Astronomy As a Means of Earning a Living

Two FLEEING INTO EXILE—NORTHERN ITALY, GENEVA, TOULOUSE: ASTRONOMY AS A MEANS OF EARNING A LIVING Bruno’s journey to Rome turns into a flight. On his first transit he allegedly dedicated a book to the pope, entitled L’Arca di Noè. It is rumored that during this stay he threw a secret informer into the Tiber River—unfortunately there is no evidence for either one of those events (cf. Spampanato 1933, 151ff, 263–265). In the Ash Wednesday Supper, the author mentions that Noah’s Ark was a satire in which, among other things, the donkeys were concerned about their primacy (DI 79f). Apparently, his attempts to rehabilitate himself in Rome were not successful. Rather, the friar lays down his habit and sets out northwards. It appears that he sought shelter in various Dominican houses which he had gotten to know during his studies. There he was advised to con- tinue presenting himself as a Dominican, since the affiliation with any professional or social group was important to survival. In Venice, as he indicates, he published a treatise entitled De segni de’ tempi (The Signs of the Time) which is also not preserved. Here, too, one can only speculate as regards its content. It might have been an astronomical or cosmological treatise, but it also might have been a work on the history of philosophy combined with cosmology. The title alludes to two biblical pas- sages according to which God knows the signs of the time, reveals past and future, and makes known secret signs (Sir 42:19), and Jesus invites the disci- ples to interpret the appearance of the sky in view of salvation (Matthew 16:3–4). Associations of this kind are quite often to be found in Bruno’s writ- ings, including the first treatise published in Latin, De umbris idearum. He explains that he had it printed for the sake of money, and the search for em- ployment pushed him further on through Northern Italy. Between 1576 and 1578 he stayed in Noli, Savona, Turin, Venice, Padua, Brescia, Bergamo, and Milan, among other places. Temporarily he taught children or gave lectures on Spheres; these were presumably foundational courses in astronomy, remi- niscent of the customary textbook entitled Sphaera, written by John of Holy- wood (Johannes de Sacrobosco). Now on the brink of becoming a “knight er- rant of philosophy,” the fugitive then set out to Lyon—it is not clear whether or not he actually arrived there. After a short stay in Chambéry in Savoy he finally found a position as a proofreader at a printing shop in Geneva. 10 GIORDANO BRUNO From the Dominican headquarters and that of the entire Catholic Church in Rome, the renegade friar now had come to the Vatican of Calvinism. At that time, there was a small colony of Italian emigrants seeking shelter in Ge- neva; these people had been forced to leave their hometowns for similar rea- sons as was the case for Bruno. It is possible that he could have sympathized with Calvinism due to the mutual rejection of the veneration of the saints. At any rate, Bruno later on explicitly rejected the doctrine of predestination, or rather the Protestant doctrine of grace in general, according to which the salvation of man depends on God’s predestination, or in any case, however, on his grace. He deemed the significance of “good works” indispensable, at least with regard to the social meaning of religion. His criticism of the Christian religion at that time also included its Calvinist variant. Even though the Span- iard Michael Servet had been burned at the stake as a heretic, not without John Calvin’s assistance, it seems that there were also some antitrinitarians staying in Geneva in 1579, the year in which Bruno joined the local Italian dissidents. Servet is considered to have been the founder of the modern anti- trinitarianism, and with regard to the Protestant characteristic of interpreting the Bible in its most literal sense, this theory insisted that the doctrine of three persons in one God was not biblically founded. According to him, it was only through a return to the original teaching of the Bible that a reform of Christi- anity should be possible, including that of the Christian communities. As far as his reformatory intentions were concerned, they coincided with Calvin’s positions; with regard to theology, however, there was a clash. In 1541, Cal- vin had established a theocratic rule in Geneva as a result of a strict ecclesial constitution. In 1559, he founded an academy (university); the renowned theologian Theodore Beza was to become its rector and also Calvin’s succes- sor in governing the Church in Geneva. The exile’s ideological direction during those years is unambiguous. Lyon had been a place of refuge in the 1530s for both Calvin and Servet. At times, the antitrinitarian Lelio Sozzini had stayed in Geneva; together with his relative Fausto Sozzini (both hailed from Siena), he became the eponym of the European antitrinitarian (or unitarian) movement: Socinianism. Bruno’s wish, however, of living “in peace and security” (Firpo 1993, 160) in this city was not fulfilled. He enrolled at the academy of Geneva on May 20, 1579; of course, he did not use his religious name, Giordano, but rather his baptismal name, Philippus. As his professional title he wrote “sacrae theologiae professor.” One of Theodore Beza’s protégés, Antoine de La Faye, was in charge of this institution. In August 1579, Bruno had a pamphlet printed in which he exposed twenty errors held by de La Faye, the professor of philosophy (Spampanato 1933, 632f). We do not know what these errors may have been and how they manifested themselves. However, it is certain that the Genevan philosophy was committed to Aristotle; Bruno was put on trial before the highest ranking secular and ecclesiastical Calvinist committee, i.e., the Con-.

Load more