CHAPTER IV

WANDERINGS THROUGH ITALY. NAPLES TO GENEVA (1576-79)
It was a common thing in those days for monks to wander from district to district and even from country to country. By this means the individual monk was enabled to see men and cities and enlarge his mind, while, at the same time, he got exercise and improved his health ; the monastic com- munity, too, benefited by interchange of ideas and was enlivened by news from the outer world. The doors of a monastery were always kept wide open to a wandering brother of the order ; so Bruno, escaped from Naples, would find no difficulty in obtaining hospitality. He boldly claimed it at the actual headquarters of his order. The church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva stands on the site of a ruined temple, opposite another which has only been robbed of its gilded tiles and its gods : it and its famous monastery con- front the yet more famous temple of Agrippa.
He was not left there long in peace. "I learned," he says, " that, after I left Naples, certain works of St Chrysostom and St Jerome containing the forbidden annota- tions of Erasmus, which I had secretly used and thrown into the privy when I came away to prevent their being found, were discovered." ^
Erasmus had " laid the egg of the Reformation " ; in
1527, Edward Lee, afterwards Archbishop of York,
extracted twenty-one heretical opinions from his writings.
^ Doc. xitj. 34
WANDERINGS THROUGH ITALY 35
The veneration due to the saintly fathers of the Church had not prevented the Congregation of the Index from prohibiting the works of Chrysostom and Jerome, so here lay a two-fold fault.
Mocenigo, who, later, denounced Bruno to the Inquisition, made a curious statement. Bruno " told me that the Inquisition sought a quarrel with him in Rome on 130 points, and that he made off while they were being pre- sented because he was credited with throwing the informer, or the man whom he believed to be such, into the Tiber." * The Inquisitors absolutely ignored this statement ; so, clearly Bruno was innocent of the crime. Mocenigo was a spiteful person, not over scrupulous or exact in his state- ments, while Bruno was no liar or vain braggart. It is difficult, however, judging from other statements made by Mocenigo, to believe that this one was wholly a gratuitous invention. The recently discovered manuscript-diary in the Biblothfeque Nationale contains the following passage. "7th Dec. [1585]. Jordanus came again. . , . He has been an exile from Italy eight years, as much by reason of a murder committed by his brother, whereby he incurred hatred and peril of life, as to escape the calumnies of Inquisitors, who are ignorant men, and, not understanding his philosophy, declare him to be a heretic." ^
Probably the man who made this entry was Guillaume Cotin, Librarian to the Abbey of St Victor. If so, he was old and ill at the time. Whoever he was, the diarist did not always catch Bruno's remarks, or his memory failed him. But he was a scrupulously precise person. If he cannot catch a name, he leaves it out ; if he suspects that it is incorrectly caught, he erases it.* Possibly a brother of
» Doc. I.
' M.S. Fr. 20309, fol. 354, V. sqq. Auvray, L. ; oj). cit., sub Dec. jth. ° Auvray, L. ; op. cit.
36 GIORDANO BRUNO
Bruno was concerned in some " taking off" so common in Italy, and especially common in Southern Italy, in those days. But, if so, how did it affect Giordano ? Was it con- nected with the citation for heresy ? Was there danger of vendetta ? Was there influence at work, or something con- nected with the case which would fatally weight the minds of Bruno's superiors ? It is an inviting puzzle ; but the data are imperfect; and ingenious and plausible hypo- theses are nearly always exploded on the discovery of fresh facts.
He contrived to get away from the gathering storm. He cast his monkish garb aside, resumed his baptismal, name of Philip and was no longer known as Jordanus while he remained in Italy.^ He made his way over the three hundred miles or more which lay between Rome and the Republic of Genoa, where bloody faction-fights and the long struggle of the various classes of the city for mastery still prevailed. The Genoese, whom Dante denounced as barbarians,* were ever more famous for their quarrels and commercial enterprise than for their encouragement of learning, and there was little inducement to a scholar to remain in that unquiet city. He observed one thing with scornful amusement : it so struck him that he refers to it twice.^ "At Genoa I saw the monks of [S. Maria di] Costello exhibit a tail with a veil over it, and making folk kiss it, saying, ' don't touch : kiss it ; this is the holy relic of that blessed ass which was made worthy to bear our God from Mount Olivet to Jerusalem. Worship it, kiss it — and give alms. Ye shall receive an hundred fold* and inherit eternal life.' " ^ Bruno must have been accustomed to miracles in Naples such as the liquefaction of the blood of
^oc. xiij. " Inferno, xxxiij,
I Candelajo, A (to I, Sc. i.; Spaccio, III, ij.
lark, X. 30. ' Matth., xix, 29.
WANDERINGS THROUGH ITALY 37
St Januarius, which still continues to take place four times yearly, and we shall find him ready to accept strange things as due to natural causes, not yet explained. But this base, mercenary fraud was too much for his credulity : it symbolized the " asinity " he despised.
On the Riviera Ponente, between thirty and forty miles from Genoa, lies Noli. It is a quaint, ancient little coast- town, at the head of a rocky gulf, embosomed in vineyards and backed by picturesque mountains which almost encircle it and are close beyond its high walls. It was then a prosperous little place, governing itself under the protection of the Genoese Republic. " Here," says Bruno, " I sup- ported myself during four or five months by teaching grammar to children ^ and the sphere to certain men of condition."^ The subject of Astronomy was then called " The Sphere," because the earth was supposed to be the central kernel of a series of transparent spheres, enclosing the sun, moon, planets and fixed stars — spheres for the metaphysical reason that the circle is the perfect figure. These spheres were supposed to revolve round the earth with uniform motion, because that is the most perfect rate of velocity. Such questions as the exact situation of heaven and the precise nature of the divine ideas embodied in the skies were included in teaching " The Sphere." It was a popular subject for writing about and lecturing on, and ladies as well as men read papers on it at the literary clubs — the Italian "Academies." Probably Bruno taught these " gentlemen of condition " more concerning " The Sphere" than was expected from him.
