CHAPTER XIX

BRUNO AND THE INQUISITORS. THE REPUBLIC AND THE POPE
Let us pause to examine a little more closely the conduct of the Inquisition, and the line taken by the prisoner.
Like the proceedings of the Venetian Three, those of the Inquisition were shrouded in secrecy and silence, and the Court was shielded by the terror which it inspired.'
Every witness, every official was muzzled by a sacred oath. Morosini in his history makes no mention of Bruno. The judges allowed their prisoner no advocate.^ The onus of proving his innocence fell on him alone ; but he had no means of communicating with the outer world ; the names of his accuser and of witnesses were withheld from him,' and he was given no opportunity of cross-examining the witnesses, who were heard and questioned by the Court only. His prosecutors were his judges, and they were past- masters in the art of luring the victim on until he made some fatal admission. They were ecclesiastics who pro- fessed that the sufferings of our mortal life weigh as nothing compared with eternal blessedness or the tortures of the damned. " Eternum servans sub pectore vulnus," Eternal Justice gave authority for the suppression of humaner instincts and for loosing those primitive instincts
1 Lea, J. C ; Hist, of Inquis. in Spain, 1906, vol. ij, p. 470. ' Masini, Eliseo ; Sacro Arsenate, ovvero Pratica dell' officio della Santa Inquisizione, Bologna, 1665. • Bulls of Innocent IV, Cum negooium and Licet sicut accepimus.
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of cruel absolutism and crushing retaliation which are so heartily aroused in the most cultured minds when some darling prejudice or wonted privilege is assailed.
Yet the Court seems to have acted with caution and with honest intention, according to its lights. The inquisitors practically restricted their enquiry to the charges contained in Mocenigo's denunciations and conducted it with as much moderation as was usual in the civil courts of the period. The Court was more painstaking than is many a modern Court of Justice. The case presented difficult points, so the prisoner's philosophical doctrines were lightly skimmed over. Perhaps they were "merely put aside for the present. The judges would naturally be perplexed, and it may be for this reason that they communicated with Rome.^ For, unlike the rebel-churches, the heretrix of Imperial Rome has always secured by organization and subordination that its ministers shall deal only with those matters in which they are fully competent.
On the whole, the depositions would seem to have been carefully and accurately recorded.^ They were read over to the prisoner, who thus had opportunities of discovering and correcting any injurious mistake. An easy evasion by Bruno of the charge of having broken his obligation to celibacy was fought shy of by the judges, for sexual im- morality, even in the priesthood, was never pursued during the Counter-Reformation, or at any time, with that implacable rancour with which heresy was hunted down.'
^ Doc. xvij.
^ Fiorentino; Lettera al Prof. Spavenfa, Giorn. Nap., N.S., 1879, pp. 4S0-SI.
' Peccant nuns, however, were far more severely dealt with. An examination of the Index Expurgatorius to-day will show that its great object is not the suppression of vicious literature but of anything which impugns the authority or doctrine of the Church.
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But, as the trial proceeds, we find the attitude of the judges becoming more and more sinister ; accusations are brought up again when they have been answered and apparently disposed of; less and less is the mask of im- partiality maintained.
What was Bruno's attitude ? The Canon Law recognised two sorts of apostasy — a fide and a tnandatis Dei — that of unbelief and that of violating monastic vows. He con- sidered himself guilty of having violated the latter and less apostasy only ; and this was within the sole jurisdiction of his Order, and the Inquisition had nothing to do with it.^ The Roman form of the Tribunal was not allowed in Venice ; he felt himself secure, and when dragged before the Venetian Court,he was confident, fearless, and franker than was wonted even with innocent persons. Untaught by so long and bitter experience, he believed that such highly qualified scholars and thinkers as the men who tried him would be as devoted to the pursuit of truth as himself, as eager for "large draughts of intellectual day," as tolerant and broad-minded, and as ready to follow the " Divine Counsellor within them." * He remembered only the long periods of intelligent toleration by which the Church had distinguished itself, and he forgot the Council of Trent. He boldly expounded his philosophy and science ; he might be mistaken on this or that point, but he believed he presented what intelligent men would discover to be truth, or at least a reasonable view of God and of Nature. So, the first man since the triumph of Christianity to return openly to the independence of the old Greek thinkers, he claimed the right to expound philosophy as essentially superior to theology and independent of it. He maintained his right to think for himself; he would not passively receive the opinions of others. He referred his judges to his latest works. He was anxious to subscribe
^ Bartholmfess ; op. cit., II, p. 226. » Spaccio, III, if.
