"I don't know when, but I know that many
We have come into this century to develop arts and sciences, to place the seeds of the new culture that will flourish, unexpected, sudden, just when power will delude itself that it has won."

- Giordano Bruno

### Origins and Religious Life (1548-1576)

Filippo Bruno (who would later take the name Giordano) was born in **Nola**, near Naples, in **1548**. At just 17 years old, in 1565, he entered the Dominican convent of San Domenico Maggiore in Naples, where he was ordained a priest in 1572. His restless nature and critical spirit, however, soon led him to doubt Catholic dogmas (such as the Trinity and transubstantiation), drawing accusations of heresy. In **1576** he was forced to flee Naples, abandoning his religious habit and beginning a long exile.

### The European Wanderings (1576-1591)

Thus began a period of wanderings that took him to many of the major European cities: Geneva, Toulouse, Paris, London, Wittenberg, Prague, and Frankfurt. During these years he taught and wrote fundamental works. In London, between 1583 and 1585, he published his famous Italian dialogues in which he expounded his thought: an **infinite universe populated by countless worlds**, going beyond Copernicus's closed conception, and a philosophical vision in which God is identified with the universe itself.

### The Return, the Trial, and Death (1591-1600)

In **1591** he accepted an invitation from the Venetian nobleman Giovanni Mocenigo and returned to Italy. Soon, however, Mocenigo, perhaps disappointed or frightened by the philosopher's ideas, **denounced him to the Inquisition**. Bruno was arrested in Venice in 1592 and, after a trial, was extradited to Rome in 1593. The Roman trial lasted seven years. To save his life, he was repeatedly asked to recant his ideas, but he steadfastly refused.

On February 17, 1600, after the sentence was read, he addressed his judges with a phrase that went down in history: *"Perhaps you who pronounce my sentence are in greater fear than I who receive it"*. He was burned at the stake in Rome, in **Campo de' Fiori**, where today a statue stands in his memory, erected in 1889.