The Martyrdom of Giordano Bruno

In 1591, Giordano Bruno received an invitation from a Venetian nobleman named Mocenigo in Frankfurt to teach him the art of memory. Bruno accepted the invitation and moved to Venice. This was a dangerous move, as in Italy he was considered a runaway monk, previously accused of heresy. However, Bruno did not fully grasp the danger. He planned to appeal to the Pope for forgiveness and intended to settle permanently in his homeland, weary from fifteen years of constant wandering.

In Venice and Padua, he taught for a few months before quarreling with Mocenigo, who then handed him over to the Inquisition. In May 1592, he first appeared before the Inquisition's tribunal. He confidently refuted the charges, citing his books as evidence that he had only doubted "philosophically" but had not attacked the religion itself. After eight weeks of "reflection," he appeared before the court, broken, begging for forgiveness but not relinquishing his scientific convictions.

In the winter of 1593, Bruno was transferred to the prison of the Roman Inquisition, as the Pope's city was deemed the proper place to judge such a "prince of heretics." Venice was reluctant to extradite him, viewing it as an "unauthorized intervention" in the Republic's internal affairs, but eventually complied with the papal request.

Bruno spent over six years in the Roman prison. Far from breaking him, the suffering strengthened him, making him resolute and confident. The Inquisition aimed to force him to openly renounce and retract his teachings. By this time, it was no longer about Mocenigo's personal accusations but the essence of Bruno's doctrines. The theologians had thoroughly studied Bruno's entire scientific work and clearly understood the threat his teachings posed to scholasticism and the Church. They tried for years to sway the scholar from his stubbornness—to no avail. They promised that he would be released if he recanted his teachings. It is likely that they did not shy away from using more coercive measures. Ultimately, it was the Inquisition that broke, not Bruno: by papal decree, the sentence was passed. When he was sentenced to death in February 1600, Bruno allegedly told his judges: "You are more afraid to pronounce this sentence than I am to hear it."

In a solemn ceremony, he was excommunicated from the Church and handed over to secular authorities with instructions to execute the sentence "without shedding blood." On February 17, 1600, he was burned at the stake in Rome's flower market.

Benedek István "Az értelem dicsérete", Minerva kiadó, Budapest, 1987