Giordano Bruno E-Book

J. Lewis McIntyre

• Herausgeber: Youcanprint
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

The first part of the present work "The Life of Bruno" is based upon the documents published by Berti, Dufour, and others, and on the personal references in Bruno's own works. I have tried to throw some light on Bruno's life in England, on his relations with the French Ambassador, Mauvissière, and on his share in some of the literary movements of the time. I have, however, been no more successful than others in finding any documents referring directly to Bruno's visit to England. In the second part—The Philosophy of Bruno—I have sought to give not a systematic outline of Bruno's philosophy as a whole under the various familiar headings, which would prove an almost impossible task, but a sketch, as nearly as possible in Bruno's own words, of the problems which interested this mind of the sixteenth century, and of the solutions offered.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

PREFACE

PART I - LIFE OF BRUNO

PART II - PHILOSOPHY OF BRUNO

Giordano Bruno

J. Lewis McIntyre

© David De Angelis 2017 - All rights reserved

PREFACE

This volume attempts to do justice to a philosopher who has hardly received in England the consideration he deserves. Apart from theLife of Giordano Bruno, by I. Frith (Mrs. Oppenheim), in the English and ForeignPhilosophical Library, 1887, there has been no complete work in our language upon the poet, teacher, and martyr of Nola, while his philosophy has been treated only in occasional articles and reviews. Yet he is recognised by the more liberal-minded among Italians as the greatest and most daring thinker their country has produced. The pathos of his life and death has perhaps caused his image to stand out more strongly in the minds of his countrymen than that of any other of their leaders of thought. A movement of popular enthusiasm, begun in 1876, resulted, on 9th June 1889, in the unveiling of a statue in Rome in the Campo dei Fiori, the place on which Bruno was burned. Both in France and in Germany he has been recognised as the prophet, if not as the actualfounder, of modern philosophy, and as one of the earliest apostles of freedom of thought and of speech in modern times.

Thefirst partof the present work—theLife ofBruno—is based upon the documents published by Berti, Dufour, and others, and on thepersonal references in Bruno’s own works. I have tried to throw some light on Bruno’s life in England, on his relations with the French Ambassador, Mauvissière, and on his share in some of the literary movements of the time. I have, however, been no more successful than others in finding any documents referring directly to Bruno’s visit to England.

In thesecond part—The Philosophy of Bruno—I have sought to give not a systematic outline of Bruno’s philosophy as a whole under the various familiar headings, which would prove an almost impossible task, but a sketch, as nearly as possible in Bruno’s own words, of the problems which interested this mind of the sixteenth century, and of the solutions offered. Thefirst chapterpoints out the sources from which Bruno derived the materials of his thinking. The succeeding chapters are devoted to some of the main works of Bruno,—theCausa(Chapter II.),InfinitoandDe Immenso(Chapters III. andIV.),De Minimo(Chapter V.),Spaccio(Chapter VI.), andHeroici Furori(Chapter VII.),—and contain as little as possible of either criticism or comment, except in so far as these are implied in the selection and arrangement of the material. I have adopted this method partly because Bruno’s works are still comparatively unknownto the English reader, and partly because his style, full as it is of obscurities, redundances, repetitions, lends itself to selection, but not easily to compact exposition. Several phases of Bruno’s activity I have left almost untouched—his poetry, his mathematical theories, his art of memory. Theeighth chapterturns upon his philosophy of religion, about which there has been much controversy; while thelastattempts to bring him into relation and comparison with some of the philosophers who succeeded him. I subjoin alist of works and articleswhich are of importance for the study of Bruno. Throughout I have referred for Bruno’s works to the recent Italian edition of the Latin works, issued at the public expense, 1879 to 1891 (three volumes in eight parts, with introductions, etc.), and to Lagarde’s edition of the Italian works—Gotha, 1888. Of the latter there are two volumes, but the paging is continuous from one to the other, page 401 beginning the second volume.

J. LEWIS M‘INTYRE.

UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN,16th July1903.