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to Catholicism, which he believed to contain high truth and to be necessary for human guidance and the maintenance of social order. He tried to show that he was truly Catholic at heart and believed the main teaching of Holy Church, though he had attacked the superstitions of Catholics and Protestants alike in his writings. For in that very De Minima, to which he dared to refer his judges, he had written of having been saturated from childhood with lunatic meanings held by the professedly holy man and based on a false conception of truth.^ He is possessed by consuming passion for truth ; must declare truth to all men of understanding. How strange to him that Catholic perverters in high places do not see how far they have departed from the ineffable light ! Will they not soar again from the abysmal depths of mere superstitious credulity, communicate afresh with God, who declares Himself in the open book of Nature and in the human heart, and reform themselves into a truly universal and better instructed Church? Otherwise Bruno believed they would contrive their own ruin;* there would be no universal Roman sanction for social order and civic authority. Witness the dissensions among Protestants ! * And without constituted religion how could society flourish ?
But, although anxious to subscribe, he must be allowed to reveal his own philosophic vision ; he will not have his soul in fetters. Without recalling one single word of his philosophic and scientific creed, he admitted the essential truth contained in Christian dogma and practice. His inmost conviction, expressed elsewhere, but concerning which he was discreetly silent at the trial, was that, while there are immediate experiences which cannot be restated in thought, theological dogmas are defective truth at best,
^ Cfr. Oratio Consolatoria.
• Spaccio, III, ij. ' Ibid., II, i.
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though very necessary and of supreme practical importance.* His temperament was scientific, not pietistic, though ex- tremely reverent; he fought shy of all fanatic ways, yet, like all the men of the Renaissance, he discovered traces of truth in every singular creed. Ancient cults had a certain charm for Bruno ; the religion of the Classic world was tolerant ; it glorified humanity, it rejoiced in the fulness of life ; the " Bacchic rout " of its deities set forth the persistent power and vital immanence of the Godhead ; 2 the ancient Egyptians had also seen God in Nature. Christianity was inferior in so far as it had become a cult of ascetic saints and dead men's bones ; so far as it mutilated human joy and noble activities.* It had become obscurantist, and the Pope had pushed his pretensions unduly.* Yet the emphasis it laid on Divine love raised it above other imperfect adumbra- tions of the One Perfect Light. Only a purgation of the excrement, superstition, and a granting of complete tolerance to the qualified and judicious thinker were needed.
The opposition between Revelation and reason had been clearly discerned at a very early period in the history of the Church. TertuUian affirmed the former to be " credible because inconsistent ; assured because impossible. I believe it because of its absence of reason." Later, in order to secure freedom for human reason, certain schoolmen ^ main- tained that Truth is twofold and contrary, the content of reason occupying a diiferent sphere from that of Faith. They enabled the human intellect to pursue its own course ; but the distinct and superior claim of Faith was acknow-
' Gentile ; G. B. nella storia della cultura, p. 78, n. 2 ; Spaccio,
I, a.
» De Immenso, VI, ij ; Spaccio, III, ij.—Cfr. Spaventa, B ; Saggi di Critica, Napoli, 1867, vol. i, p. 225. ' Cfr. Cabala; Asino Cillenico. * De Immenso, VIII, i, v. 67 / Oratio V aledictoria. ' William of Ockham and Duns Scotus to wit.
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ledged. The doctrine had not yet been impugned, and Bruno frequently distinguished between Catholic and Philo- sophic doctrine in his defence. But he did not accept though he did not disclaim it. Of the line of Lully and Cusanus, he took a higher ground. Lully had maintained the possi- bility of demonstrating Catholic truth by the exercise of reason ; Cusanus had made some attempt to explain away the current theology; Bruno scorned theologic subtleties and disputes ; ^ his conviction was that dogma was the mere symbol of reason, and that intuition and reason, so far from being opposed, are the two sides of what should be the great and growing body of organised knowledge.
