The Ash Wednesday Supper

7/28/2019 The Ash Wednesday Supper

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-ash-wednesday-supper 1/84

Introduction

NicholasCopernicus De

Revolutionibus

John Dee T he

M athematicallPraeface

RobertRecorde T he Castle of Knowledge

MarcellusPalingenius

Stellatus T he Zodiak e of Li fe

Thomas Digges A Perfect

Description of the CelestialOrbs

Giordano

Bruno The AshWednesday

Supper

Galileo Galilei DialogueConcerning theTwo Chief World Systems

Giordano Bruno

THE ASH WEDNESDAY

SUPPER

LA CENA DE LE CENERI

Translated with an Introduction and Notes

by

STANLEY L. JAKI

MOUTON * THE HAGUE * PARIS

http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/~matc/Readers/renaissance.astro/5.1.Orbs.html


http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/~matc/Readers/renaissance.astro/5.0.Digges.html

http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/~matc/Readers/renaissance.astro/4.0.Palingenius.html



http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/~matc/Readers/renaissance.astro/3.1.Castle.html

http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/~matc/Readers/renaissance.astro/3.0.Recorde.html


http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/~matc/Readers/renaissance.astro/2.1.Praeface.html


http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/~matc/Readers/renaissance.astro/2.0.Dee.html

http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/~matc/Readers/renaissance.astro/1.1.Revol.html


http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/~matc/Readers/renaissance.astro/1.0.Copernicus.html


http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/~matc/Readers/renaissance.astro/7.0.0.html

http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/~matc/Readers/renaissance.astro/7.0.Galilei.html

http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/~matc/Readers/renaissance.astro/6.0.Bruno.html


http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/~matc/Readers/renaissance.astro/5.0.Digges.html

http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/~matc/Readers/renaissance.astro/4.1.Zodiake.html


http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/~matc/Readers/renaissance.astro/3.1.Castle.html



http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/~matc/Readers/renaissance.astro/2.0.Dee.html



http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/~matc/Readers/renaissance.astro/0.intro.html



Bibliography

THEASH WEDNESDAY

SUPPER

DESCRIBED IN FIVE DIALOGUES,THROUGH FOUR INTERLOCUTORS,

WITH THREE CONSIDERATIONS,ON TWO SUBJECTS.

To the unique refuge of the Muses, the MostIllustrious Michel de Castelnau, Seigneur de

Mauvissi&e, Concressault and joinville,Chevalier of the Most Christian King's Order,and Councillor in his Privy Council, Captainof fifty men at arms, Governor and Captain

of Saint Dizier, and Ambassador to the Most

http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/~matc/Readers/renaissance.astro/index.html

http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/~matc/Readers/renaissance.astro/8.biblio.html



Serene Queen of England.

The general intent is declaredin the preface.

1584

TO THE MALCONTENT

Should my cynical teeth have pierced you through,Blame only yourself, you vicious canine;

In vain you show me your stick and swagger,If you guard not against despising me.

Since you have confronted me with injustice,I shall stretch and pull your skin all over;And should my body too fall to the ground,

Your shame will be recorded in hard diamond.Go not naked to the beehive for honey, Bite not,

if you know not the bread from stone,Walk not barefoot while disseminating thorns.

Flies should not take lightly the cobwebs;If you are a mouse do not follow the toads,

Flee the foxes, you, who arc full of chicken's blood.And believe in the Gospel,

Which proclaims with great conviction:From our fields will gather revenge all you

Who cast around there the seeds of error.

PREFATORY EPISTLE

WRITTEN TO

THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS AND

EXCELLENT

SEIGNEUR DE MAUVISSMRE



Chevalier of the King's Order, and Councillor in his PrivyCouncil, Captain of fifty men at arms, Governor Generalof Saint Dizier, and Ambassador of France in England.

Here I offer you, my Lord, not a nectarean repast of the

Thunder-god [1. Jupiter.] for a majesty. Not a protoparental [2.Refers to Adam and Eve, the first parents.] one for human desolation.Not that of Ahasuerus [3. Ahasuerus, one of the two Persian or Medean

kings, who took Esther for wife.] for a mystery. Not that of Lucullus[4. Lucullus (c. 110 BC-c. 56 BC), Roman general, who earned fame with his

luxurious meals.] for the rich. Not that of Lycaon [5. Lycaon,mythological king of Arcadia, who in order to test the divinity of the disguisedZeus served him human flesh for a meal and was turned into a wolf by the irate

god.] for a sacrilege. Not that of Thiestes [6. A reference to amythological banquet at which Thiestcs unwittingly ate the flesh of his own

children killed by his brother, Atreus.] for a tragedy. Not that of Tantalus [7. Tantalus, son of Zeus, was condemned to eternal hunger and thirst

in the nether world.] for begging. Not that of Plato forphilosophizing. Not that of Diogenes for misery. Not that of a leech for a pittance. Not that of an archpriest of Pogliano[8. Bruno refers to the poem, 'Capitolo del prete da Povigliano', by Francesco

Berni (1497-1535).] for a farce. Not that of Bonifacio Candelaio[9. Bonifacio plays the leading role in Bruno's play, Candelaio. For further details,

see the Introduction.] for a comedy. But a repast so grand andsmall, so magisterial and schoolish, so sacrilegeous andreligious, so cheerful and angry, so bitter and happy, soFlorentine-lean and Bolognese-fat, so cynical andluxurious, so trifling and serious, so grave and clownish, sotragic and comical. Thus, I am convinced that you will havenot a few opportunities to be heroic and dejected, teacherand student, believer and unbeliever, happy and sad,saturnine and jovial, facile and ponderous, cringing andliberal, apish and dignified, a sophist with Aristotle, a

philosopher with Pythagoras, smiling with Democ- ritus,crying with Heraclitus. I dare say that after you havesniffed with the Peripatetics, eaten with the Pythagoreans,drunk with the Stoics, you still may suck with the one who,in showing his teeth, displayed such a friendly smile as toreach both his ears with his mouth. Therefore, as yourbones are shaken and your marrow sapped, you will comeon things that would distract a Saint [Giovanni] Colombini,



founder of the Gesuati, [10. The reference is to the vow of chastity madeby Colombini and his wife. He founded the lay order of Gesuati a few months

before his death, in 1367.] would dazzle any merchant, wouldmake the apes burst with laughter, and would break thesilence of any graveyard. You would ask, what symposium,what repast is this? It is a supper. What supper? The supperof ashes. What does it say, this supper of ashes? Wasperhaps such a meal served you before? Or might oneperhaps utter here [the words] CINEREM TAMQUAMPANEM MANDUCARAM [11. A quotation from Psalm 101.] [I ateashes like bread]? No. But it is a repast, taken after sunset,on the first day of Lent, called by our priests AshWednesday, and sometimes the day of MEMENTO. [12. Thefirst word in the prayer, Memento bomo... (Remember man ... ), acconipanying the

imposition of ashes on the first day of Lent.] What is that repast, thatmeal about? It is not for the purpose of recalling the spiritand deeds of the most noble and distinguished Sir FulkeGreville, [13. Sir Fulke Greville (1554-1628), a friend of Philip Sidney and of Francis Bacon, pursued a literary and political career, gaining ultimately a

membership in the House of Lords.] in whose esteemed mansion thegathering took place. It is not about the distinguishedcostumes in which refined citizens were present asspectators and audience. It is rather about one's intent to seeto what extent nature can produce two fantastic goblins, [14.The two Oxonian doctors, Nundinio and Torquato. Nundinio was perhaps a pun onJohn Underhill (see note 32 to the Fourth Dialogue), while Torquato might have

represented George Turner (1569-1610), associated from 1584 on with the RoyalCollege of Physicians.] two dreams, two shadows and two four-day fevers; and while the historical sense is being sifted,tasted and masticated, there will be submitted propositions,some topographical, others geographical, some rational,others moral. Also speculations, some of which arcmetaphysical, others mathematical, others physical.

THEM OF THE FIRST DIALOGUE

Thus, you shall see in the first dialogue two personspresented in plain view with the explanation of their names,if you can grasp it. Second, the scale of binary number willbe celebrated in their honor. Third, the praiseworthyconditions of a rediscovered and repaired philosophy willbe set forth. Fourth, it will be shown what great praisesCopernicus deserves. Fifth, the fruits of the Nolan



[Brunian] philosophy will be presented, with the differencebetween this and the other modes of philosophizing.

THEME OF THE SECOND DIALOGUE

You will first see in the second dialogue the original reasonfor the meal. Second, a description of the steps and moves

that shall be judged by all as being mote poetical andperhaps symbolic than historical. Third, as if one were tolapse confusedly into a moral topography where one islooking with lynx's eyes (without closing them too much)hither and thither, at thing after thing while making one'sway; in addition to watching the big objects, the small ones,even a pebble or a bit of gravel, should not be taken lightly,so it seems to me, lest one should stumble. And in this onedoes exactly as a painter [15. The analogy is worth noting in view of

Bruno's great aptitude for painting with words broad and detailed scenes.] forwhom it is not enough to make a simple drawing of thestory; he must fill the canvas and conform to nature withartistry; he depicts for you stones, mountains, trees, springs,rivers, hills; and makes you see here a royal palace, there aforest, farther a stretch of the sky, in that corner a part of the rising sun, and now and again a bird, a pig, a stag, adonkey, a horse; while it is enough to show only the headof this, the horn of that, the hind quarters of another, theears of this, the entire description of that, this with merely agesture and mien, which that and another do not possess; sothat one would with greater satisfaction wonder, guess, andspin a story (as they would say) about the picture. It is withsuch a mind that you should read and consider what I wantto say. Finally, one concludes that happy dialogue with thearrival at the house, with being graciously received, andceremoniously seated at table.

THEME OF THE THIRD DIALOGUE

You will see the third dialogue divided (according to thenumber of the propositions of Doctor Nundinio [16. See note 14

ahove.]) into five parts. Of these the first is about thenecessity of one and the other language. The secondexplains the intention of Copernicus, and gives the solution



of a most important problem about the celestial phenomena.It shows the futility of studies in perspective and optics todetermine the size of luminous bodies, and offers about thisa new, well-defined, and most certain doctrine. The thirdshows the kind of composition of celestial bodies, anddeclares the mass of the universe to be infinite, and that onelooks in vain for the center or circumference of the

universe, as if it were one of the particular bodies. Thefourth affirms that our world, called the terrestrial globe, isidentical as far as material composition goes with the otherworlds, the bodies of other stars; and that it is childish tohave believed or to believe otherwise. Also that they [thosecelestial bodies] are so many intelligent animals, and thatthere live and strive on them many and innumerable simpleand composite individuals to no less extent than we seethese living and growing on the back of this [our globe].

The fifth, apropos of an argument submitted by Nundinio inthe end, shows the great futility of the two great convictionswith which, and with similar ones, Aristotle and others areblinded so as not to perceive the motion of the earth to betrue and necessary. They are, indeed, so inhibited that theycannot believe this [the motion of the earth] to be possible.But once this is admitted, many secrets of nature, hithertohidden, do unfold.

THEME OF THE FOURTH DIALOGUE

You have at the outset of the fourth dialogue the means toreply to all reasonings and to all theological importunings;and [the means] to show that this philosophy conforms withall true theology and deserves to be favored by truereligion. For the rest, there comes to the fore one who knewneither how to dispute nor how to speak to the point, who

by being the more impudent and arrogant, appeared morelearned to the more ignorant than did Doctor Nundinio. Butyou see that all the presses of the world would not beenough to extract'one drop of juice from his dicta to carrythe matter with a question to Smith, or with an answer toTheophil. But here one is subject to the boastings of Prudenzio, and to the nonsense of Frulla. It certainly painsme that you happen to be in that section.



THEME OF THE FIFTH DIALOGUE

The fifth dialogue is attached (I swear) for no other reasonthan to prevent our supper from being concluded in sosterile a manner. First, there is presented the mostconvenient arrangement of bodies in the ethereal region,showing that what is called the eighth sphere, the

firmament of the fixed stars, is not in fact a firmament, sothat those bodies that are seen there through their brightnessshould be equidistant from the center; but rather, that many[stars] may appear close to one another, though they arc,both in depth and width, farther away from one anotherthan they are from the sun and the earth. Second, that thereare not only seven wandering bodies [planets], just becausewe have recognized only seven as such; rather, there are forthe very same reason innumerable others, that the true

philosophers of old called, not without good reason,aethera, [17. See note 13 to the Fifth Dialogue.] which means runners,because they are bodies which truly move, and notimaginary spheres. Third, that such motion proceedsnecessarily from an internal principle as if from its ownnature and soul; with such truth many dreams are dissipatedboth about the active influence of the moon on waters andother kinds of fluids, and about other natural things thatseem to have their principle of motion from an outsidecause. Fourth, a stance is taken against those doubts thatproceed by most stupid reasoning from the gravity andlevity of bodies; and it is proved that all natural motionapproaches a circular one, either about its own or aboutsome other center. Fifth, it is shown how necessary it is thatthis earth and other similar bodies should move not withone but with several different motions. And that thosebodies should consist of neither more nor less than the four

simple [elements], these being United in one compound.And it is stated what these motions of the earth are. Finally,it is promised to supplement with other dialogues thatwhich seems to be lacking in the completeness of thisphilosophy. And one concludes with an oath of Prudcnzio.

Remain astonished over the fact that things so great areexpedited with such brevity and sufficiency. But have no



doubt even if on occasion you see less grave propositionswhich may seem to come justly under the strict censure of Cato: [18. Marcus Porcius Cato, or Cato of Utica (95 BC - 45 BC), Romanstatesman, proverbial embodiment of honesty and incorruptibility, but also a self-

righteous censor of everything improper.] for these Catos arc veryblind and idiotic, if they cannot discover that which ishidden inside these Silenc statues. [19. Silcnus was the oldest of satyrs. In his Symporium (215b) Plato speaks of Silcne statues, or statuettes of

satyrs that could be opened down the middle. Inside, they contained figurines of the gods. In Renaissance times the adjective Silcne was used of small,

apothccarian containers with figures of satyrs painted on them.] And if youmeet so many and diverse propositions tied together so thatthey cannot appear as one science, but rather now adialogue, now a tragedy, now poetry, now oratory, whereone now praises, now vituperates, where one demonstratesand instructs' where one is given now physics, nowmathematics, now ethics, now logic, or in conclusion, that

there is no branch of science of which a shred would not bethere, then, keep in mind, gentlemen, that the dialogue ishistorical, in which not a thing is proposed without somereason, as along come the occasions, the moves, the steps,the encounters, the gestures, the emotions, the statements,the arguments, the rebuttals, the propositions andcounterproposals, submitting all to the rigorous judgementof the four [interlocutors]. Consider also that nounnecessary word is there: for things of no small

importance in each part are to be harvested and unearthed,and perhaps more there where less appear. Concerning thatwhich appears on the surface, those who prompted us tomake this dialogue, and perhaps a satire and comedy,should be more circumspect when they evaluate peoplewith the rod [used] for measuring wool, and when theyweigh souls on the metal scales of a balance. Those whowill be spectators or readers, and see how others fare, willquickly reflect and learn from the discomfiture of others.Those who are hit and wounded will perhaps open theireyes, and seeing their poverty, nudity [and] indignity, will,if not out of love, at least out of shame, correct and coverthemselves, if they do not wish to confess.

If it appears to you that our Theophil and Frulla hit sometoo heavily and severely on their backs, consider,gentlemen, that these animals do not have such tender skin;



if the blows were twice a hundred times heavier, they stillwould not consider it an offense, and would rather thinkthat they were caressingly slapped by a damsel. Hopefully,you will not judge me worthy of reprehension, because wewanted to establish such grave and valuable propositions onthe inept facts and valueless grounds offered by thesedoctors. For I am sure, you know the difference between

taking a thing for foundation and just for occasion. Thefoundations should, in truth, be proportional to thegrandeur, condition and nobility of the edifice. But theoccasions can be of all sorts [and] through all kinds of effects: for small and sordid things can be the seeds of greatand excellent things. jesting and stupidities can provokegreat counsels, judgments and inventions; it is easilyevident that errors and misdeeds have often led to the finestrules of justice and of goodness.

If in a picture the colors do not seem to correspondperfectly to life, and the contours do not seem whollyproper, you should know that the defect &me from the factthat the painter could not examine the picture fromdistances and positions which masters of art are wont totake, because the stand or the canvas was too close to hisface or to his eyes, so that he could not make even a smallstep backward or move away from one or the other corner

without fear of making the plunge the son of Troy'sdefender [20. The allusion is to Astianatos, tossed from the walls of Troy by

the victorious Greeks.] made. So whatever it is, take this picturewhere you find those two, those hundred, those thousand,those all [details], and recall that it is not meant to informyou about something you already know, nor to pour waterinto the rapid stream of your judgment and ingenuity, butbecause I know that though we learn things much better in

life, we do not, as a rule, disdain their portrayals andrepresentations. Also, I am sure that your generous soulwill fix its mental gaze at the grateful emotions by whichthe gift is given, rather than at the gift offered by the hand.This work is offered to you who are closer to our Nolan andshow yourselves more benevolent and gracious toward him.Therefore, you are all the more worthy of our respect in thisland where merchants, with no conscience and faith, easily



become like Croesus, [21. Fabulously rich Lydian king of the sixth

century BC.] and where the virtuous with no penny becomewithout difficulty like a Diogenes. This work is dedicatedto you who have received the Nolan with so muchmunificence and generosity under your roof and at the moreeminent part of your house; so that if this land wouldproduce, instead of a thousand grim giants, as many

Alexander the Greats, you would see more than fivehundred [of these] come to pay homage to this Diogenes,who through the favor of stars has only you to deprive himof sunlight, when (to make him no poorer than that cynicalrascal [Diogencs]) you send some direct or reflected rayinto that cave with which you are familiar. This work isdedicated to you who represent in this Britannia theHighness of the so magnanimous, so great, and so powerfulKing [22. Henri 111. For further details, see the Introduction.] who from

the most generous heart of Europe makes the farthestcorners of the world resound with the voice of his fame.He, when trembling with anger as a lion in a deep cave,casts fright and deadly fear on the other powerful predatorsof these forests; and when he retires and takes rest, he sendsout such a blaze from a liberal and kindly soul, whichcnkindles the neighboring tropics, warms the icy GreatBear, and dissipates the rigor of the arctic desert whichrevolves under the eternal custody of the fiery Bo8tcs.VALE.

FIRST DIALOGUE

Interlocutors Smith

Theophil, philosopherPrudenzio, pedant

Frulla

[Smi.] Speak they [1. Nundinio and Torquato.] Latin well?

THE. Yes.

Smi. Honest men?



THE. Yes.

Smi. Of good reputation?

THE. Yes.

Smi. Learned?

THE. Competently enough.

Smi. Well bred, courteous, polite?

THE. In a rather mediocre degree.

Smi. Doctors?

