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Giordano Bruno
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![]() Modern portrait based on a woodcut from “Livre du recteur”, 1578
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Born |
Filippo Bruno
1548 |
Died | 17 February 1600 (aged 51–52)
Rome, Papal States
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Cause of death | Execution by burning |
Era | Renaissance philosophy |
Region | Western philosophy |
School | Renaissance humanism Neoplatonism Neopythagoreanism |
Main interests
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Philosophy, cosmology, and mathematics |
Notable ideas
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Cosmic pluralism |
Part of a series on |
Neoplatonism |
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![]() Reconstructed bust believed to represent Plotinus
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Giordano Bruno (/dʒɔːrˈdɑːnoʊ
Starting in 1593, Bruno was tried for heresy by the Roman Inquisition on charges of denial of several core Catholic doctrines, including eternal damnation, the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, the virginity of Mary, and transubstantiation. Bruno’s pantheism was also a matter of grave concern,[5] as was his teaching of the transmigration of the soul. The Inquisition found him guilty, and he was burned at the stake in Rome’s Campo de’ Fiori in 1600. After his death, he gained considerable fame, being particularly celebrated by 19th- and early 20th-century commentators who regarded him as a martyr for science,[6] although historians agree that his heresy trial was not a response to his astronomical views but rather a response to his philosophy and religious views.[7][8][9][10][11] Bruno’s case is still considered a landmark in the history of free thought and the emerging sciences.[12][13]
In addition to cosmology, Bruno also wrote extensively on the art of memory, a loosely organized group of mnemonictechniques and principles. Historian Frances Yates argues that Bruno was deeply influenced by Arab astrology(particularly the philosophy of Averroes[14]), Neoplatonism, Renaissance Hermeticism, and Genesis-like legends surrounding the Egyptian god Thoth.[15] Other studies of Bruno have focused on his qualitative approach to mathematics and his application of the spatial concepts of geometry to language.[16
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