As early as the second century certain followers of Aristotle began to interpret the Hebrew Scriptures in terms of Greek Philosophy. Later, Philo systematized allegorical renderings of them. Tertullian, Augustine and the early Christian apologists availed themselves of the doctrine of " language of accommodation." ^ St. Thomas Aquinas, whom Bruno especially respected, expounded and Dante popularized the doctrine that both Scripture and Holy Church condescend to the weakness of human faculty.* The best minds in the Middle Ages took the symbolic view that the world was subtly and mystically interpenetrated by the Divine Spirit, which revealed itself in many imperfect forms ; they regarded Virgil as inspired in the same way as Isaiah, though less fully and persistently. Classic mythology was symbolic to Dante and others ; an uncertain twilight, pene- trated by flashes from the high white star of truth. This belief, Bruno accepted. Authority still reigned in the Re-
' Artie. Cent, et sexag. Dedicatio.
" Tertullian ; Adv. Marc, II, 16. — St Augustine; Gen. xviij, as well as other writers.
' Aquinas; Summ. Theol., I, i, 10; I, 19, 11 ; I', 4, 7; Dante, Paradiso, III, 40 sqq. — Cfr. Spaccio, II, ij.
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naissance, and Bruno defended himself by quoting Virgil, the Bible, the Fathers and Pythagoras. But such philosophy was not for the vulgar ; " Let simplicity and moral fable remain."^ So we find Bruno, fortified by example, not infertile in gloss nor wanting in reservations. Such ex- pedients are not entirely unknown in attempts to reconcile dogma and reason. He endeavoured to make his peace with the Inquisition ; he took care not to expound the sense in which he accepted heaven, purgatory and hell; he did not develop the veiled hint, given in the Spaccio, as to the Divine Virtue merely communicating itself in the person of Christ.2
Roman Christianity was the organized and historic bond of unity among the western peoples ; he had been born and bred in the Catholic Faith. It was a system entwined round his heart by early associations ; branded into his brain by that early appeal to the senses which is as of reality itself. It had buried itself in the depths of his nature, be- come bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. Deprived of corporate communion he had been for years doubly an exile from home. Catholic authority had judged him to sin, and, as a good member of human society, as a good Catholic, he accepted the judgment, however mistaken it might be. And, while he would not sacrifice any assured philosophic con- viction, he was in deadly peril ; his chance of being received into the bosom of the Church was now narrowed down to what might happen at this trial. Surely at worst, he might hope for life and be allowed a life of quiet study if he did what he had always purposed doing — confessed his fault ? * He fell on his knees and submitted, but he did not retract. Seven years before he had written : " As to my faith I hold it a most proper thing to declare and affirm with theologians
' Spaccio, III, iij. " Spaccio, III, ij.
^ Cjr. Gentile, op. cit., cap. ij, La genuflessione.
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and those who are concerned with the laws and institu- tions of the people." ^ No one was ever firmer in also main- taining his right to hold and declare his own conclusions. But he tried to reconcile irreconcilables. Pouring new wine into old bottles is an ingenious but not always a successful experiment. The Church had become less lenient than of yore to esoteric interpretation of its doctrines.
The case was by no means easy to deal with. Philoso- phical and theological problems of a very intricate nature were involved, and where precedent rules, caution is indis- pensable. The Venetian Inquisition was in communication with the Holy Office at Rome, and here, on September 12th, a Congregation assembled under the presidency of Cardinal Santoro di Santa Severina, who represented the Pope. Santoro, a Spaniard, had distinguished himself by purifying the Church in the extirpation of heretics. In earlier days he had persecuted in Naples ; he had hailed the massacre of Parisian Huguenots with satisfaction and pronounced that it made the Feast of St. Bartholomew " a famous and a very joyous day." He loved humanists little better than heretics ; but it is to his credit that he and Cardinal Colonna saved the tomb of Cecilia Metella from the destructive energies of Sixtus V.^ It is not surprising that, with such a zealot in the chair, the Congregation resolved to get the heretic away from Venice (a State which was politic and too commercially affected not to be somewhat Laodicean in regard to heresy) and to deal themselves with a difficult and dangerous person who would appear to have set up philosophy against estab- lished truth. They despatched a missive to the Venetian Inquisition, demanding that the prisoner should be sent to the Reverend Governor of Ancona, by whom he would be
* Eroici, Argomento. Cfr. pp. 173, 174 of this work.