THE. Yes, my master; yes, my father; yes, my lady; yes, byall means; I believe, from Oxford.

Smi. Qualified?

THE. Why not? Men of distinction, of long [academic]robes, dressed in velvet, one of them with two goldenchains shining round his neck, and the other, with thatprecious hand (which contained twelve rings on twofingers), seemed (by God) to be a very rich jeweller, whoalmost carved out your eyes and heart as he gesticulated.

Smi. Did they show a knowledge of Greek?

THE. And of beer too, eziamdio [by God].

PRU. Drop that eziamdio, as it is an obsolete and antiquatedexpression.

FRU. Quiet, master, he is not talking to you.

Smi. What did they look like?

THE. One looked like the stableman of the giantess and



[of] the ogre, the other like the deputy of the goddess of [good] reputation.

Smi. Were there two of them?

THE. If this is not a mysterious numberl

PRU. Ut essent duo testes [That there should be twowitnesses].

FRu. What do you mean by that testes?

PRU. Examiner witnesses of the Nolan sufficiency, at me

bercle [but by Hercules] why did you tell Theophil that thebinary number is mysterious?

THE. Because two are the first coordinations [categories]as Pythagoras says, finite and infinite, curved and straight,right and left, and so forth. Two are the kinds of numbers,even and odd, of which one is male, the other female. Twoare the Cupids, superior and divine, inferior and vulgar.Two are the acts of life, cognition and affection. Two arcthe objects of these, the true and the good. Two are thekinds of motion, straight, by which bodies tend toward[their] conservation, and circular, by which they areconserved. Two are the essential principles of things, thematter and the form. Two [are] the specific differences of substances, rare and dense, simple and mixed. Two [arethe] primary opposite and active principles, the hot and thecold. Two [are the] first parents of natural things, the sunand the earth.

FRU. In conformity with the set of those aforesaid twos, I

will make another scale of binaries. The beasts entered thearc by twos. They left it in twos. Two are the leaders of thechoir of celestial signs, Aries and Tatirns. [2. These twoconstellations occupy the first two houses of the zodiac at the vernal equinox.]

Two are the kinds of Nolite fieri [3. See Psalm 31: 9: 'Do not be

without understanding like the horse and the mule'] [do not be], the horseand the mule. Two are the animals [created] to the imageand similitude of man, the ape on earth and the owl in thesky. Two are the false and [still] revered Florentine relics in



this country, the teeth of Sassetto, [4. Tommaso di VincenzioSassetto, a famed Tuscan mercenary, who after serving as Captain in France,

volunteered his services to the Queen of England.] and the beard of Petruccio. [5. Ubaldini Petruccio, anotherTuscan soldier of fortune, who wentto England in 1545 and later turned into a writer of sorts. The irony in Bruno'sremark had to be felt all the more strongly as both Sassetto and Pctruccio were still

alive when Bruno published the Cena.] Two are the animals of whichthe prophet said that they have more intelligence than the

people of Israel, the ox because it knows its owner, and theass because it knows how to find the manger of its master.[6. See Is. 1:3.] Two were the mysterious riding animals of outRedeemer, the donkey and the asscolt, [7. See Zach. 9:9.] whichsignify his old Hebrew and his new Gentile believer. Twoare the names derived from these, Asino and Pullione, [8.From asina and pullut , Latin equivalents of donkey and ass-colt. See Mat. 21:6-7.]

which were the formal addresses of Augustus' secretary. [9.A garbled reference to Caius Asinius Pollio (c. 76 BC-AD c. 5), Roman historian,

but not a secretary to Augustus.]

Two are the kinds of donkeys,domestic and wild. Two are the pyramids in which thereshould be inscribed and dedicated to eternity the names of those two and of other similar doctors: the right ear of thehorse of Sileno, and the left car of the antagonist of thegods of vegetable gardens. [10. The horse of Silenus, the oldest of satyrs, was a donkey and so was the antagonist of the goddess in question.]

PRU. Optime indolis ingenium, enumeralio minime

contemnenda [A marvel of the finest origin, the list ishardly to be frowned upon].

FRU. I tdke pride, my master Prudenzio, because youapprove of my discourse, as you are more prudent thanprudence itself, for you arc prudence masculini generis [of male gender].

PRU. Neque id sine lepore et gratia [Not even that without

a rabbit and thanks]. But now istbaec mittamus encomia.Sedeamus quia, ut ait Peripateticorum princeps, sedendo et

quiescendo sapimus [let us offer these encomiums. Let ussit down because, as the prince of Peripatetics says, bysitting and resting we grow learned]: and so we shall carryon until sunset with out tetralogue over the success of theconversation of the Nolan with Doctor Torquato and withDoctor Nundinio.



FRU. I would like to know what you mean by thistetralogue.

PRU. I said tetralogue, id est quatuorum sermo [that is thetalk of four], just as dialogue means duorum sermo [thetalk. of two] and so forth, such as pentalogue, heptalogue

and others which arc abusively called dia logues as somesay diversorum logi [the talk of various people], but it is notlikely that the Greek inventors of this name had that firstsyllable 'di', pro capile i1hus latinae dictionis 'diversum' [atthe head of that Latin word 'diversum'].

Smi. I beg you, my Lord Master, let us leave these rigors of grammar and come to our subject matter.

PRU. 0 seclum [0 heavens], you hardly seem to take intoaccount good literature. How could we make a goodtetralogue if we did not know what that expression,tetralogue, signifies, and, quod pehis est [what is worse],should we think that it is a dialogue? [And] non ne a

difinitione et a nominis explicationc exordiendum [shouldwe not begin with the definition and explication of thename], as our Arpinate [11. A reference to a dictum in the De offidis of

Cicero, who hailed from Arpinum.] teaches it?

THE. You, Mister Prudenzio, are too prudent; let us leave, Ibeg you, these discourses in grammar, and take count [of the fact] that this reasoning of ours is a dialogue: for fourpersons as we may be, we shall be two in functioning,namely, to propose and to reply, to reason and to listen. Orto make a start and to report the business from itsbeginning, come 0 Muses, and inspire me. I am not talking

to you who speak in puffcd up and haughty verse inHelicon, [12. A mountain In southern Greece, regarded as the home of the

Muses.] for I doubt that you might not pity me in the end,when after having made such a long and tiresomepilgrimage, traversed such perilous seas, tasted such toughcustoms, there comes the need to go barefoot and one soonreturns home naked, because there is no fish for the Lom-bards. [13. A play on the word Lombardi which also could mean crayfish. The



meaning of the phrase is that nothing is to be gained.] I allow that you arenot only strangers, but are also of that race of which a poetsaid:

There was never a Greek clean of malice.[14. The quote is a Brunian fusion or confusion of two lines in the Morgante of theRcnaissance poet, Luigi Puld (1432-84).]

Moreover, I cannot fall in love with something which I donot see. Others, others are those who have captivated mysoul. To you others do I address myself, you gracious,gentle, soft, tender, young, beautiful, delicate beings, blondtresses, white cheeks, rosy faces, delicious lips, divine eyes,breasts of enamel, hearts of diamond; with your help somany thoughts I put together in my mind, so manyaffections I collect in my soul, so many passions I generatein my life, so many tears I shed from my eyes, so manysighs I emit from my chest, and so many flames I sparkfrom my heart; to you O Muses of England I addressmyself, inspire me, help me, scold me, enkindle me, promptme, make me flow, and turn me into sweet juiccs, and makeme resemble not a small, delicate, formal, short, succinctepigram, but an ample and copious vein of long prose,flowing grand and bubbling; and let my currents go forthnot as from a narrow pen, but as from a wide canal. And

you, my Mnemosine [goddess of memory], hidden underthirty seals, and closeted inside the gloomy prisons of theshadows of ideas, sing a little in my cars.

A few days past two [emissaries] [15. John Florio and Mathew

Gwinne. For further details see the Introduction.] came to the Nolan onbehalf of a royal equerry [16. Sir Fulke CircAlle, Sip; also noti; 13 to the

Prefatory Epistle.] letting him know how much he longed toconverse with him so that he could understand his

Copernicus and other paradoxes of the new philosophy. Towhich the Nolan replied that he does not see either with theeyes of Copernicus, nor with those of Ptolemy, but with hisown as far as judgment and conclusions are concerned.True, [he acknowledged that] in regard to observations heowed much to these and other industrious mathematicianswho, from time to time, successively adding light to light,have established sufficient principles that enable us to make



[our own] judgment, which can form itself only after longperiods of study. He added that those arc in fact like theinterpreters who translate words from one language toanother, but then there are others who fathom the meaningsand not the words themselves. The former are like thosepeasants who report the trends and patterns of a skirmish toa distant captain; they themselves do not understand the

steps, the reasons and the art by which they becamevictorious; but this is understood by the one who has theexperience and better judgement in military matters. Thus,to the Theban Manto who saw but did not understand,Tiresias, the blind but divine interpreter said:

Much of the truth escapes the one deprived of vision,

But whither my country, whither Phoebus callsme, I shall follow;While guiding, my child, your blind parent,Reveal the portents of the sacrifice for diviningthe future. [17. The quote is from Seneca's Oedipus, lines 295-96 and 301-02. Manto was the daughter of the blind seer, Tircsias.See also Seneca's Tragedies with an English translation by FrankJustus Miller, vol. 1. (Loch Classical Library, London, WilliamHcinemann, 1927), pp. 451-53.]

Similarly with us; for how could we make a judgement if the many and diverse verifications of the appearances[motions] of the higher and lower celestial bodies had notbeen clarified and placed before the eyes of reason? [Thiswould] certainly not [be possible]. Nevertheless, afterhaving rendered our debts to those distributors of giftswhich came from the first, infinitely omnipotent light, andhaving praised the studies of those generous spirits, weshall amply fecognize that we should open our eyes at what

they observed and saw, and should not give our consent towhat they conceived, meant, and set forth.

Smi. Please, let me know, what is your opinion of Copernicus?

THE. He was possessed of a grave, elaborate, careful, andmature mind; a man who was not inferior, except by



succession of place and time, to any astronomer who hadbeen before him; a man who in regard to natural judgmentwas far superior to Ptolemy, [18. Claudius Ptolemaeus (fl. 140), theforemost astronomer of classical antiquity, and also a renowned mathematician,geographer and astrologer. In his Almagest he offered a vast synthesis of geometrical methods for the prediction of planetary motions within a geocentricframework. The Almogest remained the authoritative textbook on astronomy for

some time after Copernicus.] Hipparchus, [19. Hipparchus (fl. 2nd centuryBC), an astronomer from the island of Rhodes, is credited with the discovery of

the precession of equinoxes, the eccentricity of the sun's (apparent) orbit, and someof the inequalities in the moon's motion. These achievements of Hipparchus,together with his catalogue of 850 stars and with his systematic application of trigonometrical methods in astronomical computations, were an invaluable help to

Ptolemy.] Eudoxus, [20. Eudoxus of Cnidus (408?-355? BC), Greekastronomer, who started his studies with Plato, and spent the concluding part of hislife in Cnidus, by the observatory which he constructed there. He is credited withthe first computation of the length of the solar year. It suggested a calendar reform,enacted centuries later by Julius Caesar, who ordered the observance of leap-years.Most importantly, Eudoxus seems to have been the first major proponent of theexplanation of planetary motions in terms of concentric circles. This method lateryielded to modifications with the introduction of such auxiliary devices as

eccentrics, extants, deferents and cpicycles, to increase the exactness of predictions. But by the same token there resulted an extreme complication of circles, which Copernicus tried to overcome, though in vain, with his heliocentricordering of the very same devices. Needless to say, the Copernican system had

extremely impottant advantages of its own.] and all the others whowalked in the footsteps of these; a man who had to liberatehimself from some false presuppositions of the commonand commonly accepted philosophy, or perhaps I shouldsay, blindness. But for all that he did not move too muchbeyond them; being more intent on the study of

mathematics than of naturc, [21. This criticism of Copernicus strikes thekeynote of Bruno's scientific posture. Disdainful of mathematics to a very highdegree, he claims supreme expertise in 'physical astronomy', about which herightly notes that it is of overriding importance for a real explanation of thephysical universe. But his version of physical astronomy or his explanation of themotion of the earth and of other celestial bodies bogs down in gross animism (tosay nothing of his Hermetism), which vitiates much of the forcefulness of his

'assertion of the infinity of the universe.] he was not able to go deepenough and penetrate beyond the point of removing fromthe way the stumps of inconvenient and vain principles, soas to resolve completely the difficult objections, and to freeboth himself and others from so many vain investigations,and to set attention firmly on things constant and certain.For all that, who can fully praise the great mind of thatGerman, [22. This is not the only identification of Copernicus as a German inthe early literature, a point which gave rise to much chauvinistic controversy, andwhich shall be kept alive by alI those unable to see long past situations in proper

historical context.] who with little concern for the foolishmultitude, stood solidly against the torrent of the opposite



persuasion? And though deprived of effective reasons, heseized those rejected and rusty fragments which he couldhave from the hands of antiquity, and repolished, matchedand cemented them to such an extent with his moremathematical than physical discourse, that there arose theargument once ridiculed, rejected and vilificd, [23. The referencemight be also to Ptolemy's ridiculing Aristarchus for his advocacy of the earth'smotion, in addition to the derision which greeted from several corners the

publication of Copernicus' work.] but now respected, appreciated andpossessed of greater likelihood than its contrary, andcertainly more convenient and useful for theory and forcomputational purposes. Thus this German, though he didnot have sufficient means to become able not only tothwart, but also to fight, to vanquish, and to suppresssufficiently the false hood, [24. The falsehood is the closed, sphericalworld, with the earth testing immobile at its center. While Bruno reproachesCopernicus for having retained the sphere of the fixed stars, he fails to realize that

he is even more Aristotelian than Copernicus in explaining the physics of themotion of the earth. It is also to be noted that Bruno's high praises of Copernicusserve as a convenient backdrop to bring out more forcefully his own supercminent

greatness.] had nevertheless firmly made his stand to decide itin his soul and to confess it most openly, so that in the endone had of necessity to conclude that this globe moved withrespect to the universe; rather than that it should be possiblethat the universality of so many innumcrable bodies, of which many are known to be more magnificent and grand,should acknowledge this [globe of ours] as their center and

the base of their gyrations and influences, in an insult tonature and to reason which with most evident motionsloudly declare the contrary. Who will, therefore, be so nastyand discourteous toward the work of that man as to forgetboth what he has done and his very being, destined by thegods to be that dawn which was to precede the rising of thesun of the ancient and true philosophy, buried for so manycenturies in the dark caverns of blind, malicious, arrogant

and envious ignorance, and to remember him by what hecould not do, and to put him among the number of theherdlike crowd which moves, follows and rushes on bylending ear to a brutish and ignoble pefsuasion, rather thanto count him among those who with a happy genius couldrise and elevate themselves under the most reliableguidance of the eye of divine intelligence?

Now, what shall I say of the Nolan? Would it perhaps be



improper that I should praise him, just because he is asclose to me as I am to myself? But he who would reproachme for that would certainly not be a reasonable man, sincespeaking well of oneself is at times not only fitting, but alsonecessary, as the terse and learned Tansillo put it:

Though a man who aspires to fame and honor

Should not speak much about himself,Because the tongue, where the heart fears orloves,Is not in a position to speak trustworthily:Yet, to become the herald of one's own fameIs fitting on a few occasions; namely,When one speaks for any of two reasons:To escape unjust blame, or to help someone else.[25. The quotation is from the Vendemmialore (strophe XXIX), anepic poem by Luigi Tansillo (1510-1568), one of the favorite poetsof Bruno, who cites with preference authors of the cinquecento.]

Still if one is so supercilious as not to wish for any reasonto be subject to his own praise, not even to the appearanceof it, lie should realize that the praise of one's self cannot attimes be kept apart from one's actual and reportedachievements. Who would reproach ApelIes [26. Apellcs (fl. 330

BQ, the most celebrated painter of classical antiquity.] because inpresenting his work he tells whoever wants to know that it

is his product? Who would blame Phidias [27. Phidias (c. 500-c.

432 BC, one of the greatest sculptors of ancient Greece.] if he replied tosomeone asking about the author of that magnificentsculpture that he is the one? Now that you may understandthe present business and its importance, I will submit aconclusion which will prove the point to you very rapidly,easily, and very clearly: if the ancient Typhon was to bepraised for having found the first boat and for havingcrossed the sea with the Argonauts:

Too daring the man who in a frail vesselFirst ventured through the treacherous seas;Viewing from behind the familiar shoreline,Entrusted his soul to the fickle winds;[28. The quotation is from the Medea (lines 201-04) of Seneca. Seealso note 17 above. In Greek mythology Typhon was Gaea's fierceand monstrous son, and the father of such monsters as Cerberus,Hydra, the Sphinx and the Chimera.]



if in our times Columbus is to be celebrated for being theone about whom it had been foretold long ago:

there will come an ageIn the far-off years, when the OceanShall unloose the bonds of things,And a big land shall emerge, while Tiphys

[Tethys]Will disclose new realms, and ThuleShall no longer be the limit of dryland,[29. Again the Medea (lines 375-79) is quoted. Tethys, instead of Tiphys, was the daughter of Gaea and the wife of the sea-god,Oceanus. Thule was the name given in classical times to thenorthernmost parts of Europe.]

then what is to be done about the one who found again theway to scale the skies, to make a tour of the spheres, of theplanets, and leave behind the convex surface of thefirmament? The Typhons [30. Typhons, that is, the monstrousdescendants of Typhon. The subsequent lines have a prophetic ring about the

actual and potential misuse of technical inventions.] have found the wayof disturbing the peace of others, of violating the patronspirits of homesteads, of confusing that which providentnature keeps separate, by doubling the defects of manthrough commerce, by adding vice to vice from onegeneration to another, by propagating with violence newfollies, and by planting unheard -- of stupidities where nonewas, concluding in the end that the stronger is the wiser, byshowing new studies, instruments, and skills to let peopletyrannize and assassinate one another; because of such featsthe time will come when those who have learned at theirown expense, through the force of the vicissitude of things,will have the know-how and will be able to produce similarand even worse fruits of such pernicious inventions.