For reasons which he does not give, he turned back a
few miles to Savona, the former rival of Genoa, and, even
then, a busy port. It probably provided Bruno with little
more than pleasant prospects amid gardens of orange and
' Doc, vij. ''■ Doc. ix.
38 GIORDANO BRUNO
lemon trees ; for, at the end of fifteen days, he made for Turin, the capital of Piedmont.^ There is a curious story that a fourth process against the fugitive monk was issued at Vercelli by the Genoese Republic.^ The statement is far from inconceivable, but it comes from a suspected source ; it is said to have been derived from the sentence of the Inquisition, a document which was non-producible at the time the assertion was made.^
Turin was then under Filiberto Emmanuele, one of the most enlightened monarchs of a line which, during ten centuries, has proved itself the astutest of the ruling houses of Europe. The reigning duke fostered both science and literature, and, a few years before, had reconstituted the University, making it one of the first in Italy. No town in Europe is built on so regular a plan as Turin is : Bruno found it a city of delight,* " but, getting no satisfactory sustenance there, I came down the Po to Venice, where I put up a month and a half in Frezzaria " ^ — the lane of shops at the end of the great piazza, opposite St Mark's.
To the eye, all was bright; the carvings on splendid palaces gave evidence of the taste, the wealth and the pride of Venice; every uncarved wall was resplendent with the noble designs of some great master, wet and new, or, at least, still unflaked and unfaded, and the canals below re- flected their gorgeous hues. But Venice was in a terrible state within. For two long years plague had devastated the city, carrying off 42,000 people, the aged Titian among them. Venice offered a fairly safe asylum from the Inquisi- tion, however ; yet how should Bruno live ? In that frank
' Doc. ix.
» De Martinis, Raffaele ; G. B., Napoli, 1886, p. 12.
' Cfr. AM della R. Ace. delle sc. mor. e pol, Napoli, XXIV, pp. 468-69; Archiv.f. Gesch. d. Phil., iv,pp. 348-50. See also chapter XX of this work.
• Spaccio, in, ij. ' Doc. ix.
WANDERINGS THROUGH ITALY 39
succinct account of his days which he gave to the inquisitors, we read : " Whilst there, in order to furnish me with a few pieces to live on, I got a book printed, entitled ' The Signs of the Times.' But I shewed it first to the Revd. Father Master Remigio of Florence," ^ a monk of Bruno's own order, who had gained distinction because of his learning and his version of the Psalms.^
Probably Bruno now made up his mind to try for better fortune in France, where Italians were well received and Italian influence was paramount. He continues : " Leaving Venice, I went on to Padua, where I found some Dominican fathers of my acquaintance. They persuaded me to wear my habit again, showing me that it was more convenient to travel with than without it. With this idea in my mind, I went to Bergamo and had a robe made of cheap white cloth, and over this I wore the scapular which I kept with me when I left Rome." ' It was common enough for monks to doff the habit and don the gayest attire ; but they were bound to retain the scapular : to cast this aside was re- garded as a very serious offence.
On the road to Bergamo, while resting at Brescia, he seems to have found a monk shut up because he had given way to a prophetic impulse : the poor brother thought him- self a great theologian and spake with tongues. Bruno gave him vinegar and polypod and restored him to the brethren, " the same ass that he was before." * So did .^neas Silvius cure a demoniac with a little necessary • medicine.
We know that he visited Milan, for he tells us that it was in that place that he first heard of a future friend and helper,
1 Doc. ix.
» Scriptores Ordinis Pradicatorum, II, p. 259, referred to by Berti, pp. TI.-T2. of the edition of 1868.
a jjgc, ix. ' Sigillus Sigillorum, § 48.
40 GIORDANO BRUNO
Sir Philip Sidney, "that very illustrious and excellent cavalier, whose acute spirit, not to speak of his renowned manners, is so rare that it were difficult to find his like out- side Italy; or within it."^ Sidney had been travelling in Italy two or three years before, unattended by the usual bear-leader ; he studied at Padua and, at Venice, got Paul Veronese to paint his portrait. Italy was the indispensable but highly dangerous finishing school for the courtier in manners, letters, art and life. Roger Ascham tells us that the Englishman usually returned " worse transformed than ever was any in Circe's Court," and that during the nine days which he himself spent in Venice, he found " more liberty to sin than ever I heard tell of in our noble city of London in nine years." Sidney wrote to Languet that if the Turks should conquer Italy " its vile allurements would so 'ensnare them that they would tumble down without being pushed." Sidney appears to have been one of the very few who " listened to the enchantment of the Siren's song untouched."
Bruno made his way over the snows of Mont Cenis with the intention of trying his fortune at Lyons. At the end of the long, deep, inhospitable valley along which the mule- track wound above the rushing waters of the Arc, he came to an inviting, fertile region, where, built beside two rivers and between two hills, lay the capital of Savoy. A Dominican monastery was built at Chamb^ry thirty years before; but he found no very kindly reception thereat. He complained to an Italian monk who chanced to be there at the time and who replied, " I forewarn you that you will get no civility in these parts, and, the farther you go, the less you will find of it." " Whereupon, Bruno decided to leave the route for Lyons and take the one to Geneva.
' Cena, Dial. II. '^ Doc. ix.