CHAPTER XIII

AT WITTENBERG. WORKS PRINTED OR WRITTEN THERE
The Clerk to the Inquisitorial Court, taking down Bruno's words, writes : " In the first instance I betook me to Mez, alias Magonza, a city of the Archbishop who is first Elector of the Empire." ^ He undertook a journey of between four and five hundred miles along roads neither very easy nor very safe to Mainz (Magonza being a corruption of Mogun- tiacum, the Latin name for the city, itself derived from Mogons, the local god of the Kelts when they held sway in that district). " Here I stayed twelve days ; but not find- ing such means of subsistence as I required either here or at Vispure (Wiesbaden),^ which is not far off", I went on to Wittenberg in Saxony." Bruno omits to mention that his philosophic mission first led his steps to a university situated in the picturesque town of Marburg. The en- lightened mind of Melancthon had liberated the human spirit, to some extent, in Protestant Germany. Perhaps he will fare better there than he did at either Geneva or Oxford,
Marburg lies on a hill crowned by a fine castle overlook- ing the Lahn, which flows below. Bruno would observe the beautiful church erected in the thirteenth century to contain the bones of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, a new town-hall and
1 Doc. IX.
* Brunnhofer ; G. B's Weltanschauung und Verhdngniss, Leipzig, 1882, says that the peasants round about Wiesbaden call it Wisbare.
I9S
196 GIORDANO BRUNO
renaissance palaces ; but his interest lay in the university, founded 59 years before (1527) by Philip the Landgrave. Here surely he would be welcomed ; for not only was it the first German university to be established by a prince and independently of papal privileges, but at this time it was under the protection and patronage of William the Wise, Land- grave of Hesse-Cassel. German universities usually re- flected the fanaticism, moderation or policy of the reigning prince.'' William was a man of independent mind and interested in Astronomy.^ Much might be hoped for. How much of that hope was fulfilled remains recorded in the rolls of Marburg students. Petrus Nigidius, Rector of the University, wrote therein : " Jordanus Nolanus Neapolitanus, Doctor in Roman Theology, 25 July, year 86. -The right of teaching philosophy in public having, for weighty reasons, been refused to him by me with the consent of the rest of the Philosophic Faculty, he blazed forth and insulted me in my house, as though I had acted in this matter contrary to the law of nations, the usages of German Universities and every exercise of the Humanities. And, on that account, he refused to remain a member of the University. His desire was readily granted and his name erased from the university-roll." ^ In a letter to the University of Witten- berg Bruno complains of having been restrained from lectur- ing publicly: a right recognised and used by all nations.*
Marburg was too fiercely Protestant to likten to one who inscribed himself " doctor in Roman theology." It had been the scene of the famous "Colloquy" or contest between Luther, Zwingli, Melancthon and other theological experts concerning transubstantiation.^
• Kolbe; Marburgh in Mittelalter, Marb., 1879. " G. B ; Orat. Valedict. ^X.
' Vide Berti, op. cit., cap. XI, II Bruno in Marburgo, where the document is reproduced.
♦ De Lamp. Combin. ^ Kolbe ; op. cit.
AT WITTENBERG I 97
At some later time the name, through which Nigidius ran his pen, was restored, and the words " with the consent of the rest of the Philosophic Faculty " were crossed out.
Probably the unfortunate wanderer was induced to try for better fortune at Wittenberg by the fact that a Neapolitan whom he had known in England — no other than Alberico Gentile, the jurist — was now lecturing there. " He gave me his support," says Bruno, " and introduced me to lecture on the ' Organon ' of Aristotle." ^ Bruno had arrived at a seat of learning which, at this time, gave more liberty to philo- sophical discussion than any other ; and students from all parts of Europe, including many Catholics, especially young Austrian noblemen and Poles, were to be found studying there.^ The professors received him cordially, and he was allowed to take private pupils on account of his poverty. Such a welcome, following on the one he got at Marburg, filled him with gratitude, which, after he had resided about a year in the city, he expressed with dignity, yet not with- out an undertone of pathos.' In 1 587 he printed an enlarged and improved edition of his "Compendious Architecture," issued to the world five years before. This is entitled "The Lullian Combination-Lamp," and is dedicated to the senate of the University, " You have received and maintained me," he writes, " you have dealt kindly with me up to this day. I was a stranger to you, a fugitive from the tumults in France, undistinguished by any royal recommendation, bearing no ensigns of honour, unproved and unquestioned as to your faith. Finding in me no hostility (for my desire is to follow the peaceful path of good will to all men), my sole claim the profession of philosophy and pupildom in the