Unsullied the ages our fathers saw,With every fraud banished afar.Then every man kept quietly to his own shores,And lived to old age on ancestral fields.Rich but with little: knowing no wealthSave what his home soil yielded.The world's realms safely separated beforeWere joined by ships of Thessalian timber.





know [how to] and did not dare to express their intricatesentiments. He restored strength to the lame who wereunable to make that progress in spirit which the ignoble anddissolvable compound [body] cannot make. He providedthem with no less a presence [vantage point] than if theywere the very inhabitants of the sun, of the moon, and of other nomadic [wandering] stars [planets]. He showed how

similar or dissimilar, greater or worse [smaller] are thosebodies [stars, planets) which we see afar, compared withthat [earth] which is right here and to which we are united.And he opened their eyes to see this deity, this mother of ours, which on her back feeds them and nourishes themafter she has produced them from her bosom into which shealways gathers them again -- who is not to be considered abody without soul and life, [33. This animistic world view precedes a

slightly veiled affirmation of pantheism.] let alone the trash of all

bodily substances. In this way we know that, if we were onthe moon or on other stars [planets], we would not be in aplace much unlike this, and perhaps on an even worse[place], just as there may be other bodies as good and evenbetter for their own sakes and for the happiness of theirown animals [inhabitants]. Thus we know as many planets,as many stars, as many deities, which are those hundreds of thousands that assist in the service and contemplation of thefirst, universal and eternal efficient [cause]. Our mind is nolonger imprisoned in the fetters of the imaginary movablesand movers, eight, nine and ten. [34. The eight 'movers or movables'are the spheres carrying in the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic world picture the moon,the five planets, the sun and the fixed stars. The ninth is the qu as i-spi ritualempyrean sphere beyond the sphere of the fixed stars, and the tenth is the purely

spiritual sphere acting for, or identical with, the Prime Mover, enclosing all.] Weknow that there is but one heaven, an eternal, immenseregion, where these magnificent lights keep their properdistances for a commodious sharing in a perpetual life.

These blazing bodies are those ambassadors that announcethe excellence of God's glory and majesty. Thus we shalladvance to the discovery of the infinite effect of the infinitecause, the true and living evidence of the infinite vigor. [35.A clear statement of Bruno's pantheism. As the immediately preceding andfollowing lines show, it leads him to the assertion of an animistic uniformity,throughout infinity. This uniformity would imply the rejection of privileged parts(heavens) in the universe, as in a pantheistic entity all parts should be on equal

footing, but Bruno gives a privileged status to all stars and planets.] And thus



we possess the instruction to look not for the divinity awayfrom us: if we have her nearby, we have her inside us, infact more so than we are within ourselves. No less so thanis the case with the inhabitants of the other worlds who donot seek her in our vicinity, since they have her nearby andwithin themselves. Assuredly, the moon is no more aheaven for us than we are [a heaven] for the moon. Thus,

what Tansillo said undoubtedly as a joke can be stated acertainly sound proposition:

If you do not take the good which is near,How will you get that which is far away?To deprecate your own, seems to me glaringfolly,And so is to praise what is in the hand of another.

You are like the one who gave up on himself While searching in vain for his own likeness;You are that hound that gave to the river fromhis mouthThe piece which was longed for by his ownshadow.

Leave alone the shadow and embrace the truth,Do not exchange the present for the future.

Though I do not despair of better days to come,To live more happily and more securelyI enjoy the present and hope about the future,Procuring thereby twice as much sweetness.[36. Again the Vendemmialore (strophes XVIII and XIX) is quoted,with some slight departures from the original.]

With this, one, though alone, is and will be able to win, andwill be victorious in the end, and will triumph against the

general ignorance; and there can be no doubt about this,provided the process of deciding [the truth] shall not liewith the multitude of blind and deaf witnesses, of acrimonious and vain words, but with the strength of controlled sentiment, which needs to have the last word:since, in fact, all the [celestial] orbs count not with the onewho sees, and [on the other hand] no idiots can be servedby a learned man.



PRU.

Concerning goods and style, if former opulenceis gone,See that you learn to live with what the presentallows.Do not be a lonely detractor of people's

judgmentLest you please nobody while despising themultitude.[37. These four lines are from Dioicba Calopir (III. 11 and II. 29),a collection of verse proverbs, made sometime during the firstcentury AD.]

THE. This is most prudently said in regard to communallife and regimen and in regard to the practice of courteousconversation, but not when it comes to knowing the truth

and the rule of reflection, in connection with which thesame sage states:

Learn but from the learned, you yourself teach the ignorant.[38. Divicha Catomir, IV: 23.]

Moreover, what you say holds true for the doctrine usefulfor the multitude,.and is, therefore, like a counsel regardingthe crowd, because this burden [of the new cosmology]cannot be placed on the shoulders of anyone except of thosewho can carry it, like the Nolan; or [of such] who can atleast move it toward its target, as Copernicus was able todo, without incurring too great a difficulty.

Furthermore, those who are in the possession of this truthshould not share it with all kinds of people, if they do notwish to wash (as the saying goes) the head of a jackass, orif they do not wish to see what pigs are doing with pearls,

and [if they do not wish] to collect such fruits of their studyand labor, which is usually produced by brazen and sillyignorance, together with presumptuous impoliteness whichis its perennial and faithful companion. We can be teachersonly of such ignorant men, and we can be the light only of such blind persons, that are called handicapped not becauseof the inability of natural impotence, or by the absence of ability and self mastery, but solely because of inadvertence



and inconsideration; which [tatter case] occurs throughmere acts, and not through [innate] disposition. Of thesesome are so malicious and wicked that out of some lazy jealousy they become angry and resentful of him whoseems to want to teach them, the learned and the doctors, asthey are thought of and (what is worse) they think of themselves, and who dares to show that he knows

something they do not know. Hence you see them boilingwith rage and fury.

FRU. And so it happened with these two barbarian doctorsin puest ion, one of whom not knowing more in the way of reply and argument, jumped to his feet in his wish to finishthe dispute with a recourse to some dicta of Erasmus, orrather with his fists, shouting: What? Areyou, indeed, not

sailing toward Antigra? [39. The quote is one of the 3000 classical

proverbs in the Adagiorunl (chil. I, cent. VIII, n. 52) of Erasmus. its publication in1508, established Erasmus as the foremost scholar of his times. The originalappearance of the saying is in florace who spoke of an insane Stoic seeking a curethrough a heart-stimulating herb, hellebore, which grew in great abundance aroundAnticyra on the Gulf of Corinth, a place also mentioned in such connection by

Pausanius.] -- You, That finest of philosopbers, wbo would

notyield an incli eilber to Ptolemy or to the majeso I

authority] of so many, so great pbilosophers and

astronomers? Areyou not seeking a knot in a bulrusb? --and similar phrases, worthy to be broken on his back with

those double rods (call them rather canes) with which stableboys tailor jackets for jackasses.

THE. Let us forget these remarks for the time being. Thereare others who because of some credulous foolishness,fearful that seeing will undermine them, want to persevereobstinately in the darkness of what they once mistakenlylearned. Then there are some others, the fortunate and well-born talents, on whom no honorable study is lost, who do

not judge with temerity, keep their minds free and open l'orseeing, and are produced by the heavens if not as inventorsat least as worthy examiners, investigators, judges, andwitnesses of truth. It is from these that the Nolan gained,gains, and shall gain assent and love. These are those mostnoble minds that are able to hear him and to dispute withhim. Still, in truth, nobody is qualified to contest him onthese matters. Therefore, if due to lack of ability one cannot



bring himself to actually agree with him, one shouldnevertheless subscribe at least to his many major andprincipal points, and one should admit that what he couldnot recognize as true is certainly most likely.

PRU. Be it as it may, I do not wish to part with the view of the ancients, for as the sage says, wisdom is with antiquity.[40. The sage in question is job. See the Book of Job, 12:12.]

THE. And the sage adds that prudence is to be found in [apast of] many years. If you attend well to what you say, youwill see that from your position there follows the veryopposite of what you think. I want to say that we are older,and have greater age than our predecessors, and by this Imean that [information] which enters in certain judgmentsas in this topic of ours. The judgment of Eudoxus, [41. Seenote 20 above. Here Bruno quotes frecly Copernicus' historical survey of

astronomical observations ( De revolutionibus orbium, lib. III. cap. 2).] wholived only shortly after the rebirth of astronomy, if indeed itwas not reborn in him, could not be so mature as the judgment of Calippus [42. Calippus of Cyzicus (fl. 340 BC), the leadingastronomer of his times, to whom Aristotle ( Melapbyrics, 1073b) gives the solecredit of making improvements on Eudoxus' system of homocentric spheres by

assigning several auxiliary spheres to each planet.] living [flourishing]thirty years after the death of Alexander the Great, whoadding years to years could add observations to

observations. For the same reason, Hipparchus[43. See note 19above.] had to know more than Calippus, for he saw [had arecord of] the changes [in the motion of the planets] for atleast 190 years after the death of Alexander. Menelaus, theRoman geometer, [44. Menelaus (fl. 90 AD) made observations in Rome in98 AD, hence his identification as a Roman geometer, although he was fromAlexandria. His chief work is Spbaerica, with important sections on spherical

trigonometry.] by seeing [having a record of] the changes in[celestial] motions 460 years after Alexander's death, hadreason [to think] that he understood more than Hipparchus.Of those changes more could be seen [reviewed] by theMoslem Saracen [45. al-Battani (c. 858-c.929), the greatest astronomer of Islam. His astronomical treatise with tables ( De sciewia slellarum) was very

influential until Copernicus' times.] 1202 years after that. Almost inoutr times, Copernicus saw [knew] even more of thosechanges, being separated from Alexander's death by 1849years. But some of those who have been closer to us did notbecome more judicious than those who had preceded them,



and the multitude of our contemporaries has no moreinsight either; this happens because the former did not liveand the latter do not [re-]live the years of others and (whatis even worse) both the former and the latter lived as if deadthrough their own years.

PRU. Say what you please, proceed anywhere to your high

pleasure, I am a friend of antiquity, and concerning youropinions and paradoxes [46. The earth's motion was often referred to as aparadox in late Renaissance literature that contains numerous essays and books on

'paradoxes' or 'paradoxical philosophy'. See note 2 to the Introduction, p. 8.] I donot believe that so many and so wise remained ignorant, asyou think and do other friends of novelties.

THE. All right, Master Prudenzio, if this common opinionwhich is also yours is true inasmuch as it is antique, then itwas certainly false when new. Before this philosophywhich suits your brain existed, there had been thephilosophy of the Chaldeans, of the Egyptians, of thefollowers of the Magi, of Orpheus, of Pythagoras, [47. The list

is distinctly Hermetic.] and of others of most ancient memory, all[those philosophies] conforming to our brain; against these[philosophies] first rebelled these heedless and vainlogicians and mathematicians, as much the enemies of antiquity as they are strangers to truth. Let us therefore put

aside this argument of the old and of the new, becauseclearly there is nothing new that cannot become old, andnothing old that has not been new, as was well noted byyour Aristotle. [48. See Aristotle's Physics: 253a.]

FRU. If I do not speak out, I will certainly burst apart andcrack up. You have said, 'your Aristotle' in talking toMaster Prudenzio. Do you know how I mean that Aristotleis his own, id est [that is], he is a Peripatetic? (As a favor let

us make this little digression in a way of parentheses) likeof the two blind beggars at the door of the archbishopric of Naples one said that he was a Guelph, [49. Guelphs and Ghibellineswere opposing political factions in Germany and in Italy during the late Middle

Ages.] the other said he was a Ghibelline; and with that theybegan to hit one another so rudely with the sticks theycarried that I do not know how the affair would have endedhad they not been separated. But a gentleman came along



and said to them: Come here, you and you idiot rascals;what is a Guelph, what is a Ghibelline? What does it meanto be a Guelph and what does it mean to be Ghibelline? Intruth, one could not so much reply as to say a word. Theother solved [the problem] by saying that Signor PietroCostanzo, who is my master and to whom I wish well, is aGhibelline. In the same way there are many Peripatetics

who grow angry, excited and inflamed on behalf of Aristotle, want to defend the doctrine of Aristotle, wish tolive and die for Aristotle, who do not even understand whatis meant by the titles of the books of Aristotle. If you wishthat I should show you one [of these]: there he is, the one towhom you have said 'your Aristotle', and who at each turnpulls out for you [phrases like] Arisloteles narter,

Peripateticorum princeps, [our Aristotle, the Prince of Peripatetics], or Plato noster [our Plato] and ultra [so

forth].

PRU. I do not really care to take into account what countswith you, and I have no use for your opinion.

THE. Please, do not interrupt our discourse any more.

Smi. Go on, Signor Theophil.

THE. Remember, your Aristotle said that what holds true of the vicissitude of things is no less true of opinions andvarious happenings; [50. See note 48 above.] thus to appraise thevarious philosophies by their antiquity is to try to decidewhether the day or the night came first. Therefore, whatshould be considered above all is whether we are in thedaylight, and whether the sun of truth is over our horizon,or over the horizon of our antipodal opponents[counterparts], whether we are in darkness or they, and

finally, whether we, who give start to the revival of ancientphilosophy, are in the morning to end the night, or in theevening to end the day? And this certainly should not bedifficult to decide even if we evaluate but roughly theamount of fruit coming from one and the other kind of reflection.

Now let us see the difference between those and these. The



former are moderate in their way of life, expert in medicine, judicious in thinking, outstanding in divinations, marvelousin magic, [51. Hermetism was to succeed, in part at least, by its reconditemagic, which Bruno claimed to possess and tried to intimate in his various works.This list of extraordinary qualities is also a glimpse at a golden age to be ushered

in by the triumph of Hermetism.] cautious with superstitions,observant of laws, irreproachable in morality, divine intheology, heroic in all things. As is also shown by their

prolonged life, less infirm bodies, lofty inventions, verifiedprognostications, by the substances transformed throughtheir efforts, by these people's peaceful way of life,unbroken oaths, most honest procedures, familiarity withthe good and protective spirits, and the traces (if they stilllast) of their marvelous prowess. These others, theiropponents, I leave them to be examined by the judgment of one who has some.

Smi. But what do you say if the larger part of ourgeneration thinks the very opposite, and especially inregard to that doctrine?

THE. I am not surprised, because (as usual) those whounderstand less, believe that they know more; and thosewho are all fools, think they know everything.

Smi. Tell me, in what way might they be corrected?

FRU. By removing that very head [of theirs], and plantinganother in its place.

THE. By removing through some argument that confiderceof knowing; and by depriving them as much as possible,with incisive persuasions, of that foolish opinion, so thatthey would be willing to listen. The teacher must, of course,be first reassured that he deals with capable and qualified

minds. (According to the custom of the Pythagoreans andof our school [52. The secretiveness of Pythagoreans was also a feature of theimplementation of the Hermetic dispensation. Clearly, science (always a Hermeticscience) is in Bruno's thought not a message to be shared freely and

indiscriminately.]) I do not want these to have the opportunity toexercise the role of interrogators and disputants beforehaving listened to the whole course of philosophy. For, if the doctrine is perfect in itself and is understood by them



perfectly, it will clear away all doubts, and will remove allcontradictions. But it may happen that there should comealong a more polished mind, who can see for himself towhat extent something can be added, taken away, correctedand changed. Then he can compare these principles andconclusions, and thus agree or disagree, ask and reply, in areasonable manner' because otherwise, that is unless one

first had listened, it is not possible to know how to raisedoubts and questions to the point and in a proper orderabout an art [philosophy] or science. No one can ever be agood examiner and judge of a case if one has not firstinformed himself about the whole issue. Therefore, whilethe [presentation of the] doctrine goes through its stepsstarting with well posited and proven principles andfoundations to [becoming] the edifice and the perfection of things wl-dch can be discovered thereby, the student must

be silent, and first must have heard and understoodeverything, and he also must believe that as the presentationprogresses all difficulties will vanish. A different customprevails with the Eclectics [53. The Eclectics, also known asPyrrhonians, were followers of Pyrrho (c. 360-270 BC) of Elis, the father of

skepticism.] and Pyrrhonians who, while asserting that nothingcan be known, keep on asking and searching without everwanting to find anything. No less unfortunate minds arethose who want to dispute even the clearest points, causing

the greatest loss of time that can be imagined. Those, inorder to appear learned and for other mean motivations, donot want to teach or to learn but only to contest and opposethe truth.

SMI. I have a small doubt about what you said. [54. Thefollowing analysis of mental conditioning as a barrier to truth stands in strange

contrast to Bruno's posturing as the one wholly above such shortcomings.] Nowthere is an innumerable multitude of those who presume to

know and think they deserve to be constantly listened to, asyou can see that everywhere the universities and academiesare full of these Aristarchuses [55. The allusion is most likely toAristarchus of Samothrace (c. 217-c.145 BC), librarian at Alexandria. He wasfamed for his careful edition of Homer, and for the publication of some 800 worksof exegesis and commentary. Bruno seems to have seen in him a symbol of

pedantic scholarship.] who would not yield a whit to thethundering Zeus; those who study under them will not gainanything except to be promoted from not knowing (which



is the absence of truth) to thinking and believing that theydo know, which is foolishness and ingrained falsehood. Seenow what has been gained by such students: removed fromthe ignorance of simple negation, they are transposed intothe ignorance of bad disposition as the saying goes. Now,who will reassure me that using up so much time and effortand opportunities of better studies and pursuits, it should

not happen to me what most likely happens, namely, thatinstead of learning the doctrine, my mind would be infectedwith pernicious stupidities? How can I, who know nothing,learn to know the difference between dignity and indignity,poverty and richness, between those who think they arewise, and those who are esteemed as such? I see well thatwe all are born ignorant; I believe readily that we areignorant; [but] as we grow, we are imbued with thediscipline and customs of our home, and to no less a degree

do we hear against the laws, the rites, the faith, the style of our adversaries and of those opposed to us, than is the casewith these [things] concerning us and our affairs. To no lessextent are planted in us, perforce, the roots of a zeal for ourown things, than is the case with those many other anddiverse people about their own affairs. Thus, it has easilybecome a tradition that our own people think to offer asacrifice pleasing the gods when they have oppressed,killed, vanquished and assassinated the enemies of ourfaith; no less is this true of all those others, when they havedone the Same to us. And these will thank God with no lessfervor and persuasion of certainty for having the light forwhich eternal life is promised, than we do offer thanks fornot being in that blindness and darkness in which they are.To these convictions in [matters of] religion and faith areadded the convictions about sciences. If, myself, eitherthrough the choice of those ruling me, parents or teachers,

or through my own caprice and fantasy, or through thefame of a professor, shall think with no less satisfaction of mind to have gained under [the gaidance of] the arrogantand blissful ignorance of a horse [dumbbell], than anyoneelse [studying] under a less ignorant or under a simply[patently] learned man. Don't you know how great is theimpact [force] of the habit of believing and of beingnourished from childhood with certain persuasions, on



blocking the understanding of most evident things, in noother way than it happenswith those who are used to eatingsomething poisonous, whose constitution not only does not,in the end, feel revulsion, but absorbs it as natural food tothe extent that the antidote itself becomes to him the deadlysubstance? Or tell me by what means can the ears of alistener be attuned to you rather than to someone else when

his mind is perhaps less inclined to attending to yourpropositions than to those of thousands of others?

THE. This is the gift of gods, if the fates guide you anddispose of you in such a way as to let you come across aman, who not only has the reputation of a true guide, but heis such in truth, and if the fates enlighten the interior of your soul to choose the one who is the better.

Smi. Still, as a rule, one sticks to the common opinion, sothat if one makes an error, one will not be without broadapproval and consent.

