Category: Artworks

Giordano Bruno; 1548 – February 17, 1600) (Latin: Iordanus Brunus Nolanus),  Filippo Bruno, Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician, astrologer and astronomer. His cosmological theories went beyond the Copernican model: while supporting its heliocentrism, he also correctly proposed that the Sun was just another starmoving in space, and claimed as well that the universe contained an infinite number of inhabited worlds populated by other intelligent beings.^[2] The Roman Inquisition found him guilty of heresy, and he was burned at the stake.^[3] After his death he gained considerable fame, particularly among 19th- and early 20th-century commentators who, focusing on his astronomical beliefs, regarded him as a martyr for free thought^[4] and modern scientific ideas.

Some assessments suggest that Bruno’s ideas about the universe played a smaller role in his trial than his pantheist beliefs, which differed from the interpretations and scope of God held by the Catholic Church.^[5][6] In addition to his cosmological writings, Bruno also wrote extensively on the art of memory, a loosely organized group of mnemonic techniques and principles. The historianFrances Yates argues that Bruno was deeply influenced by Arab astrology, Neoplatonism and Renaissance Hermeticism.^[7] Other studies of Bruno have focused on his qualitative approach to mathematics and his application of the spatial paradigms of geometry to language.^[8]