Post by Tamrin on Aug 27, 2008 18:16:21 GMT 10
GIORDANO BRUNO
THIS glorious martyr of Freethought did not die in a quiet chamber, tended by loving hands. He was literally "butchered to make a Roman holiday." When the assassins of "the bloody faith" kindled the fire which burnt out his splendid life, he was no decrepit man, nor had the finger of Death touched his cheek with a pallid hue. The blood coursed actively through his veins, and a dauntless spirit shone in his noble eyes. It might have been Bruno that Shelley had in mind when he wrote those thrilling lines in Queen Mab:
THIS glorious martyr of Freethought did not die in a quiet chamber, tended by loving hands. He was literally "butchered to make a Roman holiday." When the assassins of "the bloody faith" kindled the fire which burnt out his splendid life, he was no decrepit man, nor had the finger of Death touched his cheek with a pallid hue. The blood coursed actively through his veins, and a dauntless spirit shone in his noble eyes. It might have been Bruno that Shelley had in mind when he wrote those thrilling lines in Queen Mab:
I was an infant when my mother went
To see an Atheist burned. She took me there
The dark-robed priests were met around the pile,
The multitude was gazing silently;
And as the culprit passed with dauntless mien,
Tempered disdain in his unaltering eye,
Mixed with a quiet smile, shone calmly forth
The thirsty fire crept round his manly limbs;
His resolute eyes were scorched to blindness soon
His death-pang rent my heart! The insensate mob
Uttered a cry of triumph, and I wept.
Giordano Bruno was born at Nola, near Naples, in 1548, ten years after the death of Copernicus, and ten years before the birth of Bacon. At the age of fifteen he became a novice in the monastery of San Domenico Maggiore, and after his year's novitiate expired he took the monastic vows. Studying deeply, he became heretical, and an act of accusation was drawn up against the boy of sixteen. Eight years later he was threatened with another trial for heresy. A third process was more to be dreaded, and in his twenty-eighth year Bruno fled from his persecutors. He visited Rome, Noli, Venice, Turin and Padua. At Milan he made the acquaintance of Sir Philip Sidney. After teaching for some time in the university, he went to Chambery, but the ignorance and bigotry of its monks were too great for his patience. He next visited Geneva, but although John Calvin was dead, his dark spirit still remained, and only flight preserved Bruno from the fate of Servetus. Through Lyons he passed to Toulouse, where he was elected Public Lecturer to the University. In 1579 he went to Paris. The streets were still foul with the blood of the Bartholomew massacres, but Bruno declined a professorship at the Sorbonne, a condition of which was attending mass. Henry the Third, however, made him Lecturer extraordinary to the University. Paris at letigth became too hot to hold him, and he went to London, where he lodged with the French Ambassador. His evenings were mostly spent with Sir Philip Sidney, Fulke Greville, Dyer and Hervey. So great was his fame that he was invited to read at the University of Oxford, where he also, held a public debate with its orthodox professors on the Copernican astronomy. Leaving London in 1584, he returned to Paris, and there also he publicly disputed with the Sorbonne. His safety being once more threatened, he went to Marburg, and thence to Wittenberg, where he taught for two years. At Helenstadt he was excommunicated by Boetius, Repairing to Frankfort, he made the acquaintance of a nobleman, who lured him to Venice and betrayed him to the Inquisition. The Venetian Council transferred him to Rome, where be languished for seven years in a pestiferous dungeon, and was repeatedly tortured, according to the hellish code of the Inquisition. At length, on February 10th, 1600, he was led out to the Church of Santa Maria, and sentenced to be burnt alive, or, as the Holy Church hypocritically phrased it, to be punished "as mercifully as possible, and without effusion of blood" Haughtily raising his bead, he exclaimed: "You are more afraid to pronounce my sentence than I to receive it." He was allowed a week's grace for recantation, but without avail; and on the 17th of February, 1600, he was burnt to death on the Field of Flowers. To the last he was brave and defiant; he contemptuously pushed aside the crucifix they presented him to kiss; and, as one of his enemies said, he died without a plaint or a groan.To see an Atheist burned. She took me there
The dark-robed priests were met around the pile,
The multitude was gazing silently;
And as the culprit passed with dauntless mien,
Tempered disdain in his unaltering eye,
Mixed with a quiet smile, shone calmly forth
The thirsty fire crept round his manly limbs;
His resolute eyes were scorched to blindness soon
His death-pang rent my heart! The insensate mob
Uttered a cry of triumph, and I wept.