THE. A thought most unworthy of man. This is why thelearned and divine men are rather small in number, and thisis so by the will of the gods, for nothing is, indeed,esteemed or valued unless it is [not] common and general.

Smi. I readily believe that the truth is known by a few andthat precious things are possessed by a very few. Still, itpuzzles me that many things are rare, and can only be foundin the possession of a few, or perhaps of a single person,though they should not be valued and have no value, andmay in fact be real madness and vice.

THE. Very well; but in the end it is safer and moreconvenient to look for the truth away from the crowd,

because the latter never offered precious and worthy things.It is always among the few that one can find things of perfection which, if they are only rare and in the possessionof a few, [56. Another clear indication of the exclusiveness of (Hermetic)

science as understood by Bruno.] could at least be recognized byanyone, though he could not get hold of them. And thus,their value would be due not so much to knowledge butsolely to [the manner of] possession.





FIRST PROPOSITION OFNUNDINIO

THE. Intelligis domine que diximms [Do you understand,sir, what we Said]? And he asked [the Nolan] whether heunderstood the English language. The Nolan replied, no,and said the truth.

FRU. Better for him, because he would have understoodmore unpleasant and derogatory things than their opposite.It helps a great deal to be dirty by necessity, where theperson would not like to be dirty by choice. I would,however, easily convince myself that he understandsEnglish, but in order that he should not be involved in allcases that present themselves through the numerous andimpolite encounters, and so that he might reflect on theattitudes of those who come across him, he pretended not to

understand English.

PRU. Surdorum, ahi natura, afii pbysice accidente, alii

rationali voluntate [Some are deaf by nature, some byphysical accident, some by deliberate intention].

THE. Do not suppose this of him, because although he hasbeen around in this country almost a year, he does notunderstand more than two or three very ordinary words;

those that are words of greet ing, but not those that saysomething particular. And of these latter even if he wantedto utter one, he could not.

Smi. What does it mean that he had given so little thoughtto understanding our tongue?

THE. It is not something specific that forced and promptedhim to this. For those who are distinguished and the

gentlemen with whom he used to converse, all speak Latin,or French, or Spanish, or Italian: they, aware of the fact thatEnglish is used only within this island, deemed itdisadvantageous not to know any other language excepttheir own native tongue.

Smi. This is true of all; it is unworthy not only of a well-born Englishman but also of any other nationality not to



know to speak more than one language; though in England(as I am sure also in Italy and France) there are manynoblemen in this predicament, with whom anyone whodoes not have a command of the language of the countrycannot converse without that anxiety which is felt by onewho depends on an interpreter.

THE. It is true that there are still many who are noblemenby kirth only, and happily to their and to our greater benefitare neither understood, nor seen.

OF THE SECOND PROPOSITION OF

NUNDINIO

Smi. What does Doctor Nundinio wish to submit?

THE. I dumque [therefore] (he said in Latin) wish toexplain to vou what we said, namely, that Copernicuspresumably was not of 'he opinion that the earth moved, forthis is inconvenient and impossible; but that he attributedsuch motion to the earth rather than to the eighth sphere forthe sake of easier calculations. [1. Beneath this remark lies the chief issue which divided astronomers prior o the seventeenth century into the camps of realists and formalists. To the fortier, all explanatory devices (spheres, deferents,epicycles, etc.) were somehow ooted in reality; to the latter, these were merelyconvenient mathematical and ,eometrical tools to help predict celestial motions,

that is, 'to save the phenomena'. I'lie classic account of this is Pierre Duhem's ToSave The Phenomena: An Essay on the Idea of Physical Theoryfrom Plato to

Galileo (1908), translated from the French by E. Doland and C. Maschler, with an

Introduction by S.L. Jaki (Chicago, Univerity of Chicago Press, 1969). TheNolan said that if Copernicus had said the earth moved forthis sole reason and not for some other, then he understoodlittle and hardly enough of Copernicus. But it is certain thatCopernicus meant it as he said it, and proved it with all hisefforts.

Smi. Would this mean that those vainly pass this judgmenton Copernicus' opinion unless they can gather it from somepropositions of his?

THE. Note that such a statement comes from DoctorTorquato who from the whole Copernicus (though I maybelieve that he turned all its pages) retained only the nameof the author, of the book, of the printer, of the place where



it was printed, the year, the number of signatures and pages,and since he was not unfamiliar with the [Latin] grammar,he understood a certain epistle attached to it by I do notknow what ignorant and presumptuous jackass [2. AndreasOsiander (1498-1552), a noted Lutheran theologian, took over from GeorgJoachim Rheticus (1514-1576), professor at the University of Wittenberg, theresponsibility of having Copernicus' book printed. In order to forestall theologicalobjections, he had on the back of the title page an 'advisory epistle' printed, whichhad the appearance of one written by Copernicus himself. In that epistle addressed

'To the Reader concerning the Hypotheses of this Work' the book was presented asthe setting forth of an ingenious mathematical method 'to save the phenomena'.Bruno's failure to identify the 'jackass' as Osiander is one more evidence of the factthat he was not in touch with the astronomers of his times. There are numerousindications that long before Kepler called Osiander by name in his Astronomia

nova... de molibus rlellae Martis (1609), the information was sufficientlywidespread that Osiander was the author of the 'advisory epistle'. No sooner hadthe copies of Copernicus' freshly printed book reached Tiedemann Giese (1480-1550), bishop of Kulm and a close friend and supporter of Copernicus, than herequested in a letter to the Senate of Nuremberg that the printer, Johannes Petreius,be forced to reissue properly the introductory section of the book by leaving outthe 'advisory epistle'. At the urging of Giese, Rhcticus obtained from Osiander awritten admission of his authorship. This detail was well known to HieronimusSchreiber, successor of Rheticus in Wittenberg. Other contemporary astronomerswho knew about Osiander's authorship were Petrus Apianus and Michael Maestlin,

Kepler's teacher in TÜbingen. Who (as if trying to support theauthor by exculpating him, or perhaps to enable other jackasses to find in this book their herbs and fruits, and notto let them part with it starving) adverted them in this waybefore they started reading the book and mulled over itsphrases:

'I have no doubt that some savants' [3. Here Bruno's rather freetranslation of the original is followed closely. For a more exact rendering inEnglish of Copernicus' words, see the translation by Charles Glenn Wallis, On the

Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres in Great Books of f1m lVestern World , vol.

XVI (Chicago, Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., 1952) pp. 505-06. (he saidwell 'some' of which he might be one) 'feel greatlyoffended, because of the widespread publicity of the newsuppositions of this work which wants the earth to bemobile and the sun to stand firmly set in the center of theuniverse, thinking that this is a cause to throw into

confusion the liberal arts which had been well settled andfor so long a time. But if they wish to consider the mattermore carefully, they will find that this author [Copernicus]is not deserving of blame, because it is the business of astronomers to gather diligently and artfully the history[details] of celestial motions: [and if they are] unable tofind for some reasons the true causes of those motions, it isallowed to them to feign and formulate in their places



reasons with the principles of geometry, by means of whichthey [those motions] might be calculated both for the pastand for the future[:] therefore, not only is it not necessarythat the suppositions should be true, but not even [that theyshould be] likely. Such should [indeed] be esteemed thehypotheses of that man [Copernicus], except if someonewere to be so ignorant of optics and geometry as to believe

that the forty degrees or more acquired by Venus inreceding from the sun on one side and the other is causedby its motion on its epicycle. [4. In the geocentric system, theexplanation of the foregoing angular separation of Venus from the Sun is possibleonly if the radius of the epicyclc of Venus is supposed to be as great as three-fourths of the radius of its deferent. This had to appear a glaring incongruity andalso implied a variation from one to four in the Venus-Earth distance. ButOsiander (and Bruno, too) failed to note that in the heliocentric system thevariation of the same distance would be at least of similar range. Both Osianderand Bruno (see note 21 below) overlooked the fact that the problem of thevariation of the brightness of Venus bad a very important, special feature of itsown in the heliocentric system, a point of which Copernicus was very much

aware.] Were this the case, who would be so blind as not tosee that which would follow from this against allexperience: that the diameter of the planet wouldappearfour times larger, and the body of the planet morethan sixteen times larger, when it is closest to the oppositeof its auge. [5. Here Bruno's departure from the original is particularlypronounced. Copernicus uses the expressions apogee and perigee, whereas Bruno

uses the medieval Latin (Arabic) term ange. [perigee], than when it isfarthest away, where it is said to be in its auge [apogee].

There are still other no less inconvenient suppositions thanthis, which need not necessarily be referred to.'

( Et conclude al fine) [And be concludes in the end].

'Let us, therefore, take the treasure of these suppositions,solely for the marvelous and artificial facility of computations: for, if someone would take as true thesefeigned things, he would exit more stupid from this science

than when he entered.'

Now, look, what a fine doorman I See how well he opensthe door for you to let you enter into the sharing of thatmost excellent knowledge [the motion of the earth], withoutwhich the art of doing computations, measurements,geometry and perspective is nothing else than the pastimeof ingenious fools! See how faithfully he serves the owner



of the house! [6. The owner of the house is, of course, Copernicus.]

To Copernicus it was not enough to say merely that theearth moves, but he also emphasizes and confirms it bywriting to the Pope, [7. Copernicus prefaced his book with a dedicatoryletter addressed to Pope Paul III. There he spoke about his hesitation to 'bring tolight my commentaries written to demonstrate the Earth's movement', or tocommunicate his findings only to a select number of confidants, as was thepractice of the Pythagoreans. Copernicus also spoke of his fear of the scorn which'the newness and absurdity' of his opinion might provoke, an attitude hardlyreasonable if his book did not convey a firm belief in the motion of the earth. See

transl. cit., p. 506.] and by saying that the opinions of thephilosophers are very far from those of ordinary folks, [8.Actually, Copernicus remarks that his notions of the movement of the earth are notonly 'in opposition to common sense'. but also 'in opposition to the general opinion

of mathematicians'. See transl. cit., p. 507.] which are unworthy of being followed and worthy of being avoided as the veryopposite to what is true and right. And many other explicitindications emerge from his [Copernicus'] statement, inspite of the fact that somehow in the end [9. The remark inquestion is more toward the middle than toward the end of the dedicatory epistle;at any rate, it hardly justified the efforts of some antiCopernicans to use it asevidence that Copernicus proposed the earth's motion merely as a workinghypotheses. The remark reads as follows: 'And although the opinion [of the earth'smotion] seemed absurd, nevertheless because I knew that others before me hadbeen granted the liberty of constructing whatever circles they pleased in order todemonstrate astral phenomena, I thought that I too would be readily permitted totest whether or not, by the laying down that the Earth had some movement,demonstrations less shaky than those of my predecessors could be found for the

celestial spheres'. See transl. cit., p. 508.] he seems to suggest,

according to the opinion of both those who profess thatphilosophy [the motion of the earth], and of those who arepure mathematicians, that should such a supposition bedeclined because of the apparent inconveniences, then it isfitting that he too should be given the liberty of positing themotion of the earth in order to produce demonstrations thatare more solid than those made by the ancients, who werefree to feign so many kinds and models of circles todemonstrate the phenomena of the stars [planets]. From

those words one cannot gather that he doubted what he sosteadily professed and was to prove sufficiently in the firstbook [of the Revolutions] by replying to some arguments of those who held the opposite; there he resorts not only to theposition of the mathematician who makes suppositions, butalso to that of the physicist [10. Copernicus tried to answer severalobjections to the earth's motion, but the physics which underlies his answersreflects the organismic physics of Aristotle rather thin the rudimentary notion of inertial motion as elaborated at the University of Paris during the fourteenth



century, a circumstance of which Bruno was conspicuously unaware.] whoproves the motion of the earth.

But certainly it counts little with the Nolan that Copernicus,Nicetas the Pythagorean from Syracuse, [11. Nicetas, or Hicetas, asCicero has it, is known only through a short reference of the latter to a now lostwork of Theophrastus. The list given by Bruno is a replica of that of Copernicus,

with the exception of Bruno's reference to Plato.] Philolaus, [12. Philolaus of

Croton lived in the middle of the fifth century BC.] Heraclitus of Pontus,[13. Heraclides of Heraclea in Pontus (c. 388 BC-312 BC), a student of Plato, wasthe proponent of the rotation of the earth around its axis and of the orbiting of Venus and Mercury around the Sun, which in turn orbited around the Earth.]

Ecphantus the Pythagorean, [14. Ecphantus, a figure as elusive as

almost all the other members of the Pythagorean confraternity.] Plato inTimaeus [15. See Timaemr: 40b-c.] (though timidly andinconstantly, for he held it more on faith than on the basisof science), and the divine Cusanus [16. In chapter XII 'Conditionsof the Earth' of Book II of his Of Learned Ignorance ( De docia ignoranfia, 1440)

Nicholas of Cusa (1401?-1464) declares at the outset both the motion of the earthand the relativity of motion: 'It is now evident that this earth really moves thoughto us it seems stationary. In fact, it is only by reference to something fixed that wedetect the movement of anything. How would a person know that a ship was inmovement, if, from the ship in the middle of the river, the banks were invisible tohim and he was ignorant of the fact that water flows? Therein we have the reasonwhy every man, whether he be on earth, in the sun or on another planet, always hasthe impression that all other things are in movement whilst he himself is in a sortof immovable centre; he will certainly always choose poles which will varyaccordingly as his place of existence is the sun, the earth, the moon, Mars, etc. Inconsequence, there will be a maebina mundi whose centre, so to speak, iseverywhere, whose circumference is nowhere, for God is its circumference andcentre and He is everywhere and nowhere' (translated by Fr. German Heron, with

an Introduction by D.J.B. Hawkins, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1954, p.111).] in the second book of his De docta ignorantia [Of

Larned Ignorance], and other certainly very rareindividuals, [17. The one Bruno (and Copernicus) should have mentionedbefore anyone else was Aristarchus of Samus (fl. 280 BC), aptly named by SirThomas Heath the 'ancient Copernicus', whom Ptolemy put to ridicule in theopening section of his Almagest for his advocacy of the earth's motion both around

its axis and around the sun.] have said, taught and confirmed itbeforehand; because he [the Nolan] holds it for otherspecific and more solid principles [18. Bruno's reference to his own

principles which are supposedly better even than those given by Copernicus, andwhich are founded on reason and experience, clearly shows his megalomania andhis misconceptions about science. The principles he had in mind were tooted in

gross animism, rank pantheism and, last but not least, in Hermetic mysticism.] bywhich, not through authority but through real evidence andreason, he has this for as certain as anything else that can behad for certain.

Smi. Very well; but, please, what is that argument which is



offered by that doorman [19. The doorman is Osiander.] of [thebook of] Copernicus; for it appears to him that there ismore than mere likelihood (if it indeed is not simply true)that the planet Venus should display as great differences insize as in distance.

THE. That fool [20. Again, Osiander.] who passionately fears,

lest some be duped by the doctrine of Copernicus, -- Iwonder if a more inept point could have been offered for aparticular need than the one which he set forth with somuch solemnity, -- deems it sufficient to prove that toassume this [the variation in Venus' size] [21. In the wholediscussion about Venus, Bruno keeps silent about a detail on which Copernicuswas very explicit, namely, that Venus should show phases as does the moon.Consequently, the variations of the brightness of Venus are not merely a functionof its varying distance from the earth, but also of its phases. These two factorsaffect the situation in the opposite sense. At its perigee, or closest approach to theearth, less than a quarter of Venus can be seen illumined by the sun, whereas at its

apogee, its whole hemisphere facing the earth is bathed in sunlight.] would bethe act of one very ignorant about optics and geometry. Iwould like to know what kind of optics and geometry ismeant by that beast, [22. Once more, Osiander.] who shows all toowell how ignorant he was about true optics and geometry,and were all those from whom he learned. [23. Here, by inference,Bruno indicts all past masters of optics, another evidence of his odd sense of

superiority.] I would like to know how from the size of luminous bodies one can infer the due of their remoteness

and closeness; and inversely, how from the remoteness andcloseness of similar bodies one may infer to someproportional variety of size? I would like to know withwhat principle of optics and geometry we can definitelyderive, through the variation of diameter, the right distanceor the major and minor differences [in it]? I wish tounderstand whether we make a mistake by positing thisconclusion. From the appearance of the size of theluminous body we cannot infer its true size nor its distance,for just as the case is not the same with an opaque as with aluminous body, so the case is not the same for a luminous, aless luminous, and a very luminous body as to let usestimate the distance or size. The bulk of a man's head doesnot show at two miles, but a much smaller lamp, or somesimilar flame, would be seen without much difference(though with some difference) sixty miles from the shore,as from Otranto in Puglia the candles Pamps] of Avellona



can often be seen, though between those two places thereare the vast tracts of the Ionian Sea. [24. Avellona is the Albanian

town Vlone, or Valone, about seventy miles northeast of Otranto.] Every onewith sense and reason knows that if the lamps were tocontain twice as perspicuous a flame - take lamps that nowcan be seen from a distance of seventy miles - they wouldbe seen at a distance of one hundred and forty miles with no

variation in size. If tripled, at 210 miles, if quadrupled, at280 miles. One should think in the same way of otherincreases of proportion and degree. For it is much ratherthrough the quality and intensity of light than through thesize of the burning body that the same diameter and size of the body would be maintained. [25. This, apparently rigorous,quantitative reasoning is merely an exercise in fantasy, the only realm wherelanterns from 280 miles can be seen, a circumstance that bad to be clear to any

judicious reader of the passage.] Would you, wise opticians andwizards of perspective, claim, therefore, that if I were to seeat one hundred stadia a light of four inches in diameter, itwould necessarily appear eight inches in diameter at adistance of fifty stadia, sixteen at a distance of twenty-five,thirtytwo at twelve and a half, and so on, [26. 100, 50, 25, 121/2stadia approximately equal 20,000, 10,000, 5,000, 2,500 yards, or about 12, 6, 3,11/2, miles respectively. At such distances no change in the size of the light

(lantern) would be noticeable to the naked eye.] until, of course, bycoming much closer it would become indeed as great asyou suppose?