PART I - LIFE OF BRUNO

I

Birth and Family.In 1548, at a stormy period of the history of Italy, Bruno was born in the township of Nola, lying within the kingdom of Naples, which at that time was under Spanish rule. His father, Giovanni, was a soldier, probably of good family, and in deference, it may be supposed, to the King of Spain, the son was named Filippo; the more famous name of Giordano was only assumed when he entered a religious order. Through his mother, Fraulissa Savolina, a German or Saxon origin has been claimed for Bruno; there were several inhabitants of Teutonic name in the village of his birth—suggesting a settlement ofLandknechts,—and the name, Fraulissa, has a German ring;[1]but Bruno himself nowhere in the addresses or works published in Germany makes any hint of his own connection with the race, while the name was probably a generic term for the wife of a soldier, borrowed from the Swiss or German men-at-arms.[2]

Nola.Their home was on the lower slopes of Mount Cicala, which rises above Nola, and amid its laughing gardens Bruno first imbibed a love of nature, which marked him out from so many of his contemporaries. The soil of Nola is among the most fertile of all Italy, and the pleasant plain in which it lies is ringed with hills which lie shadowy under the clear sky; most prominent and most mysterious is Vesuvius, a few miles to the south. But the charms of naturalbeauty in Nola were surpassed by those of picturesque antiquity: the half-mythical Pelasgians founded it before the walls of Rome were begun; they were followed by the Chalcidians of Cuma, from whom the Nolans inherited a Greek spirit, calm yet quick, eager in the pursuit of wisdom and in the love of beauty, which down even to the 16th century distinguished them above other Italians. There followed a chequered history in which the Samnites, the early Romans, Hannibal, Sulla, and Spartacus, played successiveparts. Nola was the death-place of Augustus, and to that fact owed its greatness in Imperial times, when its two great amphitheatres and multitude of beautiful temples topped a great city, shut in by massive walls, with twelve gates that opened to all parts of Italy. Evil times were to come; Alaric, the Saracens, Manfred, and others had their will of Nola, andearthquakes, flood, and plague reduced it by the end of the 15th century to one tenth of its former self. It had its own martyrs, for the old faithand for the new; one of the latter, Pomponio Algerio, suffered during Bruno’s lifetime a fate that foreshadowed his own; accused while a student at Padua of contempt for the Christian religion, he was imprisoned in Padua, Venice, and Rome, and finally burnt at the stake. Its sons never lost their love for the mother-town; Bruno speaks of it always with affection, as to him “the garden of Italy”; of a nephew of Ambrogio Leone, the historian of its antiquities, we are told that, on returning to Nola after a few days’ absence, seeming ill with longing, he threw himself on the earth and kissed it with unspeakable joy.[3]Perhaps the suggestion of Bartholmèss is not groundless, that the volcanic soil and air of Nola influenced the character of the people as of the wine. “Hence the delicacy of their senses, vivacity of gesture, mobility of humour, and passionate ardour of spirit.”[4]

Childhood of Bruno.Of the childhood of Bruno little is to be learned. Cicala, his home, he describes as a “little village of four orfive cottages not too magnificent.”[5]In all probability his upbringing was simple, his surroundings homely. We need not go further, and suppose that his surroundings were not only homely, but degraded and vicious.[6]His father, although a soldier by profession, seems to have been a man of some culture; at least he was a friend of the poet Tansillo, who excited the admiration of the young Bruno, and first turned his mind towards the Muses. Tansillo’s poetry, following the taste of the age, was not too refined, but its passion called forth a ready reflection in the ardent nature of the lad. It was perhaps the only door to the higher artistic life of the time which was open to Bruno; the neighbours, if we may judge from satiric references in the Italian Dialogues, were of a rough homely type. Bruno tells, for example,[7]how Scipio Savolino (perhaps his uncle) used to confess all his sins to Don Paulino, Curé of S. Primma that is in a village near Nola (Cicala), on a Holy Friday, of which “though they were many and great,” his boon companion the Curé absolved him without difficulty. Once was enough, however, for in the following years, without many words or circumstances, Scipio would say to Don Paulino, “Father mine, the sins of a year ago to-day, you know them”; and Don Paulino would reply, “Son, thou knowest the absolution of a year ago to-day—go in peace and sin no more!”