The heretic who received excommunication and condemnation from both Catholics and Lutherans and Calvinists, who did not fit into any religious system of his time, not into any worldview - this is Giordano Bruno. A brief biography and its discoveries still enjoy the indispensable interest of each new generation of people, and are increasingly filled with different interpretations.
Basic concepts
There is no unanimity even in the simplest questions: what he preached and what views he held. Disputes continue today. The forerunner of modern science, the preacher of the heliocentric theory discovered by Copernicus, yes. He anticipated this era, but in a strange way he used the theory of Copernicus: with the concept of an occult, mystical and absolutely religious character.
Of course, he paid tribute to empirical science. But he did astronomical calculations to use them with a certain key that opens up another dimension. At a time when Europe was divided culturally, politically and religiously, Giordano Bruno became the person who developed an absolutely fantastic reform project. A brief biography and its discoveries, even in the most simplified version, do not combine.
Pandora's Box
The philosophical context of the Middle Ages consists of a postulate, which then was not, and could not be, the only philosophical doctrine. It was then that a variety of experimental intellectuals appeared, trying to synthesize a breakthrough both in the past and in the future. And Giordano Bruno in this sense is a missionary, a prophet, and perhaps a messiah, - in any case, he is a man of this breakthrough, and that is how he positioned himself.
In no way can be attributed to the manifestations of humanism such a fighter with literary criticism, which was Giordano Bruno. A brief biography and its discoveries speak for themselves. His university teacher from Naples, Vincenzo de Colle was known as a follower of Aristotle and an ardent anti-humanist.
Bruno wrote in Latin, very close to a scholastic, monk. Contradictions and diversity can be seen even from here. Attacking inert clericalism, he directly mocked monasticism in his writings, but he kept such a monastic identity in himself. It is known for certain that he was a member of the Dominican Order, and although he broke off relations with him, all his works bear the imprint of monasticism. Even this topic can be discussed a lot, it is so interesting in this hypostasis of Giordano Bruno. The biography is not written briefly.
Reformer
He can be called a pantheist philosopher, he was very close to pantheism. but his reformist essence prevailed: his doctrine became a powerful religious doctrine of a reform nature, some new religious reality squeamish before him. This is precisely what Bruno blamed his ill-wishers, and with this accusation the Inquisition took him: as the creator of a new sect of the Egyptian religion, some "Jordanists".
Bruno was equally annoyed by Lutheran doctrines, both Calvinist and Catholicism of that time. He, not abandoning the Catholic paradigm, came up with a systemic way out of the crisis that shook the sixteenth century, through the restoration of the Egyptian religion, and even drew up a scenario of how this could be achieved. In this project, a reading of Christianity completely killed all traditional Christian dogma.
Natural Sciences
The works of Giordano Bruno on the infinity of worlds in which the medieval vision of cosmology prevailed were best known. The planets for the scientist were equipped with the magical properties of living divine beings, and rotated of their own free will. A scientific system, even a little bit, was not found in these works. Therefore, the very personality of Giordano Bruno, a brief biography and his discoveries for children will be understood only in general terms.
This was a worldview not empirically scientific, but mystical, occult. There was no mathematics in his work on the infinity of worlds. This is what Bruno was charged with inquisition - heresy. Bruno, from their point of view, was not just a heretic, but an absolute heretic - par excellence.
Literature
But the writer Giordano Bruno was brilliant! His polemical works are dramatically arranged, written in a rich language that can be subjected to philological analysis - both the Neapolitan dialect of Italian and Latin, which Giordano Bruno equally used. A brief biography and his discoveries speak of some indisputable prophetic knowledge, and even if this was not so, in artistic terms his tests are very enriching and fascinating for the reader.
Philosophy
Bruno could not stand the burden of the Catholic Dominican monk for a long time, troubles began immediately. Explosive temperament, lack of humility, and subsequently character that is unbearable to the last edge, falling into something like seizures with uncontrollable rage - this is what prevented Giordano Bruno throughout his life. Biography and his discoveries suffered huge damage from this fact. Although most of all difficulties were created for him by problems, not even disciplinary, but theoretical, that is, the monk’s worldview did not fit in with Catholic norms.
The interpretation of the Holy Trinity in its own, similar to the Neoplatonic, spirit is strange not only for the Middle Ages, but also for the present. True, now Catholics do not burn the newly minted Giordano Bruno.
The biography briefly sounds like this: this is the very scientist who was burned. He had to flee from Italy, go over to Calvinism, then to Lutheranism. And everywhere he is rejected, everywhere he is persecuted. And the new philosophy does not find followers anywhere. This loneliness haunted him all his life. Few got such a bleak biography as Giordano Bruno had.
For what?
Even today, historical science does not give a definite answer to the question - for what did the inquisitors of Giordano Bruno nevertheless burned. The biography of answers gives a lot, but there is not a single documentary evidence, scientific debate continues.
The fact is that Napoleon took out documents on the affairs of Galileo and Bruno from Italy. Why - no one understood. But all the papers disappeared, their trace is lost. There is indirect evidence, including notes by Gaspard Shoppe - a Catholic, publicist, and counter-reformer.
Bruno appeared before the court for his work on the multiplicity of worlds, for the justification of magic (Bruno considered himself a magician, talked about "clings", that is, contacts with demons, and his mnemonics clearly had a magical character, not medical). But the main thing is the interpretation of the Holy Trinity.
When Bruno wrote about the "soul of the world", it was still going on as Renaissance Neoplatonism, but when he began to write and speak obscene about Christ, trouble began, and this is natural. From this, Gordano Bruno's biography was so tragic.
More specifically, you can write the following: according to Bruno, Moses was a strong magician, worked all sorts of miracles (which is also of an exceptional magnitude, heresy from the point of view of Christian dogmas); that even the Egyptians in magic, Moses surpassed (and even in Egyptian magic Bruno is an unrivaled expert); Christ was also a magician - but good and healing, and a magician in the Egyptian tradition.
Well, at least from which side consider - and all this is a heresy of pure water. And most importantly: after all, Giordano Bruno did not renounce these heresies. Biography and philosophy merged together, taking a tragic end at the stake in Rome.