Smi. But then, according to what you say, one cannotdisprove by geometrical reasons the opinion, false as it maybe, of Heraclitus of Ephesus, [27. Heraclitus of Ephesus (c. 535 BC-c.475 BC), the famed proponent of the view that there was no permanence whateverin nature, held the celestial bodies te be hollow cups in which the basic element,fire, collected. According to Diogenes Laertius (see note 29 below) Heraclitus

estimated the cup of the sun to be one foot in diameter.] who says that thesun should be exactly as great as it appears to the eyes, anopinion to which Epicurus subscribes, as it seems from his

Letter to Sophocles, [28. Another careless remark of Bruno. It is in hisletter to Pythoclcs (instead of Sophocles) that Epicurus (341 BC-270 BC, a notedproponent of atomism, states: 'The size of sun (and moon) and the other stars is forus what it appears to be.' This is followed by a statement which is clearly at thebasis of Bruno's rebuttal of Osiander's exploitation of Venus' changing brightness:'And in reality it (the sun) is either slightly greater than what we see or slightly lessor the same size: for so too fires on earth when looked at from a distance seem tothe senses' (see Epicurus. The Extant Remains, with short critical Apparatus,Translation and Notes by Cyril Bailey, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1926, p. 61).]

and he states in the eleventh book of On Nature (as



reported by Diogenes Laertius [29. Diogcnes Laertius (fl. 220 AD),author of a work in ten books on the lives and opinions of philosophers from

Thalcs to Epicurus.]) that (as far as he can judge) the size of thesun, of the moon, and of other stars [planets] is as great asappears to our senses, because (he says) if they would losetheir true size through distance, they would even more solose their color; and it is certain (he says) that we shouldnot judge otherwise about those [celestial] lights than aboutthose that are near us.

PRU. The Epicurean Lucretius [30. Titus Lucretius Carus (c. 99 BC-c.55 BC, Roman poet, author of the De rerum nalura (On the Nature of Things), afamed exposition of the atomistic philosophy of nature advocated by Epicurus,Leucippus and Democritus. Lucretius' book, which first became known to scholarsin Europe in 1414, exerted an incrcasingly decisive influence during the fifteenthand sixteenth centuries, especially by its emphatic and detailed assertion of an

infinite universe of stars in perpetual transformation.] also testifies thesame in the fifth book of his De [rerum] natura:

The wheel of the sun cannot be much largerNor its glow less than is perceived by oursenses.For from whatever distances fires can projectlightAnd breathe warm heat upon our bodiesThey diminish nothing by these intervals fromtheir mass of flame

And the fire is made no narrower to the eye.And the moon, whether with bastard light shemoves illumining the world,Or whether she casts her own light from her ownbody,However that may be, her shape as she movesdoes not increase.Lastly, with all the fires of ether which you seefrom this earth,So long as their flickering is clear, so long astheir glow is perceived,You may be sure that they can, indeed, be only avery little,Smaller or larger by a small and but triflingdifference,Just as in all the fires which we see on the earth,



The size seems often to change very little,indeed,One way or to the other, according to theirdistance.[31. This quotation of sixteen lines is composed from lines 564-95of Book V. Translation is based on Lurrolims, Do rorum nature,with an English translation by W.H.D. Rouse (Loeb ClassicalLibrary, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1937), pp.381-83.]

THE. Certainly, you say it well that with ordinary andcustomary reasons the masters of geometry and perspectivewould in vain dispute with the Epicufeans, I do not say withthe fools like that doorman [32. Osiander.] of the book of Copernicus, but even with the more learned among them;and now let us see how they could conclude that given adistance equal to the diameter of the epicycle of Venus onemay establish the size of the diameter of the planet andsimilar things.

Also I would like to call your attention to another thing. Doyou see how great is the body of the earth? Do you knowthat we can see of it but [what falls within] the artificialhorizon?

Smi. Exactly.

THE. Or do you believe that if it were possible to recedefrom the total globe of the earth to some point (whereveryou wish) of the ethereal region, it should ever happen thatthe earth would appear bigger?

Smi. I think not, because there is no reason whatever thatthe line of sight of my eye should become stronger, and thatit should increase the earth's radius, which determines thediameter of the horizon. [33. This muddled wording is characteristic of

most of Bruno's utterances concerning scientific, and specifically quantitative,geometrical details. ]



THE. You judged well.Therefore, one must believe that,if we recede farther away, thehorizon always diminishes. Butnote that with such a diminutionof the horizon there comes also amore confused [less distinct]

glimpse of some of that realmwhich lies outside of the alreadyencompassed horizon, as can beshown in the present figure [34.The figure lacks the numbers 4-4 and theletters D-D, and contains a fifth pair of lineswhich subtend, bafflingly enough, the samebase, A-A, as do the lines 1-1. This lattercircumstance runs counter to whateversoundness there is in Bruno's effort to convey

the idea that whereas the visual angle permitted by the structure of the eye remains

the same, it spans more of thq horizon from increasing distance though indecreasing detail.] [1], where the artificial horizon is 1-1, towhich corresponds the arc A-A of the globe. The horizon of the first decrease is 2-2, to which corresponds the arc B-B

of the globe. The horizon of the third decrease is 3-3, towhich corresponds the arc C-C . The horizon of the fourthdecrease is 4-4, to which corresponds the arc D-D. And sowith the further decrease of the horizon the stretch of thearc will always increase up to the hemispherical line and

beyond. Once placed at that distance or about, we wouldsee the earth with the same detail as we see the moon withits shining and obscure parts depending on whether thesurface is water or dry land. In the measure in which thevisual angle is narrowed will increase the part which thebaseline occupies of the hemispherical arc, and the smallerwill appear the horizon which we want to be called alwayssuch, although according to the accepted usage it has onlyone proper meaning. As we move farther away, an always

bigger part of the hemisphere is seen, and, in the measure inwhich the visual diameter decreases, the light becomesmore and more a compact point, so that if we moved fartherfrom the moon, its spots would always become smaller,until it would look like a small and entirely luminous body.[35. The real point Bruno seems to want to make is that there is no basic differcticcbetween celestial bodies, the eternally permanent entities in his pantheisticuniverse. This is the first of several instances in the Cena of Bruno's abolishing thedifference between stars and planets as intrinsically lucid and opaque bodies.]





the matter differently; then it would follow that when thisluminous body was in the lower hemisphere, our sky wouldbe obscured in a larger part rather than illumined, assumingor granting that all stars have their light, from the sun. [39.The atomists and several pre-Socratics held that the stars were intrinsicallyluminous and fiery bodies. According to Aristotle the stars, composed of the ether,were not intrinsically luminous bodies. Their light was due to the friction whichtheir motion caused remotely and indirectly in the upper air.]

THE. Now see how a smallerluminous body can illuminemore than half of a largeropaque body. [40. Here follows one of the most astonishing 'scientific' arguments of

Bruno.] Please recall what we seeby experience. Given [Let therebe] two bodies of which one isopaque and big like A, the othersmall and luminous like N , if the lucid body is placed at thesmallest and first distance asnoted in the following figurc [41.The figure should have capital letters,

together with indices 1, 2, 3, 4 for the row of the bs. Also the angle ending at thebs should have been drawn of the same magnitude, since the angular width of theeyesight remains the same. By decreasing the angular width of vision from the

carth outward, Bruno was led into a patently absurd conclusion.] [3], it willilluminate to the extent of the small arc CD [cd ] reachingthe line B1 [b1]. If placed at the second and greaterdistance, it will illuminate to the extent of the larger arc EF

[ef ], reaching the line B2 [b2]. If placed at the third andgreater distance, it will terminate through the greater arcGH [gb] set by the line B3 [b3]. From this one mayconclude that it may thus happen that the lucid body B -- bymaintaining the strength of such brilliance, as demanded bythe desired effect, namely, to penetrate that much space --

might, by being sufficiently removed, cover in the end anarc bigger than the semicircle; provided that nothing shouldoppose that the distance which placed the luminous body soas to span the semicircle [with its lightJ, might not beincreased to such an extent that more [than a semicircle] bespanned [by its light]. Moreover, [42. Here Bruno plays an arbitrarygame with the respective decrease of sizes (apparent and real) so as to prove apoint, which in its final formulation (point objects do not obstruct the light going

from point sources toward point targets) is physically meaningless.] I say that





There, by thefact that theline AN is adiameter, itmakes a rightangle withthe

circumference. But from the next point it makes an acuteangle, from the third [point] an even more acute [angle];therefore, in the end it must become exceedingly acute, andfinally at some limit it should not appear an angle but aline; consequently, the relation [role] and difference of thesemidiameter is destroyed, and by the same reason also therelation [role] of the entire diameter AO will be destroyed.

Therefore, it becomes finally necessary that two morelumitious bodies, which do not quickly lose their diameter,will not be prevented from being seen reciprocally sincetheir diameter does not vanish, [46. Bruno's reasoning implies anunjustified mixture of some characteristics of visual perception with an imprecise

analysis of a given geometrical configuration.] as is the case with a non-lucid, of less luminous intervening body.

It is, therefore, to be concluded that a larger body which is

more apt to lose its diameter, will not, in spite of its beingplaced at the midpoint of the [connecting] very straight line,block the [mutual] sight of two bodies, however small,provided they retain a diameter of visibility which isalready lost in the bigger body. But in order to help a nottoo cultivated mind that it may bring itself to comprehendthe foregoing argument, and to soften as much as possiblethe rigor of understanding, [47. In what follows, Bruno, instead of giving a legitimate, easily comprehensible and not too rigorous illustration of his

conclusion, throws to the wind rigorous reasoning. He fails to perceive that the eyeis anything but a mere point.] let him see by experiment that byplacing a rod by his eye, his sight will be wholly blockedfrom seeing the light of a candle placed at a certaindistance; but the more the same light is brought closer tothe rod, by moving the latter away from the eye, the lesswill his sight be blocked; and if the rod comes finally soclose to the light as to touch it, as it touched beforehand the



eye, the rod will not perhaps impede [the sight of thecandle] as much as it should because of its thickness.

Now add further to this, that the rod stays there and thelight wi be removed even farther; then the rod will block[the light] much less. Thus, increasing more and more theequidistance of the eye and of the light from the rod, one

will finally see the light alone without any perceptibleevidence of the rod. With this in mind any intellect,however crude, can be easily introduced to theunderstanding of the little that has been said here shortlybefore.

Smi. It seems to me that in regard to this proposition I mustfeel very satisfied, but there still remains a confusion in mymind about what you first said; rising from the earth and

losing the sight of the horizon whose diameter will decreasemore and more, we shall take that body for a star. [48. See note35 above. Bruno echoes in part Nicolas of Cusa, who assigned to each celestialbody the same structure consisting of a solid core surrounded by a watery layer,enveloped in turn by a layer of fire, which, however, sent its light only in theoutward direction. To account for the pale light of the moon, Nicolas of Cusaplaced the earth inside the moon's fiery layer. See Of Learned 1.9norance, pp. 112-

13.] I would like to have something added to what you havesaid in this connection, since you are of the opinion thatthere are many, nay, innumerable earths similar to this one,and I also remember having read Cusanus, whose judgmentI know you will not reprove, who claims that even the sunshould have dissimilar parts as do the moon and the earth;by this he says that if we fix our eye attentively at the bodyof the sun, we would see in the midst of that splendorwhich is more so towards its circumference than elsewhere,a most noteworthy opacity. [49. This follows from his theory of threelayers for each celestial body, at whose edges there was, therefore, a greater depthof fire with respect to an outside observer than in the central regions.]

THE. He said it divinely, and I think you have applied it ina praiseworthy manner. If memory serves me right, I havealso said a little earlier that (insofar as the opaque bodyeasily loses its diameter and the luminous one withdifficulty [50. Visually, that is, and below a certain angular width. ]) ithappens that due to distance the appearance of the obscurebody annuls itself and vanishes, but the appearance of atransparent illuminated body, or of a body luminous in



some other manner, becomes more and more compact, andfrom the disconnected, lucid parts there forms a visible,continuous light, thus, if the moon were farther away, itwould not eclipse the sun, [51. The meaning is that the small, lucid spotcorresponding to the moon would not be distinguished from the sun's brilliant

surface.] and every man who is able to reflect on these thingswould easily [realize] that a more distant light wouldbecome even brighter, land] were we located on that moredistant body [the moon], it would not appear moreluminous to our eyes; in the same way as being on thisearth we do not see that light of her which presents itself tothose who are on the moon, which light is perhaps greater[52. A far-fetched speculation, which reveals Bruno's readiness to rush on with

favorite theories.] than that which is provided to her [the moon]by the rays of the sun diffused in her crystalline liquid. I donot know whether at the present one should judge in thesame or in some other manner about the sun's own light. [53.

See note 35 above.] But look how far we moved from our topic.It is time to return to the other parts of our proposition.

Smi. It will indeed be good to understand other claimswhich he might have submitted.

THE THIRD PROPOSITION OF NUNDINTO

THE. Now Nundinio said that it cannot be really probablethat the earth should move, since it is the very center andmiddle of the universe which must have a fixed and steadyfoundation of all motion. Replied the Nolan: the same alsocan be said by someone who holds that the sun is in themiddle of the universe, and that it is as immobile and fixedas intended by Copernicus and many others who set aspherical limit to the universe. So that this reasoning of Nundinio (if it is reasoning at all) is of no value against

these, and it also begs its own principles [proofs]. And it isof no value against the Nolan who wants the world to beinfinite, so that there could, therefore, be no body in it towhich it would simply be proper to be in the middle or inthe extremes, or between these two endpoints. Rather", this[should be possible only] through certain relations to otherbodies and to endpoints chosen intentionally. [54. The statementof the relativity of motion, for which Bruno has often been given undue credit, hadbeen voiced by Nicolas of Cusa. See note 16 above.]



Smi. What do you think of that?

THE. Magnificently said. For just as no one of the naturalbodies is found to be simply [perfectly] round andconsequently with a simple [exact] center, so among thesensible and physical motions which we see in naturalbodies, there is none which would not differ [deviate] by

far from the simply [perfectly] circular and regular[movement] around some center, [55. Bruno's eagerness to tie theinfinity of the world and the relativity of motion to the absence of perfectlycircular orbits derives from his animistic, stellar pantheism, in which there can beno strict laws of motion because these would set a constraint on the freedom of stars and planets permeated by divine attributes. For this reason, Bruno would alsohave rejected the idea of an elliptic orbit for planets as worked out painstakinglyby Kepler. Nor could Bruno have been pleased with the closed space-timecontinuum of relativistic cosmology with its emphasis on a finite number of starsor galaxies. While science moved with Kepler and Galileo toward exactness and

precision, Bruno advocated a trend in the opposite direction.] try as maythose who imagine those stuffings and fillings of unequalorbits of diverse diameters and other plasters andreceptacles, to doctor up nature to the point of making it aservant of Master Aristotle, or of someone else, and toconclude that all motion is continuous and regular aroundthe center. But we who set our sight not on fantasticshadows but at the very things, we who envision an aereal,ethereal, spiritual, [56. The mixing of 'spiritual' with physical characteristics

is a typical feature of Bruno's counter-science.] liquid body capable of

motion and of rest, though infinite and immense (this wemust affirm at least because we do not perceive any limiteither sensibly or rationally), and we know for certain thatbeing the effect and product of an infinite cause and infiniteprinciple, it must be infinitely infinite according to itsbodily capacity and according to its mode of being. [57. This isthe reasoning on which Bruno's pantheism rests from the logical viewpoint. It isthis argument which he elaborates in many cumbersome, obscurantist andrepetitious details in the De l'infinito and the De la causa, immediate sequels to the

Cena.] And I am certain that not only to Nundinio, but also to

all those who are professors of the [art of] understanding, itis never possible to find [even] half-probable reasons forwhich the corporeal universe should have a boundary, andconsequently, the stars contained in its space should befinite in number, [58. Contradicting every fact of the Aristotelian worldview was not a method which could invariably lead to an ultimately trueproposition. See note 55 on the finite number of stars, or rather on the finiteness of

the mass in the universe.] and in addition there be a naturallydetermined center and middle of it.



Smi. Now does Nundinio add something to that? Does heafford some argument, or likelihood, to infer that, first, theuniverse be finite, second, that it have the earth as itscenter, third, that this very middle be altogether immobile[devoid] of [any] local motion?

THE. Nundinio, or anyone who says this, says it on faithand by habit; and he who denies it [the opposite], does sobecause of its unusualness and novelty, as is customarywith those who reflect but little and are not masters of theirown actions, either rational or natural [physical]; [and thus]he remains foolish and astonished like the one whosuddenly sees a new phantasm; he is like the one who, afterbeing slightly more discrete and less proud than hiscompanion, becomes silent, and adds no words where he

could not attach meaning.

FRU. Such is not the case with Doctor Torquato, who eitherwrongly or rightly, or by God, or by the devil, always wantsto combat, even after he has lost the shield for defense andthe sword for offense. I say when he has no more ripost, norargument, he jumps in the shoes of madness, sharpens thenails of detraction, gnashes the teeth of injuries, opens thethroat of outcries so that the contrary reason may not be

uttered and may not reach the ears of those around, as Iheard it said.

Smi. Therefore, he [Nundinio] said nothing else.

THE. He said nothing else about this proposition, butentered into another proposition.

THE FOURTH PROPOSITION OF

NUNDINIO

Since the Nolan says in passing that there are innumerableearths similar to this; but Doctor Nundinio, as a gooddiscussant, not having anything to add to this proposition,begins to raise questions apart from this proposition andapart from what had been said on the mobility andimmobility of this globe: he asks about the quality of other



globes, and wants to know of what material are thosebodies that were thought to be of the fifth essence, [59.According to Aristotle, in addition to the four terrestrial elements (fire, air, water,earth) there is a fifth, the ether, composing all bodies from the moon to the starsand also filling all the celestial or interplanetary places. See On The Heavens:

270b.] that is, of an unalterable, incorruptible material, of which the thicker parts are the stars. [60. A consequence of theAristotelian view of the ethereal composition of the celestial regions.]

FRU. This question seems to me to be outside the topic,though I do not understand logic.

THE. The Nolan, out of courtesy, did not want to press thatpoint: but after he said that it would please him if Nundiniofollowed the principal topic or asked about that, heanswered that other globes that are earths are not on anypoint different in specie [in kind] from that, merely in beingbigger and small er, as in other animal [61. Reference to animalspecies as an explanatory analogy is one piece with Aristotle's use of the conceptof organism as the chief paradigm in scientific explanation. The same approachpermits for Bruno, as will be seen immediately, the denial of a major difference

between planets and stars.] species inequality occurs throughindividual differences. But those spheres which are foci [of light] as the sun (for the time being), he believes them todiffer in kind as do hot and cold, luminous in itself andluminous through other [cause].

Smi. Why does he say that he believes this for the timebeing and does not affirm it absolutely?

THE. He was afraid that Nundinio would drop the questionraised lastly and would address and attach himself to this. Ido not want to discuss in detail that the earth, being ananimal and consequently a dissimilar body, should beconsidered a cold body in some of its very external partscooled by air; but rather, because of other parts of it that are

more numerous and great it should be believed to be hotand indeed very hot. I do not want to discuss either that [Iam] doing this dispute by accepting in part the principles of the opponent, who in this case wants to be known andprofesses to be a Peripatetic; and in another part [byaccepting] the proper principles that are not only admittedbut proved, [one may show that] the earth is as hot as thesun in some respect.



Smi. How can this be so?