1 Doc. IX.
^ Meynert ; Geschicht. d. Stadt Wittenberg, Dessau, 1845. "Stay with us ; go not to Wittenberg." " What make you from Witten- berg, Horatio." Hamlet, Act I, sc. ii.
» De Lampade Combinatoria, Dedicatio.
198 GIORDANO BRUNO
temple of the Muses, you took me heartily as a guest, and descried my name worthy to be written in the book of your university and myself to be numbered with the loftiest and most learned among you. Wherefore I must acknowledge this great University, this German Athens, as no mere private school or ordinary guild of scholars, and as my very own." He names professor after professor, among them Grijn, who held that theology cannot stand apart from metaphysic,^ with accompanying remarks of respect and even of admiration.
The University, which later on was incorporated with Halle, was founded in 1502, and had been the abode of Luther, who spent half his days there and who, like Bruno now, lectured on the ' Organon ' as well as on Dialectic, and later, on theology. Bruno never before breathed so free an atmosphere as Wittenberg had generally enjoyed since Luther's days up to those when he first came there : there was no small measure of such religious toleration and philosophic liberty as the sixteenth century understood. " For a brief space," sang Pindar, " hath opportunity for men ; but of him it is known surely when it cometh and he waiteth thereon, a servant but no slave." ^ In his ofificial capacity the new professor would seem to have lectured on Rhetoric among other subjects ; for what is supposed tp be the notes of his teaching — a summary of the Ad Alexandritm, falsely ascribed to Aristotle, together with outlines of argu- ments and synonyms to be used by speakers — was printed by John Henry Alsted, who acquired them in 1610.^ The first part of the work is nothing but a digest ; the second part, " The Art Of Making A Speech," is a kind of memoria technica, with arguments and synonyms ready for use. But
1 Mclntyre ; op. cii., p. 54. ^ Pindar, Ode IV.
' Artificium perorandi traditum a J. B. Nolani Italo. Franco/. 1612.
AT WITTENBERG I 99
he also employed himself very fully in more congenial and important work. The first volume printed at Witten- berg in 1587 has been already mentioned. The art of LuUy was in high favour with Germans at that time.^ " The Combined LuUian Lamp " had the double purpose of helping the thinker to find out all that was discoverable by sheer thought and of enabling the speaker to be ready in a discussion on any subject. The subtle distinctions made by the schoolmen had not advanced knowledge, however much they had provided a training ground for the mind, and Bruno and the men of his age, while they were discon- tented with ancient methods, had not yet learned the exact limitations of formal logic. Bruno loudly claimed for his Lullian method that it would be found a means of arriving at general causes and of enabling the reader to acquire much knowledge of different kinds as well as to retain all in his memory.
There followed the "Advance And Hunter's Lamp Of Logical Matters," ^ a work of a similar character, dedicated to the Chancellor of the University. It has two parts, intended to be of logical and mnemonic value, and, like the works dealt with above, it embodies a portion of Bruno's teaching at Wittenberg. It is worthy of note that he main- tains that the Divinity does not impart its own real nature. " In universal propositions, no one but a fool, even at the end of all his study, would maintain that he had achieved perfect knowledge. Aristotle himself, who, of all philo- sophers, ascribed power to the human mind, observed that the ultimate nature and differences of things transcend our faculties and are not to be rendered in our language; for the organ of our understanding is as impotent to discern
> Brucker, J. J ; Hist. Crit. Phil., V, p. 24.
^ De Progressu et Lampade Venatona Logicorum, Vitehergcs, 1587.
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them as is the eye of a nocturnal bird turned towards the sun."
