Giordano Bruno

he seems to have been an unclassifiable mixture of foul-mouthed Neapolitan mountebank, loquacious poet, religious reformer, scholastic philosopher and slightly wacky astronomer. --Anthony Gottlieb, Particle Man, The New York Times, December 19, 2008, review of Giordano Bruno: Philosopher, Heretic, by Ingrid D. Rowland


Recommended reading:
by Giordano Bruno at Reading Rat


Criticism (articles, essays, reviews):

Like many of you, for many years I have known vaguely of Bruno (1548-1600), the 16th century Dominican priest and philosopher--his brilliance, sharp wit and prodigious memory, his relentlessly inquisitive intellect, his astonishing, odd, visionary theories in the realms of religion and science, his ups and downs in his relationship with the Church and various Protestant communities in (what is now) Italy and around Europe--and his final, years-long run in with the Inquisition that culminated in his being burned alive in the Campo de’ Fiori in Rome in 1600. --Francis X. Clooney, S.J., Giordano Bruno, In All Things, review of Giordano Bruno: Philosopher/Heretic, by Ingrid D. Rowland

He reached his conclusions -- about the universe's infinite size and age -- largely through abstract contemplation. Unlike Galileo, Bruno had no gift for calculation or meticulous empirical observation; geometry and poetry were more in his line... -- Laura Miller, The heretic, Salon, August 25, 2008, review of Giordano Bruno: Philosopher/Heretic, by Ingrid Rowland

His personal philosophy, which he called Nolan after the town where he was born, appeared to be a high-minded and exuberant distillation of Greek atomists (who saw the universe as infinite), St. Thomas of Aquinas (a fellow Dominican whose "natural theology" sought to prove the existence of God through philosophy), and Copernicus (who moved Earth out of its formerly central position in the universe), along with a view of God as within (as opposed to transcending) nature and man and a fondness for ancient Egypt. --Marc Kaufman, Cosmic Crusader, Washington Post, August 10, 2008, review of Giordano Bruno: Philosopher/Heretic, by Ingrid D. Rowland (via Arts & Letters Daily)