Burned at the stake for heresy in Rome in 1600, the Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno was the first modern thinker to propose that the universe contained an infinite number of planetary systems revolving around individual stars. He announced his startling propositions at the moment when European explorers were beginning to reveal the real size and complexity of earth itself (indeed, Bruno also spoke forcefully against the violence and profiteering of Spanish colonial efforts) and when natural philosophers had begun to dispute about the very structure of the universe. It may not be a coincidence that the religious troubles of sixteenth--century Europe arose at a time when humanity's very place in the world and the cosmos no longer seemed certain. In Bruno's case, pursuit of his ideas compelled him to leave behind not only the security of his Dominican convent in Naples, but also, and more radically, the security of a traditional sense of who and where he was. His infinite universe terrified a thinker as unconventional as Johannes Kepler, and still more it terrified the Inquisition. For Bruno himself, the excitement of this infinitely expanded vision of the cosmos was usually enough to overrule any doubt, but when Kepler compared living in Bruno's universe to permanent exile, he captured an essential quality of the Italian philosopher: an intense solitude, a solitude for which his philosophy was only ever a partial cure.
...MoreDescription On Bruno's psychological isolation as a result of his philosophical and cosmological beliefs.
Similar Citations
Article
Ferraro, Bruno;
(2006)
Giordano Bruno's Infinitely Numerous Worlds and “Lunar” Literature
(/isis/citation/CBB000760722/)
Article
Granada, Miguel A.;
(2008)
Kepler and Bruno on the Infinity of the Universe and of Solar Systems
(/isis/citation/CBB000930139/)
Book
Tessicini, Dario;
(2007)
I dintorni dell'infinito: Giordano Bruno e l'astronomia del Cinquecento
(/isis/citation/CBB000850564/)
Article
Decker, Kevin S.;
(2000)
The Open System and Its Enemies: Bruno, the Idea of Infinity, and Speculation in Early Modern Philosophy of Science
(/isis/citation/CBB000111417/)
Article
Carella, Candida;
(2020)
Giordano Bruno ‘delineatore del campo della natura’
(/isis/citation/CBB841320372/)
Article
Seidengart, Jean;
(2001)
L'infinitisation de l'univers et les propriétés de l'espace cosmique chez Giordano Bruno
(/isis/citation/CBB000502791/)
Article
Lüthy, Christoph;
(2010)
Centre, Circle, Circumference: Giordano Bruno's Astronomical Woodcuts
(/isis/citation/CBB001021161/)
Article
Granada, Miguel A.;
(2009)
Novelties in the Heavens between 1572 and 1604 and Kepler's Unified View of Nature
(/isis/citation/CBB000932203/)
Article
Pietro Daniel Omodeo;
(2008)
La Stravagantographia di un 'filosofo stravagante'
(/isis/citation/CBB293553910/)
Article
Michel-Pierre Lerner;
(2012)
Note sur Giordano Bruno traducteur de l' "Ad lectorem" du "De revolutionibus"
(/isis/citation/CBB937214983/)
Thesis
Storch, Michael;
(2007)
Applied Imagination: Giordano Bruno and the Creation of Magical Images
(/isis/citation/CBB001560540/)
Chapter
Prete, Antonella del;
(2000)
Réfuter et traduire: Marin Mersenne et la cosmologie de Giordano Bruno
(/isis/citation/CBB000751140/)
Book
Granada, Miguel A.;
(2001)
Cosmología, teología y religión en la obra y en el proceso de Giordano Bruno
(/isis/citation/CBB000101281/)
Book
Granada, Miguel Ángel;
(2012)
Novas y cometas entre 1572 y 1618: revolución cosmológica y renovación política y religiosa
(/isis/citation/CBB001260564/)
Article
Paolo Rossini;
(2020)
Changing conceptions of mathematics and infinity in Giordano Bruno’s vernacular and Latin works
(/isis/citation/CBB044626758/)
Book
Blay, Michel;
(2010)
Penser avec l'infini: La fécondité d'une notion mathématique et philosophique, de Giordano Bruno aux lumiéres
(/isis/citation/CBB001022974/)
Article
Bacchelli, Franco;
(2001)
Palingenio e Giordano Bruno
(/isis/citation/CBB000502793/)
Article
Cimino, Paola;
(1997)
Uno infinito e minimo in Giordano Bruno
(/isis/citation/CBB000081218/)
Article
Poulain, Julie Rebecca;
(1997)
Giordano Bruno, une éthique de l'infini
(/isis/citation/CBB000072674/)
Article
Granada, Miguel A.;
(2001)
Considerazioni sulla disposizione ed il movimento del sole e delle stelle in Giordano Bruno
(/isis/citation/CBB000502796/)
Be the first to comment!