In the same year appeared a much more important work entitled /. B. Nolani Camceracensis Acrotismus seu rationes articuloruin physicorum adversus Aristotelicos. It is not possible to render into English the full implications of this title. Aristotle's treatise on cosmology is headed ^ ^. aKp6acn logy. But Acrotismus conveys a double, perhaps a triple signification : it shows that Bruno possessed far more than the little Greek indicated in the " Ash Wednesday Supper." ^K/joTTj? and uKpoaTrj'; are also words used by Aristotle; the first means an extremity, a height or summit ; the second, one who comes to hear a discourse.'^ In fact the Acrotismus is a reprint of the " Hundred And Twenty Articles," with the addition of the defence of them intended to have been made at the College of Cambrai. Camcera- censis is a doubly barbarous Latinization, the interpreta- tion of which has been given already.^ The title of the work might be freely translated as " The Cosmology of Giordano Bruno the Nolan, of the Cambrai ; or the arguments of articles on physics against the Peripa- tetics." ^
The work opens with a letter " to the Parisians and other philosophers of the most generous Kingdom of France and to friends and defenders of the philosophy of direct per- ception." Probably Bruno had not learned that Henry announced on January ist that he did not intend to observe the Edict of Beaulieu which granted the toleration of Pro- testants ; but he would know that the French King was in
1 Aristot. ; Plant, 2, 9, 12 ; Pol, 2, 12, 9. ^ See page 61, n. 3.
' We read " e regione gymnasii Cameracensis " and " prope col- legium Cameracense " in the De Umbris and De compendiosa Archi- tectura respectively ; both works being printed by Gorbin.
AT WITTENBERG 201
universal odium. Yet his gratitude to the Valois was so great that the next item in the book is a reprint of his letter to Henry which had been prefixed to the " Hundred And Twenty Articles," the only change being the substitution of " most powerful King " for " greatest among Kings." The epistle to Filesac follows, with " The Awakener." Then come the important theses. The defence of these is very soberly put : there must be unalterable, universal meanings in Nature ; ^ the " matter " of Aristotle is a mere logical abstraction ; ^ body limits space and not space body ; space is room for movement and must be infinite;* he agrees with Aristotle that space is filled ; * movement in space is the measure of time and not time the measure of motion ; ^ we know duration through change ; ® division to infinity cannot be accepted, for a mathematical line is not infinite, only it may be indefinitely produced and is no sum, and we must stop at minimal bodies in physics, although they are too small to be apparent to sense ; ' there must be an internal change in the inert to cause movement,® and the First Mover is not outside but within the entire universe, which is for ever moving, vegetating and living.* Tocco thinks he came closer to a clear conception of the laws which govern motion than did any man of his time.^" Bruno speaks of the ether as ungenerated, incorruptible and immeasurable.^^ So far as he regards it physically, his conception of this enigmatic substance pretty closely resembles that which was accepted in the later half of the last century. But he may have sup- posed it to be a sort of sublimated, spiritual body of the Soul of the World.
^ Art. i. ^ Art. ij. ^ Art. xxix-xxxi.
* Art. xxxiij. ' Compare the modern view of Bergson.
^ Art. xxxix. '' Art. xlij. ' Art. xlvi.
' Art. xlviij. " Art. Ixv.
" Tocco, F ; Op. lat. di G. B. esposte etc., Fir, 1889, p. 118.
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It was Bruno's habit to employ a pupil as copyist. In the Augustan Library at Erlangen there exist two codices of " Aristotle's Physics explained." ^ One of these is in an unknown handwriting; the other was written later by Besler, of whom more anon. This work, with all other manuscript treatises by Bruno, has been published recently at the charge of the Italian people.^ Vitelli thinks it is the substance of lectures given at Wittenberg, but Stoltzle and Tocco believe it to belong to the period when he lectured at Paris.' Bruno introduces a good deal of his own teaching into this tractate, which deals with Aristotle's " Physics," " Generation And Corruption " and a part of his " Meteor- ology."