THE. Because (by that which we have said) through thevanishing of the dark and opaque parts of the globe andthrough the union of the lucid and crystalline parts, onealways comes to more and more distant regions, where lightis more and more diffused. Now, if light is the cause of heat

(as with Aristotle [62. In what follows, Bruno says exactly the opposite of what was most emphatically claimed by Aristotle, according to whom the wholecelestial region composed of the ether was free of such terrestrial attributes as hotand cold. In particular, Aristotle rejected the general opinion, according to whichthe sun's rays were the cause of heat on earth. See On The Heavenr: 289a.]

many others affirm, who also claim that the moon and otherstars [planets] are more or less hot because of the greaterand smaller participation in light; therefore, when someplanets are called cold, they want this to be understood bycertain comparison and respect), it turns out that the earth,

with the rays which it sends to the distant parts of theethereal region, goes to communicate to others, accordingto the strength of light, just as strong a heat. [63. In Bruno'sinfinite world there should, therefore, arise a paradox of infinitely hightemperature and brightness, but his mind, defiant of the rigor of mathematicalreasoning, failed to perceive such a logical consequence. See on this my The

Paradox of Olbers' Paradox (New York, Herder and Herder, 1969), pp. 22-24, andThe Milky Way: An Elusive Road for Science (New York, Science History

Publications, 1972), pp 72-73.] But we do not necessarilyexperience that a body which is lucid should also be warm,because we see around us many lucid things that are notwarm. Or, to turn to Nundinio, it is here that he begins toshow his teeth, broaden his jaw, blink his eyes, frown hiseyebrows, widen his nostrils and send the croaking of acapon through the pipe of his lungs, so that due to thislaughter [of his] others may think that he understood itwell, that he was right, and that this other said ridiculousthings.

FRU. And how true. Don't you see how he himself laughed?

THE. This happens to the one who gives sweet-meat topigs. You ask, why did he laugh? He answers that to sayand imagine that there should be other earths, which havethe same properties and accidents, is [something] takenfrom the True Story of Luciam. [64. Lucian of Samosata (c. 125 AD-c.180 AD), Greek author, whose strength lay in satirical characterizations written



in exemplary style. Book I of his A True Story is a lampooning of dreams abouttraveling to the moon. See Lucian (with an English translation, by A.M. Harmon,Loeb Classical Library, London, W. Heinemann, 1913), vol. 1, pp. 248-303.]

The Nolan answers that when Lucian said that the moon isanother earth, inhabited and cultivated like this, he said it topoke fun at philosophers, who a ffirm that there arc manyearths (and particularly the moon, whose similarity withthis globe of ours is all the more evident as it is closer to

us); but [that Lucian] showed himself to be in commonignorance and blindness; for, if we carefully consider [thematter], we shall find the earth and many other bodies thatare called stars to be the principal members of the universe;since they give life and nourishment to the things andwhatever material they take from them they return it all:therefore, they have in themselves life more abundantly, bywhich, as if by a directed and natural will [stemming] froman intrinsic principle, they tend toward other things and

through spaces which are convenient to them. [65. This animisticaccount of celestial motions was worlds removed from the spirit of a purelymechanistic explanation of motion which increasingly marked the progress of science from the mid-fourteenth century on.] And there are no other extrinsic

movers, which by moving fantastic [imaginary] spheres transport thosebodies as if embedded in them, for if this were correct, themotion would be violent and outside the nature of themovable thing, the mover would be more imperfect, and themoved and the mover would be solicitous and laborious,

and many similar inconveniences would follow. Consideralso how the male moves towards the female, and thefemale towards the male, how each herb and animal movesmore or less expressly to the sun and the stars as to its vitalprinciple. The magnet moves to the iron, the straw to theamber, and finally everything finds its like, and flees itscontrary; everything proceeds from the sufficient interiorprinciple [66. It is this and similar details which are usually overlooked orminimized by all who see in Bruno a figure of intellectual and scientific progress.]

through which it becomes naturally activated, and not froman external principle as we see happen with those thingsthat are moved either against or outside [in a manner aliento] their own nature. The earth moves and so do the otherstars, according to their proper local differences, in virtueof an intrinsic principle which is their proper soul. Do youthink (said Nundinio) that this soul is sensitive? Not onlysensitive (replies the Nolan) but also intelligentl; [67. Thealleged intelligence of stars fits the Hermetic world view but hardly reflects



scientific mentality. True, Tycho Brahe and Kepler, older and youngercontemporaries of Bruno, have also been deeply steeped in organismic analogies,but they were also dedicated geometers, bent on utmost precision inmeasurements, and, last but not least, they believed in laws of nature embodyingthe exactness of mathematics. It was these traits which were completely lacking inBruno, and which, on the other hand, turned Tycho Brahe and Kepler into

crucially important contributors to the progress of science.] not onlyintelligent as ours, but perhaps even more so. HereNundinio fell silent and did not laugh.

PRU. It seems to me that, by being animated, the earth doesnot enjoy it when holes and caves are made in its back, justas it pains and displeases us when we are bitten there andour flesh is perforated.

THE. Not so simple-minded as Prudenzio, Nundinio did notthink thisargument worth developing, though it occurred tohim, because he is not so ignorant a philosopher as not to

know that if the earth has scnses, it has them not similar toours; if it has members, it has them not similar to ours; if ithas flesh, blood, nerves, bones, veins, thcy are not similarto ours; if it has a heart, it is not like ours; and so on, aboutall the other parts which have [some] proportion to the[various] members of all those others that we call animals,and are generally thought to be but animals. fie [Nundinio]is not so good a Prudenzio, and not so poor a physician, asnot to know that in regard to the great mass of the earth,

these [caves] are but exceedingly insensible accidentswhich are so sensible only to our imbecility. And I believethat he [the Nolan] means this in no otherwis [68. For all thatdisclaimer, Bruno retains so much of animism as to banish from science the

exactness of mathematics.] than that the animals which we know tobe such, have their parts in continual alteration and motion,and have a certain flux and reflux, always gatheringsomething inside from the outside, and sending outsidesomething from the inside; as a result, the fingernails

become longer, the fleece, the fur, and the hair getnourished, the skin heals and the hide hardens; in the sameway the earth receives the outflow and the inflow of theparts by which many animals (manifest to us as such)expressly evidence their lives: as it is more than likely that(since all things share in life) many, nay, innumerableindividuals live not only within us but in all compositethings, and when we see a certain thing which is said to be



dying, we need not so much think that it dies but that therechanges and ceases that accidental composition andconcord [harmony], while the things which constituted itremain always immortal; [69. Bruno's emphasis on the eternity of matteris an integral part of his pantheism in which there is no room for the basic

Christian belief in a personal Creator and in a creation out of nothing.] more sowith those things that are called spiritual than with thosethat are called corporeal and material, as we shall show thisat another time.[70. In part, Bruno did this in his Cabala del cavallo Pegaseo

(1585) where he advocated explicitly the transmigration of souls.] Or to comeback to the Nolan; as he saw Nundinio fall silent, heresented for a while the sneer of Nundinio who comparedthe positions of the Nolan to the True Story of Lucian, [and]indicated a slight anger, and said to him that if one is tohave an honest disputation, one should not laugh and makefun of him whom one cannot understand; and just as I (said

the Nolan) do not laugh at your phantasies, you should notlaugh either at my statements; if I dispute with you withcourtesy and respect, you should do at least the same to me'who knows you to be only of so much talent that even if Ishould want to defend as true the foregoing histories of Lucian, you would not be able to destroy [refute] them.And in such a way he replied with some anger to thelaughter, after he had handled the question with morereasoning.

THE FIFTH PROPOSITION OF NUNDINIO

Importuned by the Nolan as well as the others, that heshould leave aside questions of why, how, and what,Nundinio submitted some argument -

PRU. Per quomodo, et quare; quilibet asinus novit

disputare [With how's and why's, each ass knows how to

vie].

THE. - at the end of which he made the point that fills allpamphlets, namely, that if the earth were carried in thedirection called east; it would be necessary that the cloudsin the air should always appear moving toward west,because of the extremely rapid and fast motion of thatglobe, which in the span of twenty-four hours must



complete such a great revolution [71. This objection is considered byCopernicus, to say nothing of earlier sources. Nothing is added by Bruno's dicta to

Copernicus' solution except the organismic phraseology. ] To that the Nolanreplied that this air through which the clouds and windsmove are parts of the earth, because he wants (as theproposition demands) to mean under the name of earth thewhole machinery and the entire animated part, whichconsists of dissimilar [variegated] parts; so that the rivers,the rocks, the seas, the whole vaporous and turbulent air,which is enclosed within the highest moutains, shouldbelong to the earth as its members, just as the air [does] inthe lungs and in other cavities of animals by which theybreathe, widen their arteries, and other similar effectsnecessary for life are performed. The clouds, too, movethrough accidents [happenings] in the body of the earth andare [based] in its bowels as are the waters. This is so stated

by Aristotle in the first book of the Meteors[72. Typically enough,Bruno's organismic analogy is from Aristotle's Meleorologica, the only book of Aristotle which Bruno quotes at length and with approval, Undoubtedly because of its virulent animism and because of its sections on cyclic processes. That Brunofailed to see the Meleorologica in its true unscientific light is one more indicationof the peculiar character of Bruno's science. By 1585 several sections of the

Meleorologica had been the target of sharp denounciations. ] where he saysthat this air which is around the earth and is humid and hot[cold] because of the earth's exhalations, is surrounded byanother air, dry and hot, and no clouds can be found there:

and that this air is outside the circumference of the earthand of the surface which defines it, so as to let the earthbecome perfectly round, and that the production of windsoccurs only in the bowels or holes of the earth; so thatabove the highest mountains neither clouds nor windsappear, and that there the air moves regularly in a circle asa universal body. Perhaps this is what Plato [73. The reference is

to Pbaedo: 109b-c.] meant when he said that we inhabit theconcavities and obscure parts of the earth, and that we have

the same relation with respect to animals that live above theearth, as do in respect to us the fish that live in thickerhumidity. This means that in a way the vaporous air iswater, and that the pure air which contains the happieranimals is above the earth, where, just as this Amphitrit [74.Amphitrite was in Greek mythology the daughter of Nereus and the wife of

Poseidon and, therefore, the goddess of the sea.] [ocean] is water for us,this air of ours is water for them. This is how one may



respond to the argument referred to by Nundinio; just as thesea is not on the surface, but in the bowels of the earth, and just as the liver, this source of fluids, is within us, thatturbulent air is not outside, but is as if it were in the lungsof animals.

Smi. Now how is it that we see the entire [celestial]

hemisphere though we inhabit the bowels of the earth?

THE. Because of the mass of the sperical earth, it happensnot only on the outermost points of the surface, but also oninterior [lower] points, that from place to place a convexityis given to [permit] the sight of the [whole] horizon; in thatcase there does not arise that impediment which we seewhen between our eyes and a part of the sky a mountaininterposes itself, which, by being close, can destroy the

perfect vision of the circle of the horizon. The distance of those mountains which follow the convexity of the earth,which is not plain but spherical, causes them to be invisiblefrom the bowels of the earth; as one may to some extent seethis in the present figure [75. Another frustrating effort by Bruno to use

geometry.] [5] where the true surface of the earth is ABC ,within which surface are the many particulars of the sea andof other continents, such for instance M , from which pointwe see no less the entire hemisphere than from the point A

and from other points of the outermost surface. The reasonfor this is twofold: the greatness of the earth and its convexcircumference; therefore, the point M is not blocked so that[from there) one may not see the entire hemisphere,because the very high mountains do not interpose withrespect to M , as does the line MB, (which would, I believe,happen, were the earth's surface flat), but rather as with theline MC , MD does not suffer such impediment, as this isseen in virtue of the circumferential arc. And notefurthermore that as M relates to C and M to D, so does K to

M . Therefore, one need not consider a fable what Plato saidof very great concavities and laps of the earth. [76. Theconclusion should speak for itself.]

Smi. I would like to know if those who are near the highestmountains are inconvenienced by that impediment?



THE. No; but rather those whoare near the smaller mountains,because the mountains are notvery high unless they are sohigh as to cause theirmagnitude to appear insensibleto our vision [77. A reasoning as self-

defeating as Bruno's subsequent ramblingabout mountains.] Sothat in such away one may understand [thesituation about] many otherartificial horizons, in which theaccidents of some cannotproduce alteration of some

others; however, by 'very high mountains' we do not meanthe Alps, and the Pyrenees, and the like, but like the entire

France which is between two seas, the northern Ocean andthe southern Mediterranean; from these seas one alwaysascends [in going] toward Auvergne, as also from the Alpsand the Pyrenees, which once were the peaks of a giganticmountain range broken into fragments as time went on [78.One should be on guard against reading a very advanced geological theme intothese statements. In the next breath Bruno is back into a theme more Hermet. ic

than scientific, the perpetual cyclic process of everything.] while elsewhereother mountains formed through the vicissitude Of therenovation of parts of the earth), and now form so manyparticular mountains which we call peaks. Therefore,concerning the example offered by Nundinio about theScottish mountaing, [79. One wonders if Nunclinio's dicta on Scottishmountains had more sense than had Bruno's subsequent declaration about that

exceedingly high mountain in the middle of England.] where he onceperhaps stayed, it is clear that he is unable to grasp what ismeant by very high mountains. For, in truth, the wholeisland of Britannia is a mountain which raises its headabove the waves of the Ocean sea; the top of that mountainmust be at the more eminent point of the island; that top joins the tranquil part of the air, and thus proves that thisshould be one of those highest mountains, where is perhapsthe region of the happier animals. Alexander of Aphrodisias[80. Alexander of Aphrodisias (fl. 200 AD), a philosopher famed for his ardentdefense of Aristotle. Two commentaries of his on Aristotle's work are extant, of which one is on the Meteorologica, but it does not contain the detail in question

about Mount Olympus.] reasons so about Mount Olympus, where



the evidence of the ashes of sacrifices shows the conditionof the highest mountain and of the air above the confinesand parts of the earth.

Smi. You have satisfied me most sufficiently, and you haveexcellently opened many sccrets of nature which lay hiddenunder that key. Thus, you have replied to the argument

taken from winds and clouds; there remains yet the reply tothe other [argument] which Aristotle submitted in thesecond book of On the Heavens,[81. See section 296b.] where hestates that it would be impossible that a stone thrown highup could come down along the same perpendicular straightline, but that it would be necessary that the exceedingly fastmotion of the earth should leave it far behind toward thewest. Therefore, given this projection [back] into the earth,it is necessary that with its motion there should come a

change in all relations of straightness and obliquity; just asthere is a difference between the motion of the ship and themotion of those things that arc on the ship which if not trueit would follow that when the ship moves across the sea onecould never draw something along a straight line from oneof its corners to the other, and that it would not be possiblefor one to make a jump and return with his feet to the pointfrom where he took Off.[82. Hcre Smith provides some, of the answer tohis own question.]

[THE]. With the earth move,therefore, all things that areon the carth. [83. Theophil's answersimply states something that was alreadya well-known notion, namely, thatobjects on the surface of the earth sharein the earth's motion (rotation), if indeed

such is the case.] If, therefore,from a point outside the earth

something were thrown uponthe earth, it would lose,

because of the latter's motion, its straightness as would bescen [84. The figure wholly lacks the lettering referred to in the text. ] [Fig. 6]on the ship AB moving along a river, if someone on point Cof the riverbank were to throw a stone along a straight line,[and] would see the stone miss its course [target] by theamount of the velocity of the [ship's] motiom. [85. The case of a



stone thrown horizontally toward the ship was hardly a felicitous one, as therotation of the earth presented an additional problem in the context of such

motion.] But if someone were placed high on the mast of thatship, move as it may however fast, he would not miss histarget at all, so that the stone or some other heavy thingthrown downward would not come along a straight linefrom the point E which is at the top of the mast, or cage, tothe point D which is at the bottom of the mast, or at some

point in the boweis and body of the ship. Thus, if from thepoint D to the point E someone who is inside the shipwould throw a stone straight [up], it would return to thebottom along the same line however far the ship moved,provided it was not subject to any pitch and roll.

Smi. From the consideration of this difference there opensthe door to so many and highly important secrets of natureand of profound philosophy; indeed, it is a frequent andlittle noticed case how great is the difference between hewho cures himself and he who is cured by another: it isoften noticed that we derive greater pleasure andsatisfaction from taking the food with our own hands thanfrom the hand of someone else. As soon as children can usetheir own utensils to take food, they do not rely willingly onothers; as if nature would in some way make themunderstand that what provides for little pleasure, secures

but small profit. See the children who are nursed, how theycling with their hands to the breast. And I am never soshocked by theft as when done by a domestic servant,because, I do not know why, someone familiar brings alongmore of a shadowy portent than does a stranger, byconjuring up the form of evil genius and of fearful omen.[86. Rather obscure remarks.]

THF. Now to turn to the subject. If there are two, of whichone is inside the ship that moves and the other outside it, of which both one and the other have their hands at the samepoint of the air, and if at the same place and time one andthe other let a stone fall without giving it any push, thestone of the former would, without a moment's loss andwithout deviating from its path, go to the prefixed place,and that of the second would find itself carried backward.This is due to nothing else except to the fact that the stonewhich leaves the hand of the one supported by the ship, and



consequently moves with its motion, has such an impressedvirtue [impetus] [87. The notion of impressed virtue (impetus) was an all-important link in the development toward the formulation of inertial motion byGalileo, Descartes and Newton, and it had a long history antedating Bruno, as has

been amply documented in the studies of P. Duhem, A. Meier and others. ],which is not had by the other who is outside the ship,because the stones have the same gravity, the sameintervening air, if they depart (if this is possible) from the

same point, and arc given the same thrust.

From that difference we cannot draw any other explanationexcept that the things which are affixed to the ship, andbelong to it in some such way, move with it: and one of thestones carries with itself the virtue [impetus] of the moverwhich moves with the ship. The other does not have thesaid participation. From this it can evidently be seen thatthe ability to go straight comes not from the point of motionwhere one starts, nor from the point where one ends, norfrom the medium through which one moves, but from theefficiency of the originally impressed virtue [impetus], onwhich depends the whole difference. And it seems to methat enough consideration was given to the propositions of Nundinio.

Smi. So tomorrow we shall see each other again to hear thepropositions which Torquato submits.

PRU. Fiat [So be it].

End of the Third Dialogue

FOURTH DIALOGUE

Smith Do you want me to tell you the [real] issue?

THE. just say it.

