All things are in the Universe, and the Universe is in all things
Campo de’ Fiori Square, Rome
Ash Wednesday 17th February 1600
He came across two crowd’s wings, wheeled out on a donkey when the clocks were striking six.
It’s a chilly dawn of the year of our Lord 1600, the year of the Jubilee imposed by Pope Clement
VIII as the brilliant witness to the glories of the renovated papacy.
He was a Monk, although he didn’t support any dogma. Hid did support free thought and research
with magnificent impudence.
Campo de’ Fiori is a popular marketplace in Rome. Within a healthy walking distance from the spot
where Julius Caesar was murdered, it is also the city’s execution ground.
He had to die before his thought went viral. Thus, he walked to the stake gagged, as the Monarch
sitting at St. Peter demanded.
Ash Wednesday is the primary day of Christian penance. Surely the festivity would be enhanced by
the execution of a great heretic.
The man who is going to be burned alive is Giordano Bruno (1548-1600). He was found guilty of
expressing non-dogmatic views on doctrinal, speculative, philosophical and scientific matters which
are all considered relevant to the Church. This is even complicated by the fact that he doesn’t fear
death as a martyr as he believes that “my soul will rise from the fire to the paradise.”
Let us hear a small yet significant piece of the process by the protagonist's lively voice:
Inquisitor:
Bruno’s point of view is different from the doctrine on a subtle yet fundamental aspect: He believes
in an endless Universe of endless creating that God needed, rather than a Universe that needed God.
As reported by one of his accusers:
At that time these extremely unorthodox ideas were a capital crime yet the philosopher had even
more shocking thoughts:
In all his thoughts, there seems to have been a major preoccupation: immensity—things infinitely
large and infinitely tiny, and all joined together in a kind of choral exultation.
The magic glue that keeps things together are the ideas: all the things that our senses perceive are
the result of ideas, which in turn are emanating from the universal intellect that contains them
infinitely and entirely.
From ideas, thoughts and works have been shaped to give a form to the matter. If the glue which keeps the Universe connected is therefore only one, Bruno concludes, necessarily all the things in
the world must then somehow share a common matrix: "only one order, only one government."
Bruno thus understands the existence of a universal order, maintained by an infinite chain of
connections that unites everything as part of a single organism.
The unfortunate Monk cannot be aware that four centuries later the whole world would be actually
connected to a chain of networks, much like he has foreseen in a distant past. Yet he believed that
we are far from understanding this process since ideas, the glues of the Universe, are shrouded and
"separate themselves in the act of wanting to understand".
In one of his works, “De umbris idearum” (“The shadow of ideas”), Bruno provides a description of
the illusory Universe:
"De umbris idearum" cover page
We thus live in a space in which each entity is imitation, image, a shadow of the ideal reality that
holds it. This space reflects the structure of the Universe contained in the human mind, which does
not have ideas but shadows of ideas. The human being can reach real knowledge, by using a
cognitive method that collapses the complexity of reality, to the basic idea’s structure that contains
everything.
Amazingly, Bruno Giordano predicted some concepts about the absolute relativity of space and
time, anticipating some fundamental pillars of the Theory of Relativity. These concepts will then be
resumed only in the last glimpse of the nineteenth century when fires were put out.
He was executed precisely for this reason: the fear that his innuendo could become infectious,
displaying the fallacy of a Church that still denied Copernicus and the sphericity of the Earth, and
feared the horizons that his thought could open to science, beyond the dogmatic superstitions. Afear that Bruno bitterly addressed to his judges when the death sentence was formally read to him,
on February 8, 1600:
A witness of these events is a statue that will be later erected in the place where he was executed.
His silent figure, clutching a book in manacled hands, twenty-four seven faces right towards the
Vatican Hill.
Ash Wednesday 17th February 1600
He came across two crowd’s wings, wheeled out on a donkey when the clocks were striking six.
It’s a chilly dawn of the year of our Lord 1600, the year of the Jubilee imposed by Pope Clement
VIII as the brilliant witness to the glories of the renovated papacy.