He also dictated a still more important work at Witten- berg, " The Lamp Of Thirty Statues," * of which there is at Erlangen both an earlier and a later and less correct copy, the latter done by Besler at Padua. This " Lamp " is referred to in a work which was published at Prague in 1588* as the " Lampas Caballisttca," "The Caballistic Lamp," "a work to appear shortly"; but it has only been printed recently. It is a logical and mnemonic work, some- what on Lullian lines and not barren of Neo-Platonic specu- lation. It was intended to provide an instrument for the discovery of truth ; the arrangement and much of the thought in it appears mechanical and artificial to the modern reader, but its fantastic " types," " images " etc. were calcu- lated to popularise it at the time. The author avails himself of Aristotelian conceptions; but it is obvious that he is
1 Libri Physicorum Anstotelis, a clariss. Dr. D. J. B. N. explanati. Codices 1215 and 1279.
^ Stats edition, Op. lat., cura Tocco &-» Vitelli, vol. iij.
' Vide Vitelli, G. B. op. lat., vol. iij ; Stoltzle ; Archiv fUr Gesch. d. Phil., 1890, p. 387 sqq.; Tocco ; Op. ined. di G. B., p. 99.
* Lampas Triginta Statuarum ; State ed., vol, iij.
' De Specierum Scrutinis.
AT WITTENBERG 203
developing his own line of thought and devising a theory of the atomic constitution of the material world. Sometimes he uses " language of accommodation " with philosophic purpose, clothing his own views in the vestments of current orthodox Christianity. All things " are accidents of one substance," which is " essence of essences, soul of souls, nature of nature," from which all things proceed and wherein they coincide. The Trinity becomes a philosophic concept ; the Father is Substance ; the Son, Universal Intellect ; the Spirit, the Soul of the World ; or the Father may be said to be Immediate Universal Intuition ; the Son, Intellect ; the Spirit, Love with Power ; ^ but these are merely distin- guishable aspects of the One Absolute,^ to whom past is not past, nor is the future to come, but to whom eternity is entirely present, all things together and complete.^ He repeats what he wrote in the " Seal Of Seals " and in the " Transports " : the loftiest knowledge advances progres- sively from sense upwards, but admits of philosophic and theologic illumination in ecstasy. Soul and Body are con- joined ; but they are not therefore indissolubly requisite to one another, as is a citharist to his cither. Soul is of a nature distinct from matter; but both are immortal sub- stances. Even stones and the most imperfect things parti- cipate in intellect.* As to the problem of personality, some people think that particular things are manifestations of the Soul of the World ; others, that the Soul of the World is divided into parts : " truly, it remains in doubt, but I incline to the first opinion.^ A little farther on, he says that multi- plication falls on the side of brute matter, but the soul
1 C/n Boo. XI : De Imm., VIII, X, v. 59 ; De Monade, IV, v. 21.
" Op. Lat., iij, pp. 44-57. ' Ibid., p. 45.
* Ibid., p. 53. Compare the modern philosophers Ro3'ce and Taylor, especially the latter thinker's article, Int. Journ. Ethics, Oct. 1902. " Ibid., p. 58.
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remains one.* Still farther on, we read that the individual is as a spark of the Universal Spirit, from which he issues and to which he returns.* But while God, as absolute, works in and through us. He does not impart Himself to us in His most innermost nature.' Intellect is not a mere function of animal organs.* Incidentally, Will is treated of. There are grades of volition ; material, composite and spiritual varieties may be distinguished,^ the latter being free from matter and wholly intelligible. Evil is necessary, being the complement of good : without it, good could not be.' The perfection of the Whole depends on the perfection of its parts in relation to itself, and it is greater than they.' It is noteworthy that he accepts the divine mission of Christ, the Son of God, sent " to raise us up from brutality and barbarism to the practice of love."* He often writes in a way to which no orthodox Roman Catholic could possibly take exception, but it is clear that he sincerely believed the Church to need purgation from superstitions and that its doctrines may legitimately receive metaphysical interpreta- tion from the wise. Here, as whenever he treats of religion as more than a means of preserving social order and stability, he would substitute the milk of reverence and the bread of philosophy for the fiery distillations of dogma, whether Catholic or Protestant. He accepts much that is " miracu- lous " ; for all is miracle, and superstitious people are im- pressed chiefly by that which is not yet understood. But the Essence of Christianity lies in Love or in nothing, and this has been forgotten.
The work closes with the quaint observation : " Thanks
^ Cfr. Causa, Dial. I ; Spaccio, Epist. Esplic.
" Op. lat., Hi, p. 182. Cfr. pp. 46, 47, 50.
