Giordano Bruno and the Rewriting of the Heavens

Summary

In 1584, the Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno published a dialogue entitled Lo spaccio de la bestia trionfante (The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast). In a period of religious conflict and scientific revolution, it was only one millennialist work among many; had its author not later been imprisoned and executed for heresy in Rome, it might have been ignored entirely. In comparison to his other philosophical writings, for which he was best remembered until the early-twentieth century, or his essays on magic and especially the art of memory, the Expulsion has achieved relatively little attention until now. English-language scholarship on Bruno has, since Frances Yates' pioneering Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradtion, focused strongly on his role in the lengthier history of the Hermetic revival – that movement of expansive religious reform based on Renaissance translations of the Late Antique Corpus Hermeticum. While Yates' interpretation of Bruno has come under increasing criticism, she rightly recognizes his desire to bring about a global transformation through his unique ideas.

That Bruno had utopian aspirations is evident from several of his Italian works: the scope of his interests encompassed both science and religion, and while he has been more frequently remembered for his outspoken defense of the Copernican model of the solar system or his interest in the tradition of the Hermetic magus, his focus on religious reform should not be overlooked.