Giordano Bruno My Favorite Heretic

"I cleave the heavens and soar!
What others see before them I leave far behind me."

Giordano Bruno

This Is one of my favorite quotes by my favorite heretic. Bruno has always been a hero to me for a number of reasons. First and foremost is that he had the courage to stand up to the powers that be,,, aka the Catholic Church of his day, and say,,,, excuse me,,, “WRONG” Even if the church thought they would have the last laugh by burning him at the stake, Bruno will outlive the church in many ways.

He was born five years after Copernicus had died and he ran with the vision of a Universe bigger than the church wanted to allow. He actually was a Domenican monk who boggled the others monks with ideas that shocked and awed them a bit too much. Many thought him a magician, when he really was a poet and dreamer of a larger view of the Universe. The 15^th century God was a bit too small for this futurist who saw that the world was waking up to the fact that the Earth was not the center of the Universe.

He wrote a book on Memory, based on mnemonics which placed him in a good position with King Henri III and also was able to visit Queen Elizabeth she thought him as wild, radical, subversive and dangerous. Bruno found Englishmen rather crude.

In De l'Infinito, Universo e Mondi, he put forth his ideas that the stars where just like our sun, and the Universe was infinite and filled with intelligent lifeforms.

He did some James Bond spywork during his lifetime also. He really got someones goat I believe when he showed that his great memory was due to mnemonic device instead of some magickal powers. Disappointed he might have been stabbed in the back so to speak by a close friend. He was charged with not believing in the corporal body of Christ,, and the Inquisition placed him in prison for over 7 years before sending him to the stake. In Rome he was wanting to make peace with the Church but they wanted a full recantation which Bruno refused.

When I went to Rome, I did not visit the Vatican, I went to Campo de' Fiori and hung out with the hippies there who party under the statue of Bruno. I of course ,, being the pagan I am, did a impromtu ritual in his honor.

His statement to the Inquisition upon his sentence rang in my ears:

“Perhaps you, my judges, pronounce this sentence against me with greater fear than I receive it”

When the Cross was brought before him before he was to be burned at the stake,, he pushed it away. He thought that Christianity is entirely irrational, that it is contrary to philosophy and that it disagrees with other religions too violently. He points out that we accept it through faith, that revelation, so called, has no scientific basis. He stuck to his principles and died a death that rings in the Churchs ears to this day,, even if he is little known or read he still is my favorite heretic