' Ibid., p. 59. « Ibid., p. 48. ' Ibid., p. 160.
' Ibid., pp. 21, 23. ' Ibid., p. 108.
• Ibid., p. 158. Cfr. Docs, xi, xif, xitj.
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be to God, we have finished the Art Of Discovery By Means Of Thirty Statues."
To this period also belongs a dictated manuscript, pre- served at Erlangen, which bears the date Mar. 13th, 1587. It is entitled "Observations Concerning The LuUian Lamp,"^ and is a tractate on the method of "getting at genera and species by deiinition, at predicates by judg- ments, and at middle terms by demonstration," not without mnemonic dodges.
Albums would seem to have been as fashionable among reverential scholars in the sixteenth century as among young ladies in the Victorian era. One, which belonged to a certain Hans von Warnsdorf, is preserved in the Public Library at Stuttgart, and contains a characteristic entry in Bruno's firm, bold hand. It runs : " Solomon and Pythagoras : What is it that anything in reality is ? That which it was. What was it ? That which it is. There is nothing new under the sun. Jordanus Brunus Nolanus, Witebrg, 18 Sept."^
Before reaching Germany, in the work which was not to be taken "too assertively," the Nolan had written about that " drunken " land ; where " their shields are plates ; their helmets are pipkins and kettles ; their swords, the thigh-bones of salt beef; their trumpets, drinking glasses, pitchers and flagons ; their drums, barrels and tuns ; their field, a table to drink (I would say, eat) at; where their fortresses, bulwarks and bastions are cellars, ale-houses and brandy-shops, which are more numerous than their houses " ; 3 " where Gluttony is exalted, magnified, celebrated
1 Animadversiones Circa Lampadem Lullianam. State ed., vol. iij.
' Sigwart gives a reproduction of the handwriting, Kleine Schriften, vol. i, Freiburg, 1889, p. 293. ' Spaccio, III, ij.
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and glorified among the heroic virtues, and drunkenness is numbered among the divine attributes," ^ and so on, inter- minably. He now enjoyed, for the first time, the hospi- tality of a German University which, in spite of its beer and groaning tables, was really alive, and he might exercise true " philosophic liberty " ^ there. Like Pius II, he revised his judgment,^ recognised the merit of existing German achievement and declared that, when Germans should cease to waste their energies on theologic futilities, directing themselves to saner thinking, they "would become, not men, but Gods." Indeed extraordinary latitude was extended to Bruno, for, as he says, he proclaimed certain doctrines which uprooted the received teaching of centuries, and by no means kept to science as accepted by theology. But a storm was gathering, although the University still continued an unusual toleration of opinions opposed to those considered to be "right."
In 1580 the Lutherans of Germany issued the famous " Formula of Concord," popularly known as that of Discord. For there was a subtle undercurrent of Calvinistic opposi- tion, and Philippists maintained the broader-minded prin- ciples of Philip Melancthon with customary intolerance of any other. The Elector Augustus of Saxony died in February of the year of Bruno's arrival and was suc- ceeded by his son. Christian I, a prince who succumbed in a short time, like so many German rulers of his time, to drink. Christian's brother-in-law, John Casimir, regent of the Palatine Lines, was busy coercing his own wife and his people into Calvinism, and this naturally aroused the indignation of Saxon Lutherans.* It is difficult to get at
> Spaccio, III, iij. « Oratio V aledictoria.
' JEn. Silv ; op. omn. Basel, 1571, Ep. ad Gug. de Stein; Ep. ad Greg. Heimburg. * Bezold, F. v; Brieje d. Pfalzg. J. Casimir, Miinchen, 1882.