Smi. [It arises] Because the divine scripture (whosemeaning should be very much commended as somethingwhich proceeds from higher minds that do not err) in manyplaces hints, and supposes the contrary [of the doctrine of the motion of the earth]. [1. Clearly, the atmosphere had considerably



changed from the times of Copernicus who still could confidently brand as'foolhardy' the objections based on the parlance of the Bible. (See his 'DedicatoryEpistle', transl. cit., p. 509). In the same context Copernicus also referred to theblunder of Lactantius, a Church Father of the fourth century, who rejected thesphericity of the earth in the name of the Bible. Copernicus could haveconsiderably strengthened his point by recalling the De Genesi ad litteram, athematic discussion by Saint Augustine of the guidelines in interpreting variouspassages of the Bible in the face of natural evidence, and by referring to similarutterances of other Church Fathers, such as Saint Basil and Tertullian. These werewell known as can be seen ftorn their brilliant utilization by Galileo in his famed'Letter to Grand Duchess Christina' (1615). Yet, the cffort did not really helpGalileo because of a trend toward biblical fundamentalism and Scholastic rigidityin the Catholic Church, a defensive trend motivated to a large extent by theemphasis placed on the Bible by the reformers. In considering the possibility of theearth's motion, Tycho Brahe, a Protestant in a Protestant land, stated his fear of theological censure as one of his big stumbling blocks. (See his Astronomiae

instattratae progvmnasmala, 1582, in Tycbonis Brabe Danis opera omnia. editedby J.L.E. Dreyer, Copenhagen, Libraria Gyldendaliana, 1916 vol. III, p. 175).About that time renewed attention was paid in the Catholic Church to the processof placing books on the Index and to doctrinal investigations by the Holy Office.Long gone were the days when around 1377, Nicholas Oresme, the learned Bishopof Lisieux, could discuss the pros and cons of the rotation of the earth both in thecontext of science and of the Bible and conclude: 'However, everyone maintains

and I think myself, that the heavens do move and not the earth: For God hathestablished the world which shall not be moved, in spite of contrary reasonsbecause they are clearly not conclusive persuasions. However, after considering allthat has been said, one could then believe that the earth moves and not theheavens, for the opposite is not clearly evident. Never theless, at first sight, thisseems as much against natural reason as, or more against natural reason than, all ormany of the articles of our faith. What I have said by way of diversion orintellectual exercise can in this manner serve as a valuable means of refuting andchecking those who would like to impugn our faith by argument.' (See NicoleOrerme, Le Livre du ciel el du monde, edited by A. D. Menut and A.J. Denomy,translated with an Introduction by A. D. Menut, Madison, University of WisconsinPress, 1968, pp. 537-39).]

THE. Or insofar as you believe me on this point, if the gods[2. This and similar expressions often occurring in Bruno's books seem to be morethan a matter of style in vogue during the Renaissance. They give a glimpse of Bruno's overt support of non-Christian, if not simply pagan, theological

preferences.] deigned to teach us the theory of the things of nature, as they did us the favor of presenting us with thepractice [rules] of moral things, I would much rather haveapproached that revelation with faith than have assertedever so slightly the certainty of my reasons and feelings.But (as anyone can see very clearly) the demonstrations andspcculations about natural things arc not treated in thedivine books for the benefit of our intellect in the style of philosophy: but for the benefit of our minds and affections,the practice concerning moral actions is set by laws. Inhaving this aim before his eyes, the divine lawgiver [3.

Meaning perhaps Moses.] does not care to speak on that level of truth by which the common folk would not profit, so as to



avoid the evil and follow the good; but he leaves tocontemplative men the speculation about that [higher levelof truth], and speaks to the uneducated [man] in a fashionso that according to his manner of understanding andspeaking he might grasp what is essential. [4. This is, indeed, the

gist of Saint Augustine's discussion in his work quoted in note I above.] Smi. Itis certainly an appropriate way, when someone intends to

present history and to give laws, to speak according to thegeneral understanding and not to be solicitous about pointsthat are irrelevant. He would be a stupid historian who, intreating his material, wanted to introduce words that areconsidered new and to reform the old ones, so that thereader would be forced to consider and interpret him moreas a grammarian than to understand him as a historian. [5.The crucial importance of considering the literary class of a particular book of theBible was also much emphasized by Saint Augustine in the same contex.]

Even more so, if one who wanted to give to the general folkthe law and form of life were to use terms which he alonewould understand and a very few others, and were to treatabout material irrelevant to the aim to which the laws aredirected: [then] it would certainly appear that he does notdirect his doctrine at the general multitude for which thelaws are enacted, but at the learned and generous minds andat those who are truly [ideally] men, who do what is proper

without laws; for this reason Algazel, [6. Algazel, or al-Ghazali AbuHamid Muhammad al-Fusi (1058-1111) of Baghdad, perhaps the most influentialMuslim philosopher, who in order to defend revealed truth called into doubt theobjective and lasting validity of truths obtained through the light of natural reason.Bruno's wholehearted reference to Algazel who generated a deep mistrust amongMuslim scholars about the meaning of search for universal scientific truths is

another indication of Bruno's own distrust of exact science. ] the Muslimphilosopher, high priest, and theologian, says that the aimof laws is not so much a search about the truth of things andspeculations, as it is the goodness of customs, the benefit of society, the harmonious living of people, and itsimplementation through the commodity of humaneconversation, the maintenance of peace, and the growth of commonwealths. Many times, therefore, and in manyrespects, it is stupid and ignorant to refer to thingsaccording to [intrinsic] truth rather than according tooccasion and convenience. just as if the wise man [authorof Ecclesiastes, who] said 'The sun rises and sets, orbitsthrough half a day and moves towards Aquila'[7. Eccl. 1: 5-6.]



would have [instead] said: the earth revolves [rotates]towards the east and leaves behind the setting sun, movesalong the two tropics, from that of Cancer toward south andfrom that of Capricorn toward Aquila [north]; would [not]the listeners have been startled and asked, in what sensedoes he state the earth to move? what novelties are these)they would in the end have held him for a fool, and he

would indeed have been a fool.

But in order to satisfy the importuning of some impatientand rigorous rabbi,[8. The original Italian, rabbino, if read with revtrendi,two lines later, might suggest a sarcastic remark about some legalistic Catholic

theologians.] I would like to know if what we say can be mostreadily confirmed with the approval of the very samescripture.

THE. Perhaps these reverends would have it that whenMoses says [9. Gen. 1: 16.] that God made two big ones, whichare the sun and the moon, among the rest of the [celestial]luminaries, this should be understood absolutely, becauseall the others are smaller than the moon; or, in truth,[should not this rather be understood] in the everyday senseand in the ordinary manner of understanding and speaking?Are not so many stars larger than the moon? Cannot they belarger than the sun? What is lacking to the earth that it

should not be a luminary more beautiful and larger than themoon, and that by receiving in the same manner in the bodyof the Ocean and other mediterranean seas the greatsplendor of the sun, might it not match as a most shiningbody the other worlds, called stars, no less than theseappear to us as so many lamp-like torches? [10. Another instanceof Bruno's attempt to gloss over the differences between planetq and stars.]

Certainly, he [Moses] did not call the earth a big or smallluminary, and be called only the sun and the moon such -

[and] this was stated well and said truly on its proper level,because be wanted himself to be understood according tothe commonly used words and statements, and not to do asone who out of foolishness and stupidity resorts toknowledge and wisdom. To speak with the terms of truthwhere there is no need for it, and to wish that the ordinaryand silly multitude, of which this approach is requested,should have the proper understanding, would be pretty



much to wish that the eyes be possessed by the hand, whichwas not made by nature for seeing, but for working, and forgiving its consent to the sight. Thus, however well he[Moses] might have understood the nature of spiritualsubstances, [11. Angels.] was he to speak of them in any otherway than to show that some of these have spoken to menand served them, when acting as ambassadors [of God]?

However well he might have known that all, or at leastsomething similar, what befits this world of ours [earth],befits also the moon and other world bodies that are seenand also [those] that cannot be seen, does it seem to youthat it would have been the office of a legislator to gatherand give these poultices to the crowds? What does thepractice of our laws and the exercise of our virtues have todo with these other [questions]? Therefore, wherever thedivine men [inspired authors] speak by presupposing in

natural things the generally accepted sense, they should notbe taken for authorities; however, wherever they speakindifferently [unphilosophically], and where the crowd hasno insight whatever, there I want one to pay attention to thewords of divine men [inspired authors], as well as to thesoarings of poets who spoke with superior light, [12. The hasty juxtaposition by Bruno of biblical authors speaking with divine inspiration and of poets speaking with superior light is a clear indication of his sustained effort not topresent biblical revelation as something unique. As a Hermetic prophet he

vindicated to himself that exclusive status.] and not to take as ametaphor what was not stated as a metaphor, and to take,on the contrary, as [literally] true what has been stated asanalogy. But this distinction between the metaphorical andthe [literally] true need not be grasped by all, because theability was not given to everyone to understand it.

Or if we want to turn the eye of consideration to acontemplative, natural [philosophical], moral and divine

[inspired] book, we find this philosophy very much favoredand preferable. I speak in connection with the Book of Job,which is one of the finest books that can be read, full of allgood theology, natural [philosophical] lore, and moraldoctrine, overflowing with most learned discourses whichMoses [13. Needless to say, Moses was not the author of the Book of Job,composed in the post-exilic times, perhaps during the early part of the fifth centuryBC, but because of the style of its prose parts it was sometimes classed with thebooks narrating the patriarchal times authored for the most part by Moses.]



attached as a sacrament to the books of his laws. In thatbook one of the personalities,[14. The personality in question is Bildad

of Shuah and the passage is Job 25: 1-2.] in wishing to describe theprovident power of God, says that he keeps the peaceamong his eminent ones, that is, sublime sons, that are thestars,[15. Bruno had in mind the phrasing of the Vulgate, but even its notoriousinaccuracies could not justify Bruno's paraphrases which are an arbitraryprojection of his world view into the Bible. The tactics shows not only the strongly

Aristotelian strains in Bruno's notion of the material composition of the world butalso reveals his inconsistency. Contrary to his previous claim thatthe Bible was notmeant to contain the scientific truth about the world, Bruno now claims that theBible contains his own message about the infinite realm of stars as a realm of

inexhaustible exchange of life and force among the celestial bodies.] the Gods,of which some are fire, some are water (as we say some aresuns, some are earths), and that these are in harmony; forhowever contrary t hey may be, nevertheless one lives,feeds and grows through the other; meanwhile, they do notmix confusedly together, but one moves around the other at

certain distances. Thus, the universe becomes differentiatedinto fire and water, which are subject to two primary,formal and active principles, the cold and the hot. Thebodies that breathe hot are the suns, because they areluminous and warm in themselves; the bodies that breathecold are the earths, which being likewise heterogeneousbodies are rather called waters, in view of the fact that suchare the bodies [materials] by which they are visible, and

therefore, we rightly designate them on account of thatfactor through which they are sensible [perceptible]; I saysensible [perceptible] not in themselves, but by the light of the sun scattered from their faces [surfaces]. In conformitywith this doctrine is Moses, who calls the firmament air, inwhich all these bodies have persistence and placement, andthrough whose spaces the lower waters, which are on ourglobe, become distinct and divided from the higher waters,which belong to the other globes. So that it is said that the

waters are separated from the waters. And if you considerwell many passages of the divine scripture, the Gods andministers of the most high are called waters, abysses, earthsand burning flames. Who prevented it that he should notcall them neutral, unalterable, immutable bodies, fifthessences, denser parts of the sphere, beryls, carbuncles andother phantasies, [16. These were some of the names used amongPeripatctics to specify further the nature of the ether. The sense of the question is,of course, that some superior force, or God, providentially prevented Moses from



speaking the language of Aristotelian philosophy. ] in which, indifferent[irrelevant] names, that is, the ordinarv crowd could findnothing amiss for its pasture?

Smi. I am, for sure, very much moved by the authority of the Book of Job and of Moses, and I can readily acquiescein these real[istic] sentiments [views] much rather than in

metaphorical or abstract ones, were it not for some parrotsof Aristotle, of Plato, and of Averroes, - from whosephilosophy they were promoted to the rank of theologians, -who say that these meanings are metaphorical, and thus,with the aid of their metaphors, they let these meaningssignify anything they want, through their zeal for thatphilosophy in which they were brought up.

THE. And as to how constant these metaphors are, you can

judge this from the fact that the same Scripture is in thehands of Jews, Christians and Mohammedans, suchdifferent and contrary sects, which are, in turn, breedinginnumerable other most contrary aud different sects, all of which know how to find in the Scripture that propositionwhich pleases them and suits them better; [17. Bruno was notably

indifferent to doctrinal controversies between Protestants and Catholics.] andnot only the very diverse and different proposition but alsothe wholly contrary proposition, by making a no from a yes

and a yes from a no. Thus, when verbigratia [for example]in certain passages where they say that God speaks out of irony.

Smi. Let us not bother to judge these, I am certain that itdoes not matter with them that this should be a metaphor ornot a metaphor: therefore, in that respect, they can easily beat peace with our philosophy.

THE. One is not to fear the censure of honorable minds, of truly religious and also naturally well-meaning men, whoare friends of courteous conversation and of good doctrine.For upon having these things well considered they find thatthis philosophy not only contains the truth, but also favorsthe [true] religion to a greater degree than does any otherkind of philosophy: like those philosophies [18. From thesubsequent list of doctrinal tenets it is clear that Bruno had in n-tind the variousshades of Averroists, the most rigid followers of Aristotle. It should also seem



significant that Bruno emphatically opposes the finiteness of the world, sinceaccording to his pantheism the infinite deity would of necessity generate an

infinitely large effect.], which posit the world as finite, the effectand efficiency of divine power as finite, the intelligencesand intelligent natures as being merely eight or ten; thesubstance of things as corruptible, the soul as mortal, as if itrather consisted of an accidental disposition, of an effect of complexion and of dissolvable temperament and harmony,

the execution of divine justice over human actions as perconsequence nothing, the knowledge of particular things asbeing removed from the primary and universal cause. Andother rather inconvenient propositions which, by beingfalse, not only blind the light of intellect, but also, by beingnegligent and empty, dissipate the fervor of goodintentions.

Smi. I am very satisfied to have this information about thephilosophy of the Nolan. Now let us turn for a while to thediscourses made with Doctor Torquato, who, I am certain,cannot be so much more ignorant than Nundinio than he ismore presumptuous, brazen and impudent.

FRU. Ignorance and arrogance are two individual sisters inone body and in one soul.

THE. This [Torquato], with an emphatic look, with which

the divum Pater is described in the Metamorpboses [19. The

reference is to Book 1, lines 171-81 of Ovid's work. ] as sitting in themiddle of the counsel of the Gods and fulminating thatmost severe sentence

against the profane Lycaon, [20. See note 5 to the Prefatory Epistle. ]

after having viewed his golden necklace, -

PRU. Torquem altream, aureum monile [Collar of gold,

golden necklace].

THE. - and after having looked closely at the chest of theNolan, where some buttons were possibly missing,staightened himself, pulled his hands from the table, shookhis back a little, rasped his voice, adjusted the velvet birettaon his head, twisted his mustache, straightened hisperfumed face, curved his eyebrows, widened his nostrils,



placed himself in readiness with a backward glance, put hisleft hand on his right flank, joined the three first fingers of his right hand so as to start his skirmish, and while tracingwith his right hand [through the air] began speaking in thisway: Tune ille pbilosophorum protoplaste? [Are you thatprotoplast of all philosophers?] Suspecting that he came forother reasons than for taking part in a disputation, the

Nolan immediately interrupted his words by telling him:Quid vadis domine, quo vadis? Quid si ego pbilosopborum

protoplastes? Puid si nec Arisloteli nec cuiquam, magis

concedam, quam mibi ipsi concesserint? Ideo ne terra est

centrum mundi immobile? [Where are you heading, Sir?Where are you, heading? So what, if I am the protoplast of philosophers? So what, if I do not yield either to Aristotleof to anyone else anymore than they themselves would nothave yielded to me? Is, therefore, the earth the immobile

center of the world?] With these and similar otherarguments, with that greater patience which he possessed,he exhorted him to submit propositions by which one couldinfer convincingly or with probability in favor of otherprotoplasts against this new protoplast. And turningtowards those around, [and] laughing in a subdued tone, theNolan said: He [Torquato] did not so much come armedwith reason as with words and slogans which tremble of cold and hunger. [Torquato was] urged by everybody tobegin with the arguments. He uttered these words: Unde

igitur stella Martis nunemrajor, nunc vero minor apparel;

si terra movelur? [Why should the planet Mars appear nowlarger, now smaller, if the earth moved?]

Smi. 0 Arcadia, [21. Arcadia, a mountainous region in the center of Peloponnesus, proverbial for the pastoral innocence ind primitive simplicity, if not

nalvet6, of its natives.] [What a naivet6j, should it be possibleanywhere in rerilm natura [in the nature of things] that with

the title of philosopher and physician -

FRU. And of doctor and of torquato [twisted].

Smi. - such a consequence could be drawn? What did theNolan reply ?

THE. He was not bothered by that: but he replied that one



of the principal reasons why the planet Mars appears largerand smaller from time to time is the motion of the earth andof Mars also, in their proper orbits, so that it happens thatnow they should be closer [to one another], now moredistant [from one another].

Smi. What did Torquato add to this?

THE. He immediately requested [details] about theproportion [magnitude] of the motion of the planets and of the earth.

Smi. And the Nolan had so much patience that, on seeingsuch a presumptuous and awkward fellow, he did not turnhis shoulders, and did not go home telling the one whoinvited him that -

THE. So he replied that he came neither to lecture nor toinstruct, but to reply, and that the symmetry, order andmeasure of the celestial motions is presupposed such as is,and has been known by ancients and moderns: and that hedoes not argue about that,21 and that the issue is not tolitigate against the mathematicians to undo theircalculations and theories to which he subscribes andbelieves in. Rather, his aim is about the nature and

verification of the subjects of these motions. [23. Bruno'sperformance as a physicist was not any better. ] In addition, the Nolansaid: if I were to take out time to answer this request, wewould be. here through the whole night without [havingany] disputation and without ever laying the foundations of our claims against the generally accepted philosophy. Forboth these [our opponents] and those [we] admit the samesuppositions so that a conclusion might be made about thetrue reason [amount] of the quantity and quality of

[heavenly] motions; and concerning these motions we arein accord. So why rack our brains apart from the topic? Seeit for yourselves, if from the observations that have beenmade and from the verifications that have been agreed to,you should be able to infer something that would lead to aconclusion against us; and then you have the liberty tocome forth with your condemnation [of us].



Smi.- enough to say that he was very much to the point.

22. Bruno's handling of geometry and of some subsequentpoints of astronomy should suggest that he would not havebeen able to discuss technicalities of Ptolcmaic astronomy.

THE. Now none of those around was so ignorant as not toshow with took and gesture that he realized that he[Torquato] was a big sheep aurati ordinis [of the goldenorder].

