Presenting Giordano Bruno, the enigmatic mystic who bet his soul against the Catholic Church. Who was he, and why was he killed? The famous Renaissance martyr, but a martyr for what? Watch the Full Video here: The Real Story of Giordano Bruno https://youtu.be/wy_OTBVvfKA
00:00 Who was Giordano Bruno? 00:41 Martyr for what? 01:13 Missing Documents 01:50 What was Bruno’s Heresy? 02:32 False Dichotomy? 03:22 Two New Questions 05:17 Master of Memory 06:18 Memory Games 07:48 The Gamble Pays off 08:46 Silencing the Eternal Poem 10:13 Invitation
"I've been fascinated with Bruno since I was a girl and read a quote of his about the nature of the stars and possibility of other worlds. I don't think he returned to Italy for just one reason. He hinted many times that he thought the fire was his fate. Perhaps, he wanted to challenge a church that had hounded his footsteps for far too long. Perhaps, he had grown tired of running. I do not agree he was arrogant as some think. I think it was just the opposite. I have wondered, at times, if he wasn't a wounded soul trying to find union within himself. Mystics live by a different set of rules than most people and Bruno definitely was a mystic. I agree, he was looking for a holistic worldview."
Vacillating, intriguing, and tragic; if I were to ascribe three words to the life of Giordano Bruno it would undoubtedly be these. I suspect many know of this stories fiery denouement, but if you are interesting in discovering how Giordano Bruno, searching and wondering, transformed from priest to philosophical martyr for free speech and tolerance of differences then give me 10 minutes of your time.
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Music: "Solstice" - Scott Buckley "Breathing Planet" - Doug Maxwell
Giordano Bruno (Latin: Iordanus Brunus Nolanus; born Filippo Bruno, January or February 1548 – 17 February 1600) was an Italian philosopher, mathematician, poet, cosmological theorist, and Hermetic occultist. He is known for his cosmological theories, which conceptually extended the then novel Copernican model. He proposed that the stars were distant suns surrounded by their own planets, and he raised the possibility that these planets might foster life of their own, a cosmological position known as cosmic pluralism. He also insisted that the universe is infinite and could have no "center".
While Bruno began as a Dominican friar, during his time in Geneva he embraced Calvinism. Bruno was later tried for heresy by the Roman Inquisition on charges of denial of several core Catholic doctrines, including eternal damnation, the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, the virginity of Mary, and transubstantiation. Bruno's pantheism was not taken lightly by the church, nor was his teaching of the transmigration of the soul (reincarnation). The Inquisition found him guilty, and he was burned at the stake in Rome's Campo de' Fiori in 1600. After his death, he gained considerable fame, being particularly celebrated by 19th- and early 20th-century commentators who regarded him as a martyr for science, although most historians agree that his heresy trial was not a response to his cosmological views but rather a response to his religious and afterlife views. However, some historians do contend that the main reason for Bruno's death was indeed his cosmological views. Bruno's case is still considered a landmark in the history of free thought and the emerging sciences.
In addition to cosmology, Bruno also wrote extensively on the art of memory, a loosely organized group of mnemonic techniques and principles. Historian Frances Yates argues that Bruno was deeply influenced by the Empedocles, Neoplatonism, Renaissance Hermeticism, and Genesis-like legends surrounding the Hellenistic conception of the Egyptian god Hermes Tresmigestus. Other studies of Bruno have focused on his qualitative approach to mathematics and his application of the spatial concepts of geometry to language.