He was a Monk, although he didn’t support any dogma. Hid did support free thought and research
with magnificent impudence.
Campo de’ Fiori is a popular marketplace in Rome. Within a healthy walking distance from the spot
where Julius Caesar was murdered, it is also the city’s execution ground.
He had to die before his thought went viral. Thus, he walked to the stake gagged, as the Monarch
sitting at St. Peter demanded.
Ash Wednesday is the primary day of Christian penance. Surely the festivity would be enhanced by
the execution of a great heretic.
The man who is going to be burned alive is Giordano Bruno (1548-1600). He was found guilty of
expressing non-dogmatic views on doctrinal, speculative, philosophical and scientific matters which
are all considered relevant to the Church. This is even complicated by the fact that he doesn’t fear
death as a martyr as he believes that “my soul will rise from the fire to the paradise.”
Let us hear a small yet significant piece of the process by the protagonist's lively voice:
Inquisitor:
"I hear from you Bruno describing an endless Universe of endless creating."
Bruno: "I hold to an infinite Universe, as who denies the infinite effect denies the infinite power."
Bruno’s point of view is different from the doctrine on a subtle yet fundamental aspect: He believes
in an endless Universe of endless creating that God needed, rather than a Universe that needed God.
As reported by one of his accusers:
“He said that God needed the world as much as the world
needed God and that God would be nothing without the world, and for this reason, God did nothing but created countless worlds.”
At that time these extremely unorthodox ideas were a capital crime yet the philosopher had even
more shocking thoughts:
“All things are in the Universe, and the Universe is in all things: we are in it, and it is in us: and in this way, everything harmonizes in perfect unity.”
In all his thoughts, there seems to have been a major preoccupation: immensity—things infinitely
large and infinitely tiny, and all joined together in a kind of choral exultation.
The magic glue that keeps things together are the ideas: all the things that our senses perceive are
the result of ideas, which in turn are emanating from the universal intellect that contains them
infinitely and entirely.
From ideas, thoughts and works have been shaped to give a form to the matter. If the glue which keeps the Universe connected is therefore only one, Bruno concludes, necessarily all the things in
the world must then somehow share a common matrix: "only one order, only one government."
Bruno thus understands the existence of a universal order, maintained by an infinite chain of
connections that unites everything as part of a single organism.
The unfortunate Monk cannot be aware that four centuries later the whole world would be actually
connected to a chain of networks, much like he has foreseen in a distant past. Yet he believed that
we are far from understanding this process since ideas, the glues of the Universe, are shrouded and
"separate themselves in the act of wanting to understand".
In one of his works, “De umbris idearum” (“The shadow of ideas”), Bruno provides a description of
the illusory Universe:
“Our world is made of shadows. These shadows, though not true, derive from the truth and lead to the truth; As a consequence, you do not have to believe that there is a mistake in it, but that is simply the shelter of the truth.”
We thus live in a space in which each entity is imitation, image, a shadow of the ideal reality that
holds it. This space reflects the structure of the Universe contained in the human mind, which does
not have ideas but shadows of ideas. The human being can reach real knowledge, by using a
cognitive method that collapses the complexity of reality, to the basic idea’s structure that contains
everything.
Amazingly, Bruno Giordano predicted some concepts about the absolute relativity of space and
time, anticipating some fundamental pillars of the Theory of Relativity. These concepts will then be
resumed only in the last glimpse of the nineteenth century when fires were put out.
He was executed precisely for this reason: the fear that his innuendo could become infectious,
displaying the fallacy of a Church that still denied Copernicus and the sphericity of the Earth, and
feared the horizons that his thought could open to science, beyond the dogmatic superstitions. Afear that Bruno bitterly addressed to his judges when the death sentence was formally read to him,
on February 8, 1600:
“Perhaps your fear in passing judgment on me is greater than mine in receiving it.”
A witness of these events is a statue that will be later erected in the place where he was executed.
His silent figure, clutching a book in manacled hands, twenty-four seven faces right towards the
Vatican Hill.