FRU. Id est [That is] of the [golden] fleece. [24. The reference isto the Order of the Golden Fleece. ]

THE. At any rate, to confuse the business, they imploredthe Nolan to explain that which he wanted to defend,because [then] the aforesaid doctor Torquato would engage

in argumentation. Replied the Nolan that he had given morethan enough explanation; and if the arguments of theopponent were scarce that was not due to the deficiency of the subject as should be evident to every blind man. Still,he again stated to them that the universe is infinite, and thatit consists of an immense ethereal region. There is in truthonly one heaven which is called space and bay flap], inwhich the so many stars are fixed, not otherwise than is theearth. And thus the moon, the sun, and other innumerablebodies are in that ethereal region in the same way as we seethe earth to be. And that one should not believe in anotherfirmament, in another base, in another foundation or kind of support for these grand animals which concur for theconstitution of the world. [This infinite world] is the truesubject and infinite material of the infinite divine actualpotency [power], as this was made well understood both byregulated reason and discourse and by the divine

revelations which state that there is no count of theministers of the Most High, to whom thousands of thousands assist and ten hundreds of thousands administer.[25. An allusion to Dan. 7:10. Bruno once more contradicts himself by using theScripture as a proof of a cosmological tenet, in this case of the alleged infinity of

the world. ] These are the great animals of which many, withthe clear light which emanates from their bodies, are fromall sides visible [to us]. Of which some are effectively hotas the sun and other innumerable fires [stars]; others are



cold as the earth, the moon, Venus, and other innumerableearths. [26. Unfortunately, not all statements of Bruno concerning the difference

between planets and stars are as clear as this.] These, in order tocommunicate with one another and to participate in oneanother's vital principle, complete their gyrations, at certainspaces, at given distances, some around others, as is evidentabout these seven that turn around the sun, of which the

earth is one that moves around in the space fpcriod] of 24hours from the side called west toward east: causing theappearance of that motion of the universe around it, whichis called the universal and diurnal motion. This imaginationis most false, is against nature and is impossible, since it ispossible, convenient, true and necessary that the earthshould move around its proper center to participate in thelight and darkness, [27. Bruno even seems to retain the Aristotelian notion

of darkness as something as positive as brightness.] day and night, hot and

cold. [And that it should move] around the sun forparticipation in spring, summer, fall and winter. [And that itshould move] toward the [points] called poles and oppositehemispherical points for the renewal of the ages, [28. Thisremark of Bruno evokes the,doctrine of the Great Year, or the eternal recurrence of

all at great intervals. It will be broached more in detail in the next Dialogue.] andfor a change of its [own] face, so that where the sea was,there be dry land, where the torrid [zone] was, be the cold[zone], where the tropical [zone) was, be the equinoctial;

and finally [29. These four motions of the earth will be discussed by Bruno in

the next Dialogue.], that vicissitude [continual transformation] bein all things, as in this [earth]; likewise in the others starswhich were called worlds, not without reason, by the trueancient philosophers.

Now as the Nolan said this, Doctor Torquato shouted: Ad

rem, ad rem, ad rem [To the point, to the point, to thepoint]. Finally, the Nolan began to laugh and said to him

that he did not argue, nor was he replying to him, but thathe submitted propositions to him; and, therefore, ista sunt

res, res, res [these are the points, points, points]. And hepressed Torquato hard to offer something ad rem [to thepoint].

Smi. Thinking that he was in the midst of blockheads andidiots, that jackass [Torquato] thought that they would let



this ad rem of this pass for an argument, and for a proof,and that he would satisfy the whole gathering with a meretinkle of his golden chain.

THE. Listen further. While all stayed there waiting for thatcoveted argument, Doctor Torquato, now turning to hisdining companions, draws from the depth of his self-

sufficiency and throws in their faces the Erastriian adage [:]ANTICIRAM NAVIGAT [30. See note 39 to the First Dialogue. ] [Heis sailing toward Anticyra].

Smi. A jackass could not have spoken better, and onecannot [indeed] hear other words when busy with jackasses.

THE. I believe he prophesied (though he himself did notmean his prophesy) that the Nolan went to make aprovision of hellebore [medicinal herb] to resolder [heal]

the brain of these barbarian fools.

Smi. If those present, courteous as they were, had beenmost courteous, [then] they would have put, instead of anecklace, a rope around his [the Nolan's] neck and wouldhave made him count forty bastinados in commemorationof the first day of Lent.

THE. The Nolan said to them that Doctor Torquato and not

he was mad, because he [Torquatol wears the necklace,[and] had Doctor Torquato not been wearing it, he certainlywould not be worth more than his vestments, which in turnwould be of little value unless thoroughly dusted withbastinados. And saying this he rose from the table,lamenting that Sir Fulke did not provide for better partners.

FRU. These were the products of England; and search asmuch as you wish, you find all of them to be doctors ingrammar in these days in which there rules in that happyrealm a constellation of pedantic, most obstinate ignoranceand presumption, mixed with a boorish impoliteness thatwould vitiate the patience of job, and if you do not believethis, go to Oxford and let them tell you the things thathappened to the Nolan. When he engaged in publicdisputation with those doctors in theology in the presenceof the Polish prince, Alasco [Laski], [31. See the Introduction.] and



of others of the English nobility. Let them tell you bow theymeant to reply to the arguments [of his], how for fifteentimes through fifteen syllogisms that chick stayed in thetow [of] that poor doCtor [32. The doctor or scholar in question can beidentified with some probability as John Underhill (c. 1545-1592), a prot6gi of

Lord Walsingham, chaplain to the Queen, and from 1589 bishop of Oxford. ] andlike the coryphaeus of the Academy [33. Leader of a dance andmusic group, or simply a leader. The Academy means the Aristotelian Oxford.]

feared to come forward in that grave situation? Let themtell you with what rudeness and discourtesy that pig[doctor] did proceed and with what patience and humannessdid that other, who in fact showed himself to be a native of Naples [34. Stich remarks speak for themselves.] and as one raisedunder a more benign sky? Let them inform you how theyforced him to finish his public lectures, those de

immortalitate animae [35. Since Bruno's views on the human soul werehardly in conformity with Christian tenets, his lectures had to be discontinued.]

[on the immortality of soul] and those de quinluplici sphera[36. Thc Oxonians expccted to hear about astronomy and not about I lermctism.]

[on the fivefold sphere]?

Smi. He who gives to pigs pearls [37. Biblical allusion; see Afat. 7:

6.] should not lament if they are trampled. Now continuewith the proposition of Torquato.

THE. As all rose from table, there were some who in their

own language accused the Nolan of being impatient,instead of having before their eyes the barbarous andboorish discourtesy of Torquato and of their own.Nevertheless, the Nolan, who believes in outdoing incourtesy those who can easily outdo him in [some] other[matter], controlled himself, and as if he had forgottenabout everything, he said amicably to Torquato:

Do not think, dear brother, that because of your views I

want to or may become your enemy; nay, I am as much afriend of yours as of myself. So that I want you to knowthat before taking this position as a most certain one, I heldit several years ago as simply true; when I was younger andless knowledgeable, I held it as something very likely.When I was more of a beginner in speculative things, I heldit so factually false that I wondered at Aristotle that notonly did he not disdain to consider it, but spent more than



half of the second book, [of] On the Hearens, in an effort todemonstrate that the earth does not move. When I was akid, and acted without speculative thinking, I held that tobelieve this [the motion of the earth] was sheer madnessand thought that it was advanced by some for the sake of sophistry and captious material [topic], and for the exerciseof those carefree minds, who wish to dispute for game's

sake, and who make a sport of proving and defending thatwhite is black. Therefore, I can hate you for this reasononly as much as myself, insofar as I was younger, morechildish, less wise, and less discreet [discerning]. Thus,instead of being obligated to be angry with you, I havecompassion for you, and I pray God that just as He gave methis knowledge, so (if it does not please him to make youcapable of seeing it), He may at least make you capable of admitting that you are blind. And this will be of no small

help, to make you more polite, and courteous, less ignorantand brazen. And you should still love me if not as one whois at present more prudent and older, at least as one whowas more ignorant and more juvenile when I was partly inmy more tender years, than you arc in your old age. I wantto say that although I have never conversed and disputed insuch a boorish, rude and discourteous manner, never-theless for a while I was as ignorant as you. Thus, I haveconsideration for your present state, [which is] similar tomy past state, and you for my past state, similar to yourpresent state, [and so] I will love you and you do [should]not hate me. [38. This profuse protestation of intellectual humility andfraternal compassion stands in strange contrast with the hardly polite epithetsheaped by Bruno on his opponents.]

Smi. And they, (after having engaged in another kind of dispute), what did they say to this?

THE. To make a long story short, that they werecompanions of Aristotle, of Ptolemy, and of many othermost learned philosophers; and the Nolan remarked thatthere are innumerable imbecile, senseless, stupid andignorant persons, who are in this regard not only thecompanions of Aristotle and of Ptolemy, but even more of themselves, [and] who are unable to grasp what the Nolanmeans, with whom not many do and can agree except those



divine and wisest men like Pythagoras, Plato and others; asto the multitude which boasts of having philosophers on itsside, I would that you consider that insofar as thesephilosophers are in agreement with the populace, they havemerely produced a popular philosophy. And in regard towhat pertains to [all of] you, who gather under the bannerof Aristotle, I advise you that you should not boast as if you

understood what Aristotle meant, and as if you penetratedwhat Aristotle penetrated: for there is an immensedifference between not knowing what he did not know, andknowing what he did know; because [on the points] wherethis philosopher was ignorant, he has for companions notonly you but all your kind, including the bargemen andstevedores of London. [On the points] where thatgentleman [Aristotle] was learned and judicious, I believeand am most certain that you all are far removed from

him.[39. Galileo, too, was to claim to himself a 'better-informcd Aristotle', a

c1car indication of the latter's enormous reputation.] About one thing Imarvel very much, [namely], that after you have beeninvited and come to dispute, you have never laid suchfoundations and submitted such reasons by which youcould in any manner reach a conclusion against me, oragainst Copernicus, though there are many [such] powerfularguments and feasonings.[40. With this remark Bruno reveals that hisreal aim was not a systematic defense of Copernicus, or else these 'many powerful

arguments and reasonings' against the motion of the earth would have beendiscussed by him. Clearly, for Bruno, Copernicus' doctrine was but a vehicle for

promoting his own I lermetic message.] Torquato, as if to wish now tounveil a most worthy proof, asked with [the air of] augustmajesty: UBI EST AUX [41. See note 5 to the Third Dialogue.] SOLIS?

[Where is the auge of the sun?] The Nolan replied that he mightimagine it to be wherever it pleases him for any conclusionhe might reach from it. For the auge changes and does notalways stay in the same point of the ecliptic, and he is

unable to see for what reason he asked this. In turn,Torquato asks the same question, as if the Nolan had notbeen able to answer it. Replied the Nolan[:] Quot sunt

sacramenta ecclesiae. Est circa vigesimum Cancri, et

oppositum circa decimum vel centesimum Capricorni [Howmany are the sacraments of the Church? Is (the auge)around the twentieth of Cancer: and opposite around thetenth or hundredth of Capricorn] or above the belfry of



Saint Paul.[?]

Smi. Would you know for what reason did he ask this?

THE. To show to those, who knew nothing, that he wasindeed disputing, and that he made a point, and, in addition,to go on trying so many quomodo, quae, ubi [how's, why's,where's], until he found one about which the Nolan wouldsay that he did not know [the answer]; until that [question]which was about how many are the stafs of the fourthmagnitude. But the Nolan said that he did not knowanything except what belonged to the topic. This inquiryabout the auge of the sun proves all in all that he [Torquato]was all too ignorant [to qualify] for disputation. To askftom one, who says that the earth moves around the sun,[and] that the sun stays fixed in the midst of these

wandering lights [planets], the question of where is theauge of the sun, is to the point as if one asked from anadherent of the ordinary appearances [immobility of theearth] where is the auge of the earth; at any rate, the firstlesson which is given to one who wants to learn to argue isthat one is not to search and ask according to one's ownprinciples, but according to the ones admitted by theopponent; but to this blockhead everything was the same;because in this manner he could derive arguments from

those assumptions that were to the point as well as fromthose that were beside the point.

Having concluded thisdiscourse they began toconsult among themselves inEnglish, and after they spentsome time together, thereappeared on the table a sheet

of paper and an inkwell.Doctor Torquato spread it outuntil it made a wide and longpage, took the pen in his hand,drew a straight line across themiddle of the page from oneside to the other [Fig. 7]; in themiddle he drew a circle, to



which the aforesaid line passing through the center formeda diameter) and inside of one of its semicircles he wroteTerra [42. This word and some others are missing in Figure 7, in conformity

with Bruno's carelessness with his diagrams.] [earth], and inside theother semicircle he wrote Sol [sun]. On the side of the[semicircle of the] earth he drew eight semicircles, wherethe symbols of the seven planets were [placed] in order, and

around the last [semicircle] there was written OCTAVASPHAERA MOBILIS [eighth movable sphere] and on themargin PTOLONIEUS. Meanwhile the Nolan said to himwhat he wanted to do with that which even children know?Torquato replied[:] Vide, tace, et disce; ego docebo te

Ptololveum et Copernicum [Look, listen, and learn: I willteach you Ptolemy and Copernicus].

Smi. Sus quandoque Minervam [43. Another example from Erasmus'

collection of dicta from classical antiquity. See note 39 to the First Dialogue.Minerva was the goddess of learning.] [Sometimes the pig (teaches)Minerva].

THE. The Nolan replied that when one writes [practices]the alphabet, it is a poor method to wish to teach grammarto one who knows more of it than does the former.Torquato went on making his diagram, and around the sun,which was in the middle, he drew seven semicircles with

similar symbols, writing around the last one SPHAERAINMOBILIS FIXARUM [Immobile sphere of the fixedstars], and on the margin: COPERNICUs. Then, he turnedto the third circle, and on a point of its circumference hemarked the center of an epicycle; having drawn itscircumference, he painted in its center the .globe of theearth and that no one should delude himself into thinkingthat it was not the earth, he wrote there in large characters,TERRA [earth]. [44. Here the text contradicts the diagram, where the little

dot on the epicycle stands for the earth.] And on a point of thecircumference of the epicycle, which was most distant fromthe center, [45. Here 'center' means the sun, in the center of the Copernican

half of the diagram.] he marked the symbol of the moon. Whenthe Nolan saw this, (he said) look, here he wants to teachme from Copernicus what Copernicus himself did notmean, and would rather have had his head cut off than tosay it or write it.[46. Copernicus stated and with a diagram illustrated



exactly the opposite of what Bruno now claims. In other words, Copernicusindicated (see transl. cit., p. 526) the earth's position in exactly the same way as

Torquato did.] Because the biggest jackass on earth wouldknow that from that part one would always see the diameterof the sun equal [the same] [47. Once more, Bruno states that Torquato

marked the center of the cpicycle as the position of the earth.] and othernumerous conclusions would follow that cannot be verified.Tace, tace [Be quiet, be quiet], said Torquato, tu vis me

docere Copernicum [you want to teach me Copernicus]? Icare little about Copernicus, said the Nolan, and I care littlethat you or others understand him;[48. Such boastings are rather rarein contemporary scientific literature which contains otherwise many unusual

statements.] but I want to remind you of this alone, that beforeyou come to instruct me another time, study better [thesubject]. The gentlemen there present showed so muchdiligence [interest] that the book of Copernicus was broughtin, and by looking at the figure they saw that the earth was

not marked on the circumference of the epicycle as was themoon, so that Torquato wanted that the point in the centerof the epicycle on the circumference of the third sphere wasdesignating the earth. [49. And this is precisely what Bruno stated a pageearlier concerning Torquato's procedure.]

Smi. The cause of the error was that Torquato has studiedthe figures [50. In fact, Torquato studied Copernicus' diagram far better than

Bruno did.] in that book, and has not read the chapters and

even if lie had, he did not understand them.

THE. The Nolan began to laugh and told him that this pointrepresented no other thing than the [fixed] point of thecompass as it traced out the epicycle of the earth, and of themoon which is one and the same. Or if you truly wish toknow where the earth is according to the meaning of Copernicus: read his own words. They read and found thatthe earth and the moon were as if carried by the same

epicycle,[51. Another misstatement of Bruno about Copernicus. Englishastronomers knew the point not only from Copernicus but also from the Englishtranslation of the passage in question which appeared in 1576 in an Appendixattached by Thomas Digges to the new edition of Prognostication euerlastinge, awork of his father, Leonard Digges. The passage reads as follows: 'Then followeththe great Orbe wherein the globe of mortalitye [the earth] inclosed in the MoonesOrbe as an Epicicle and holdynge the earth as a Centre by his owne waightrestinge alway permatiente, in the middest of the ayre is caryed rounde once in ayeare.' See the critical edition of that Appendix by Francis R. Johnson and SanfordV. Larkey, 'Thomas Digges, the Copernican System, and the Idea of Infinity of theUniverse in 1576' (The Huntington Library Bulletin, Number 5, April, 1934,



Cambridge, Mass., I larvard University Press, 1934), p. 87. ] etc. And sothey kept ruminating in their own language, until Nundinioand Torquato departed, having greeted all the others exceptthe Nolan. And he sent one right away that he greet themon his behalf. Those cavaliers after begging the Nolan thathe should not be upset because of the discourteousimpoliteness and brazen ignorance of their doctors; but that

be should have compassion over the poverty of thiscountry, which was left a widow by good letters [learning]concerning philosophy and real mathematics [astronomy](in which they are now all like blind men; [52. Contrary to Bruno,astronomy and other sciences stood at a respectable level in late sixteenth-ccnturyEngland, as clearly evidenced by carefully documented historical studies, such asFrancis R. Johnson, Astronomical Tbougbt in Renaissance England: A Study of lbe Englirb Scientific lFritingifrom 1500 to 1645 (Baltimore, The Johns HopkinsPress, 1937), and Antonia Mc Lcan, Humanism and The Rise of Science in Tudor

England (New York, Neale Watson Academic Publications, 1972).] [so] there

come these jackasses and present themselves as seers andoffer bladders for lanterns), they left him with most politesalutations and went on their way; we and the Nolanreturned home late along another route, withoutencountering these usual molestings, because the night wasvery dark, and the butting and kicking animals did notpester us on our way back as they did on our going,because, taking a deep rest, they were retired in theirsheepfolds and stables.

PRU.

It was night. Tired bodies were plucking quietsleepOver the lands, rested the forests and the violentSeas, as the stars were halfway through theirorb,And silent lay all meadows, animals etc.

[53. Aeneid, IV: 522-25.]

Smi. Now we have said enough today, please, Theophil,return tomorrow, because I want to understand some otherpoints about the doctrine of the Nolan. Because thisdoctrine of Copernicus, though convenient forcomputations, nevertheless is not safe and expeditious inregard to the natural [physical] reasons, which are theprincipal ones. [54. This remark of Smith makes it clear that the Fifth of last



Dialogue will be devoted to the explanation of the physical world by real, that is,physical causes. Bruno can now move 'far beyond' Copernicus. ]

THE. I shall gladly return another time.

FRU. I also.

PRu. Ego quoque. Valete [I, too. Good bye].

End of the Fourlb Dialogme

Copyright 1999, MATC

Last updated 1 September 1999

Documents

The Ash Wednesday Supper