Giordano Bruno
The universe is infinite, full of countless worlds like ours, and God is present in all of it rather than outside it.
Placement
Taught an infinite universe with countless worlds; burned by the Inquisition in 1600.
Key ideas
- Infinite universe
- Pantheism
Influence
Influenced by 6
Lucretius
influenced by ✓
Bruno modelled his Latin philosophical poems, especially De immenso (1591), on Lucretius and took up his infinite universe of countless worlds against Aristotle. G. Bruno, De immenso et innumerabilibus (1591); Lucretius, De rerum natura II.1048–1089; SEP “Giordano Bruno”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Lucretius › c. 99–55 BCE
Plotinus
influenced by
In the second dialogue of De la causa (1584) Bruno reproduced passages of Plotinus, read in Ficino’s Latin, for his universal intellect and world soul. G. Bruno, De la causa, principio et uno (1584), dialogue II; Plotinus, Enneads III.8, II.9 (Ficino’s translation); S. Carannante, ‘Writing against the Gnostics: World Soul, Universal Animation and Natural Production in Giordano Bruno’s Reading of Plotinus (De la causa II)’, Rinascimento 64 (2024)
Evidence: AI draft
Plotinus › 204–270
Ramon Llull
influenced by ✓
Bruno wrote several works on Llull’s art, such as De compendiosa architectura et complemento artis Lullii (1582), and combined its combinatorics with the art of memory. G. Bruno, De compendiosa architectura et complemento artis Lullii (1582); F. A. Yates, The Art of Memory (1966); SEP “Giordano Bruno”
Ramon Llull › c. 1232–1316
Nicholas of Cusa
influenced by ✓
Bruno called Cusanus ‘divine’ and took up his coincidence of opposites and his universe without fixed centre, extending them to an infinite universe (De la causa, 1584). G. Bruno, De la causa, principio et uno (1584); De l’infinito, universo e mondi (1584); SEP “Giordano Bruno”; SEP “Nicholas of Cusa”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Nicholas of Cusa › 1401–1464
Marsilio Ficino
influenced by ✓
In his Oxford lectures of 1583 Bruno reportedly used passages from Ficino’s De vita, and his magic and world soul draw on Ficino’s Platonism (Yates, 1964). G. Abbot, The Reasons which Doctour Hill hath brought (1604); R. McNulty, ‘Bruno at Oxford’, Renaissance News 13 (1960); F. A. Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (1964)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Marsilio Ficino › 1433–1499
Nicolaus Copernicus
influenced by ✓
Bruno took up Copernicus’ moving earth but read it beyond astronomy as a step to an infinite universe with countless worlds (La cena de le ceneri, 1584). G. Bruno, La cena de le ceneri (1584); De l’infinito, universo e mondi (1584); SEP “Giordano Bruno”
Nicolaus Copernicus › 1473–1543
Influenced 2
John Toland
influenced
Toland circulated Bruno’s works in England and wrote an account of his On the Infinite Universe and Worlds (1584), printed in A Collection of Several Pieces (1726). J. Toland, A Collection of Several Pieces, ed. P. Des Maizeaux (1726); J. Champion, Republican Learning: John Toland and the Crisis of Christian Culture, 1696–1722 (2003)
Evidence: AI draft
John Toland › 1670–1722
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling
influenced ✓
In the dialogue Bruno (1802) Schelling made Giordano Bruno the spokesman of his philosophy of identity, in which the divine and the natural principle of things coincide. F. W. J. Schelling, Bruno oder über das göttliche und natürliche Princip der Dinge (1802); SEP “Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling › 1775–1854
Criticism
Criticizes 1
Aristotle
criticised
Bruno attacked Aristotle’s finite, geocentric cosmos, arguing for an infinite universe with innumerable worlds (De l’infinito, universo e mondi, 1584; Camoeracensis Acrotismus, 1588). G. Bruno, De l’infinito, universo e mondi (1584); Camoeracensis Acrotismus (1588); SEP “Giordano Bruno”
Evidence: AI draft
Aristotle › 384–322 BCE
Works
Countless suns, countless worlds.
Position
Bruno took Copernicus far beyond astronomy. If the earth is not the centre, he argued, there is no centre at all: the universe is infinite and filled with countless suns and worlds, perhaps inhabited. An infinite God must express himself in an infinite creation. God is not outside the world but present in it as its soul and inner principle, so that the one living substance unfolds in all things – a view close to pantheism. Bruno also drew on Hermetic and magical traditions. His execution made him a symbol of free thought, and his ideas anticipated Spinoza and the modern picture of the cosmos.
Life & context
Born in 1548 in Nola near Naples, Bruno entered the Dominican order but fled in 1576 when suspected of heresy. He wandered through Geneva, Toulouse, Paris, London, Wittenberg, Prague and Frankfurt, teaching memory arts and publishing bold dialogues. Lured back to Venice in 1591, he was handed to the Roman Inquisition, refused to recant after years of trial, and was burned in Rome in 1600.
Further main works
- The Ash Wednesday Supper (1584)
- Cause, Principle and Unity (1584)
- The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast (1584)
- The Heroic Frenzies (1585)
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