Against the Day: Giordano Bruno

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

It is easy to get an impression of the reputation which Bruno 
had created by the year 1582 in the minds of the clerical 
authorities of southern Europe. He had written of 

                              an infinite universe 

which had left no room for that greater infinite 
conception which is called God. He could not conceive that 
God and nature could be separate and distinct entities as 
taught by Genesis, as taught by the Church and as even 
taught by Aristotle. He preached a philosophy which made 
the mysteries of the virginity of Mary, of the crucifixion and the 
mass, meaningless. He was so naive that he could not think
 of his own mental pictures as being really heresies. He 
thought of the Bible as a book which only the ignorant could 
take literally. The Church's methods were, to say the least, 
unfortunate, and it encouraged ignorance from the instinct 
of self-preservation. . . .

http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/john_kessler/giordano_bruno.html



His trial was overseen by the inquisitor Cardinal Bellarmine, 
who demanded a full recantation, which Bruno eventually 
refused. Instead he appealed in vain to Pope Clement VIII, 
hoping to save his life through a partial recantation. The 
Pope expressed himself in favor of a guilty verdict. 
Consequently, Bruno was declared a heretic, handed 
over to secular authorities on February 8 1600. At his 
trial he listened to the verdict on his knees, then stood 
up and said: "Perhaps you, my judges, pronounce this 
sentence against me with greater fear than I receive it." 
He was brought to the Campo de' Fiori, a central Roman 
market square, his jaw clamped in an iron gag and an 
iron spike driven through his tongue. He was tied to a pole 
naked and burned at the stake, on February 17, 1600.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno

Alos from the Wikipedia article:

Born in Nola (in Campania, then part of the Kingdom of 
Naples) in 1548, he was originally named Filippo Bruno. 
His father was Giovanni Bruno, a soldier. At the age of 
eleven he traveled to Naples to study the Trivium. At 
15, Bruno entered the Dominican Order. . . .

>From The Courier's Tragedy:

The act itself closes with Domenico, to whom the naive 
Niccolo started it off by spilling his secret, trying to get in 
to see Duke Angelo and betray his dear friend. The Duke, 
of course, is in his apartment busy knocking off a piece, 
and the best Domenico can do is an administrative 
assistant who turns out to be the same Ercole who 
once saved the life of young Niccolo and aided his 
escape from Faggio. This he presently confesses to 
Domenico, though only after having enticed that 
informer into foolishly bending over and putting his 
head into a curious black box, on the pretext of showing 
him a pornographic diorama. A steel vise promptly clamps 
onto the faithless Domenico's head and the box muffles 
his cries for help. Ercole binds his hands and feet with 
scarlet silk cords, lets him know who it is he's run afoul 
of, reaches into the box with a pair of pincers, tears out 
Domenico's tongue, stabs him a couple times, pours 
into the box a beaker of aqua regia, enumerates a list of 
other goodies, including castration, that Domenico will 
undergo before he's allowed to die, all amid screams, 
tongueless attempts to pray, agonized struggles from 
the victim. With the tongue impaled on his rapier Ercole 
runs to a burning torch set in the wall, sets the tongue 
aflame and waving it around like a madman concludes 
the act by screaming, 

Thy pitiless unmanning is most meet, 

Thinks Ercole the zany Paraclete. 

Descended this malign, Unholy Ghost, 

Let us begin thy frightful Pentecost.

Crying of Lot 49, pgs. 51/52 Perennial calssics edition