Title Blumenberg, Bruno and the Modern
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
THE NEW LIGHT OF EUROPE: GIORDANO BRUNO AND THE MODERN AGE Geoffrey Neal Cassady McTighe A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Romance Languages (Italian). Chapel Hill 2007 Approved by Advisor: Dr. Ennio Rao Dr. Dino Cervigni Dr. John Headley Dr. Federico Luisetti Dr. Michael McVaugh © 2007 GEOFFREY NEAL CASSADY MCTIGHE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT GEOFFREY NEAL CASSADY MCTIGHE: THE NEW LIGHT OF EUROPE: GIORDANO BRUNO AND THE MODERN AGE (Under the direction of Dr. Ennio Rao) Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) is an important figure in Hans Blumenberg's (1920- 1996) The Legitimacy of the Modern Age (1966). In this dissertation I further situate Bruno in the German Philosopher's sweeping interpretation of the modern age through the Blumenbergian lens of Metaphorology. Herein I analyze metaphors in the lives and works of two thinkers who espouse Brunonian ideas: Nicola Antonio Stigliola (1546- 1623) and Andrea Fodio Gambara (c.1588-c.1660). Bruno is a modern thinker because his radical reading of Copernicanism called for a reassessment of all facets of human inquiry into nature and morality. Accordingly, Bruno detailed a revolutionary infinite pananimism that inspired, among others, his compatriot, Stigliola, and the Calabrian Fodio Gambara. Although neither cited Bruno in their works, they directly and tangentially assumed Brunonian garb in the seventeenth century. The basis on which I argue this is both theoretical and substantive. Theoretically, I study each of these authors' works and lives as Blumenbergian solutions to problems integral to the development of the modern age. Moreover, I situate these metaphors in dialogue. The result is a picture of how an initial Brunonian spark brought on by Copernicus's flint, set a conflagration in the modern age that participated in the demise of Hebrew and Christian eschatological thought. Bruno replaced it with the fecund ash of cosmological and spiritual infinitism. Substantively, I employ Blumenberg's metaphorology, a synchronic approach to history, iii in order to understand ideas. I study metaphors as Blumenbergian "reoccupations of positions," such as Bruno's ars memoriae and Stigliola's Encyclopedism as better solutions to the problem of the organization of knowledge in the infinite universe. This thesis is the only study to consider these three thinkers in tandem, the only English- language study of Stigliola and Fodio Gambara, and it is also an extension of Blumenberg's metaphorology to Giordano Bruno's thought. iv DEDICATION Ai miei genitori e a mio fratello; alla città di Nola, e alla Baronia, patria della mia famiglia italiana. "DE L'AMORE Amor per cui tant'alto il ver discerno, ch'apre le porte di diamante e nere, per gli occhi entra il mio nume, e per vedere nasce, vive, si nutre, ha regno eterno. Fa scorger quant'ha il ciel terr'et inferno, fa presente d'absenti effigie vere, repiglia forze e trando dritto fere, e impiaga sempr'il cor, scuopr'ogn'interno. O dumque volgo vile, al vero attendi, porgi l'orecchio al mio dir non fallace, apri, apri (se puoi) gli occhi, insano e bieco. Fanciullo il credi perché poco intendi. Perché ratto ti cangi, ei par fugace. Per esser orbo tu, lo chiami cieco." --G. Bruno, De la causa, principio, et uno, DFI 178 "ELIOTROPIO Qual rei nelle tenebre avezzi, che liberati dal fondo di qualche oscura torre escono alla luce, molti de gli essercitati nella volgar filosofia, et altri, paventaranno, admiraranno e (non possendo soffrire il nuovo sole de tuoi chiari concetti) si turbaranno. FILOTEO Il difetto non è di luce, ma di lumi: quanto in sé sarà più bello e più eccellente il sole, tanto sarà a gli occhi de le notturne strige odioso e discarso di vantaggio. ELIOTROPIO La impresa che hai tolta, o Filoteo, è difficile, rara e singulare, mentre dal cieco abisso vuoi cacciarne, et amenarne al discoperto, tranquillo e sereno aspetto de le stelle, che con sì bella varietade veggiamo disseminate per il ceruleo manto del cielo." --G. Bruno, De la causa principio, et uno, DFI 181. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, thanks to my advisor, Dr. Ennio Rao, for his support, advice and patience throughout the completion of this dissertation and my career as a graduate student at UNC-CH. Thanks also to my committee members, Dr. Dino Cervigni, Dr. Federico Luisetti, Dr. Michael McVaugh and Dr. John Headley, all of whom contributed to my intellectual development and knowledge of Italian and European intellectual history and literature. I am indebted to the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at UNC-CH for its support of my research, exemplified in numerous instances of financial support, such as the 2006 Dana B. Drake Summer Dissertation Fellowship, which allowed me to conduct valuable research in Italy. I also thank the many helpful librarians at UNC-CH and those I met in Italy, specifically those of the Biblioteca Nazionale di Roma, the Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli, L'Archivio di Stato di Venezia, and the Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna. I also greatly appreciate the opportunity I was given to attend the sessions of the 2005-06 Summer Institute in the Humanities at Venice International University under the direction of Dr. Caroline Bruzelius of Duke University and Dr. Donatella Calabi of VIU. Thanks also to numerous scholars whom I have had the pleasure to know over the past two years, especially Dr. Arielle Saiber of Bowdoin College, Dr. Massimo Rinaldi of the Università degli Studi di Padova, Dr. Sherry Roush of Penn State University, and Dr. Paul Colilli of Laurentian University and Middlebury College. Dr. Colilli first introduced me to Giordano Bruno in a graduate vi seminar on Renaissance Poetics and Philosophy at Middlebury during the summer of 2001. He has served as an intellectual mentor to me ever since. vii PREFACE Two incidents stand out as important during my research of this thesis: 1) Having the unusual fortune of finding Bruno's Italian dialogues for sale on a small bookstand at a tie shop where the horrid Tower of Nona had once stood, which was the prison where Bruno passed his last night of life; and 2) while visiting Bruno's hometown, Nola, during the summer of 2006, I spent an afternoon at the Circolo Giordano Bruno. Ironically, an older member of the club, upon learning of my interest in Bruno, angrily told me that Bruno's reading of Copernicus was the work of the devil and therefore my studying him was akin to devil worship. He raised his finger to the air, opened his eyes wide, nostrils open like a bull's, and raised his voice so that all could hear. I believe that in these two moments I met the convergence of two worlds of Bruno's existence: 1) Bruno's belief in the transmigration of souls (he obviously sent me the book!); and 2) Explanation as to why Bruno was burned at the stake by the Church as an impenitent heretic. It was not "Copernicanism," but rather Bruno's pointing of his own finger, opening of his own eyes, and raising of his own voice so that all could hear his opinions about how the Copernican Revolution signified the necessity for the destruction and absolute renovation of centuries of dominant myth that ushered his demise. After all is said and done, I have come to one invariable conclusion: Bruno must be studied. The Nolan is still alive. Bruno would say the same. He didn't (doesn't?) viii believe in death—only the transmigration and transmogrification of souls and beings. It is modern man's duty, therefore, to find where his ideas live and understand them. I hope that this thesis—my minor contribution to scholarship—shall do this great thinker a bit of honor. This, however, shall pale in comparison to what Bruno does for me. He often awakens my imagination from its modern slumber to the wonders and mysteries of the universe. ix TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I.I: INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................... 1 I.II: GIORDANO BRUNO AS JANUS OF THE RENAISSANCE AND THE MODERN AGE: ONE MAN FACING TWO EPOCHS ................................................................... 19 GIORDANO BRUNO AND THE END OF THE RENAISSANCE ........................... 24 Bruno & Mathematics ................................................................................................... 25 Bruno, Mythology & Religion ...................................................................................... 26 Bruno & Irrationality .................................................................................................... 29 GIORDANO BRUNO AND THE BIRTH OF THE MODERN AGE ........................ 32 Bruno & Infinity ........................................................................................................... 32 The Plurality of Worlds & Extraterrestrial Life ............................................................ 33 Bruno & Monadism ...................................................................................................... 34 An Early Modern Paradox and the Demise of the Final Cause: Monadism & Infinitism ....................................................................................................................................... 36 An Extension of Monadism: The End of the Final Cause ............................................ 40 Bruno & The Art of Memory ........................................................................................ 42 Bruno & A New Systemization