' Balzani, Count Ugo; Camb. Mod. Hist., 1904, vol. iij, pp. 443,4.
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forwarded to Rome.^ Perhaps it was not religious zeal alone which prompted this action. Rome never missed a politic opportunity of asserting Papal claims over a govern- ment which so often defied them and with which there was an enduring territorial dispute.
Five days later, September 17th, the letter was read at a sitting of the Venetian Inquisition, Tommaso Morosini being the State Assessor present. It behoved the Sacred Tribunal to act warily: they waited until the next Roman post arrived ; so that it was not until eleven days later that the Vicar of the Venetian Patriarch, the Father Inquisitor and Morosini appeared before the Doge and Council.^ The Vicar pro- fessed that they had not liked to bear the prisoner away to Rome without informing the Council first. This was a device to disguise the aggfression of Rome : Venetian con- sent had to be sought for extradition. The true bias of the judges now appears. They urge that Bruno is not merely guilty of heresy, but a leader therein ; he had written books in which he praised Elizabeth of England and other heretical princes and in which there was much that was inimical to religion, even if taken philosophically ; he was an apostate monk, who had dwelt many years in those heretical parts, Geneva and England, and he had been pursued for heresy before at Naples and Rome. The Vicar added that he desired the matter should not be delayed, for a boat was just about to set off. The Doge refused to be hustled : he replied that the matter should receive due consideration.* It was not the first time the Venetian government had had difficulties with the zealous Inquisition; when Sixtus V was Inquisitor in the city they had demanded his recall by Rome.
In the afternoon of the same day the Father Inquisitor came again, and was put off with the statement that, seeing ^ Doc. xviii. ' Doc. xix. " Ibid.
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the matter was an important one and the Council being occupied with many grave matters, they had not been able to decide about it.'-
A few days later, Oct. 7th, a copy of the Roman de- mand was sent by the "Three," together with secret in- structions to Donato, Venetian Ambassador. The " Three " sign themselves -I-117, —2 and —6. The request could not be complied with ; for the demand was an infringement on the Authority of the Venetian Inquisition, and if complied with, a very bad precedent would be set. Moreover it interfered with the liberty of Venetian subjects. The Ambassador is to convey this to the Cardinal with due compliments.*
Donato replied on the loth that he would carry out these commands: should any incredible argument turn up, he would deal with it discreetly.* Three months passed, during which Bruno lay in his prison cell at Venice and there was diplomatic fencing between Pope and Ambassador at Rome. On Dec. 22nd the Nuncio returned to the charge. He appeared before the Venetian College, repeated some of the heretical charges, and added another calculated to appeal to commercial instincts: some of Bruno's books purported falsely to have been printed at Venice. His Holiness desires to have the prisoner in Rome to expedite justice and begs the Doge to extradite him. The Nuncio was followed by Donato, who had returned to Venice. He recounted his interview with Clement ; he had told the Pope that justice was invariably done at the Venetian In- quisition; for the Pope was always represented there by his Nuncio, who could always obtain instructions from Rome, and, in fact, did so; he failed to see any necessity for extradition. Whereat the Pope appeared to be satisfied, and never mentioned the subject again. But Severina and 1 Doc. XX. ^ Doc. xxi. ' Doc. xxij.