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the real motive forces of these religious quarrels, though, usually, religion masked political struggles between ruler, nobles and common folk, reaction from economical pressure and social and racial resentment. Christian and his adviser, Nicholas Krell, were credited by the Lutherans with being under the sway of John Casimir.'^ Krell worked steadily for the Philippists and against the Lutherans ; he was resolved to overthrow the " Formula of Discord"; for the good reason that Melancthon had exalted the State and denied the right of ecclesiastical authority to dominion over the conscience. The squabbles of Protestant sects left Bruno cold. But, strangely enough, his friends and supporters were of the narrower, Lutheran body, and were daily losing ground. Recounting his life, he told his judges : " At Wittenberg, in Saxony, I found two factions — the philosophic faculty were Calvinists and the theologic were Lutherans. The old Duke was a Lutheran, but the son, who succeeded him at that time, was a Calvinist and favoured the opposite party to the one which favoured me ; wherefore I left." ^ None the less, he seems to have departed in fair amity with everybody ; a philosophic pin-prick was enough to arouse him at least to philosophic fury; his restless spirit needed little provoca- tion ; his missionary zeal, too, was ever urging him onward ; perhaps, change had become a habit with him ; he would set forth to champion the truth and attack some new academic world.
Before he left Wittenberg, he gave a farewell address in praise of wisdom in general and of wise Germans in particular. It was delivered at the University on Mar. 8th,
• Lehen, Schicksal u. Ende d. D. N. Krell, Leipzig, 1798 (docu- ments reproduced). — Brandes, F ; Kanzler Krell ein Opfer des Oriho- doximus, Leipzig, 1873.
" Doc. IX.
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1588.^ He exalted such Germans as Albertus Magnus, Paracelsus and the Landegrave William of Hesse, patron of Copernicus. Of Cusanus, he said that he would have equalled Pythagoras had not his genius been stifled under priestly garments. In the city of Luther some eulogy of the great Reformer was expected. While the dogmas of the warring sects repelled Bruno, he admired Luther for protesting against ecclesiastical tyranny and rejecting fetters for the soul forged at priestly smithies. "But whom," said he, " have we passed by ? The mighty hero who resisted the voracious monster, half-fox, half-lion ; that vicar of the princes of HeU who polluted the world by craft and force and cajoled men into superstitious and uncouth worship under the disguise of divine knowledge and the simplicity which is acceptable to God. . . . Whence comes he ? From Germany, from the banks of the Elbe. . . . Out of the darkness of Orcus your Hercules dragged forth the monster with the triple crown, bursting open the steely gates of Hell, triumphing over the city guarded by triple walls and the nine-fold stream of Styx. Thou hast seen the light, O Luther ; thou hast regarded it ; thou hast heard the awakening spirit of the Lord and hast obeyed it ; thou hast confronted and overcome the adversary girt about with power, and thou hast despoiled him."^ What he now said, added to what appeared later in a Latin poem,' was probably the chief cause of the curious impression that by the " beast " of the Spaccio Bruno referred to the Pope.* Also a tradition seems to have arisen from this oration that he had written a " paneygric upon the
1 Oratio V aledictoria, Vitebergae habita, 1588, apud Zach Cratonem. ' Ibid.
» De Imtnenso, VIII, j, v. 67 sqq.
• Cfr. Brunnhofer ; op. cit., p. 245. — Cfr. Conrado Ritterhusio suo G. Schoppius, FJi.S., given by Berti, Frith and others.
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Devil." ^ Probably the farewell declamation affected his treatment at the hands of the Inquisition.
It would have been churlish in one who had been allowed to teach strange doctrine in the cradle of Lutheranism, with- out any enquiry being made into his own religious faith, had he abstained from some recognition of Luther as a liberat- ing force and the enemy of ecclesiastical abuse. But Bruno confined himself to no conventional homage; he knew no mean ; he expressed his gratitude in passionate praise of a man with whose opinions he had less of sympathy than of disagreement. While he regarded Luther as right in break- ing up abuses, he was far from admiring Lutheranism. He considered the reformers to be men more ignorant than him- self.2 Yet perchance it had been well for him had he merely repeated the compliments he had already paid the University.^
With the praises of the Arch foe of Rome still hot in his mouth, he set forth confidently for Prague, the capital of a Catholic monarch and the seat of a Catholic University. But he was no Lutheran; he deemed himself a Catholic, justly asserting the right to read profound esoteric doc- trines into the dogmas of his Church.
^ Cfr. Keckern ; Syst. Rhet, Spec, lib. I, cxviij, p. 1647 ; /. ij, opera, Edit. Genev., 1614 ; quoted by Bayle, P ; Dictionary {in English ed.), 1738, p. 158 and n. 22.
' Doc. xij.
^ De Lamp. Comb., dedicatio.