Renaissance
Selected quotes
-
Attributed to Giordano Bruno:
“The universe is, then, one, infinite, immobile.”
-
Attributed to Giordano Bruno:
“There are countless suns and countless earths all rotating around their suns in exactly the same way as the seven planets of our system.”
-
Attributed to Giordano Bruno:
“Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
-
Attributed to Giordano Bruno:
“Perhaps you, my judges, pronounce this sentence against me with greater fear than I receive it.”
-
Attributed to Giordano Bruno:
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority.”