ago GIORDANO BRUNO
the Inquisitors were not men to be easily put off. The Nuncio now spoke again, urging that the man was no Venetian but a Neapolitan, charged long ago at Naples and Rome with the gravest offences. On previous occasions, more than two dozen cases had been sent on from Venice to the Holy Roman Tribunal, which, the Nuncio reminded the College, was the head one. The man was merely a friar, and therefore the desire of the Pope should not be denied to him ; moreover the culprit was a notorious heresiarch and guilty of vile offences which he (the Nuncio) would not speak about, as only the matter of faith was to the point. Undoubtedly the Venetian Inquisitor should deal with ordinary cases arising within the Venetian State, but not with this grave case, begun aforetime in Naples and continued in Rome.^
The Nuncio was informed that their Lordships would confer, and he was assured that it was desired to give His Holiness every satisfaction possible.*
The Government was somewhat perplexed. The Papacy had increased its temporal power by consolidating the States under its rule, and, at the same time, the carrying out of the Decrees of Trent had added to its spiritual prestige. An open rupture with Rome was very undesirable, but the Venetian Republic must be kept inviolate from the ever recurring attempts at aggression which marked the policy of the Pope. So the government consulted with the pro- curator, Federigo Contarini, an ingenious lawyer, to find a way out. He appeared before the College on Jany. 7th 1593. After recounting facts as to the first processes against Bruno, he added that he escaped to England, where he lived after the custom of that island, and after- wards (sic) in Geneva, leading apparently a licentious and
' There is no mention of the alleged Vercelli process. ' Doc. xxiij.
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diabolical life (sic). But the legal mind requires that a certain balance shall be held ; so, after this, when stating that "his heretical offences are very grave," Contarini adds, " although, for the rest he has a mind as excellent and rare as one could wish for, and is of exceptional learning and insight." Venice prided herself on fostering learning ; so here is also an indirect compliment to the State. After this preamble, since Bruno is a foreigner and no subject, and the case having been begun elsewhere, the wishes of His Holiness may very well be complied with, especially as there have been precedents, and His Holiness is reputed to be very prudent. There is yet another argument: he avails himself of Bruno's desire to reconcile himself with the Pope. He understands, by report, that the prisoner, on being informed that the case was coming to a conclusion, replied that he had resolved to present a petition showing his earnest desire to be remitted to the justice of Rome ; but this may be mere pretence, designed to delay the evil day. A bit of self-revelation follows. With professional caution he entreats the illus- trious Signory to keep his report absolutely secret for public as for private reasons. May we suspect that these reasons were that Bruno had particular supporters in Venice whose favour the time-server did not wish to lose? He goes on to say that he will always be ready at the com- mand of His Serenity and in the service of his country. Whereupon the Doge must have been much relieved ; for now there was a clear way open out of a difficulty, not unattended by the diplomatic advantage of appearing to yield up a foreign monk who had formerly escaped from justice and no Venetian subject, and of being graciously dis- posed to His Holiness. He complimented the clever lawyer on his activity and promptitude in the public service.^ Doc. xxiv.
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Later on in the same day, it was resolved by the Three to notify the Nuncio and the Venetian Ambassador at Rome that, it being found suitable, especially in such an unusual case as that of an escaped prisoner from the Neapolitan and Roman Inquisitions, to give satisfaction to His Holiness, Bruno shall be delivered over to the Nuncio. On -the 9th Jany., a letter signed like the former one in a secret code, was sent to Paruta, now Ambassador at Rome, instructing him to make capital out of the trans- action ; he is to i-epresent to the Pope that the extradition is an expression of the filial reverence the Republic bears for His Beatitude, and to commiserate with him on his recent illness and express the joy felt at his recovery.^
The compliments were returned : on the i6th Paruta replies that the extradition was news to His Holiness, who expressed himself as highly gratified. Clement diplo- matically added that he greatly desired to be in har- mony with the Republic, and he hoped that, thenceforward, it would not give him very hard bones to gnaw, lest he should be accused of yielding too much to his great affec- tion. The Nuncio responded with correct expressions of devotion.^
So the prisoner was consigned to the Nuncio and for- warded by sea to Ancona, whence he was transported along a fork of the Flaminian Way and along that historic and splendid approach to Rome. Released from eight months of captivity in a cell, some gleam of hope may have visited him as he breathed the keen wintry air and saw the ever green valleys of Central Italy and the sun playing on the waters of the Tiber. There lay before him dismal years to test his sincerity and firmness and the final, ironic pageantry of a triumphal parade to the stake.
' Doc. XXV. ' Doc. xxvij.