BBUNO, GIORDANO, the precursor of the school of modern pantheistic philosophers, was born at Nola, in the kingdom of Naples, about the middle of the 16th century. He entered, at an early age, the order of the Dominicans, but soon began to express his doubts in regard to the doctrines of transubstantiation and of the immaculate concep tion, in consequence of which he was obliged to flee from his convent. Henceforth, his life was unsettled. In 1580, he went to Geneva, where he spent two years, but hav ing excited the suspicion and dislike of the strict Calvinists of that city by his general skepticism, he judged it prudent to betake himself to Paris, where he delivered prelec lions on the " great art" (logic) of Raymond Lully. His disputes with the bigoted Aris totelians of the university of Paris compelled him, however, to leave France. Ile passed over into England, where he resided for two years in comparative quiet, enjoy ing the friendship of sir Philip Sidney and the protection of the French ambassador, Michel de Chateauneuf de la Mauvissiere. Here he composed his most important works, but at last, having incurred the displeasure of the clergy by his vehement denunciation •of the Aristotelian philosophy, and other grave heresies, he returned to Paris in 1585. In 1586, he proceeded to the university of Marburg, where he matriculated; and to Wittenberg, where he became professor; but being asked to join the Lutheran commun ion, he refused. On his departure from the city, he pronounced an impassioned pane gyric on Luther. After spending some time in Prague, Brunswick, Helmstadt, and Frankfort-on-the-Main, he resolved to go back to Italy. He fixed his residence at Padua; but after a stay of two years, he went to Venice, where he was arrested by the officers of the inquisition, and conveyed to Rome in 1598. He was now subjected for two years
to persecution, in the vain hope that he would recant; but when all the endeavors of his enemies proved ineffectual, he was brought to the stake on the 17th Feb., 1600, and burned as an obstinate heretic.
B.'s writings, of which the most valuable are composed in Italian, display through out a strong, courageous, excitable soul, susceptible of deep enthusiasm, but vainly laboring to attain perspicacity. The Genet delle Ceneri, or evening conversations on Ash Wednesday, is an apology for the Copernican astronomy; the Spaccio della Bestia Trion fante, or expulsion of the triumphant beast (Par. 1584), is a satirical but soinewhat heavy allegory in the style of the times. His greatest works are metaphysical, such as the Della Causa Principio ed Uno (On the One Sole Cause of Things) and the Del Infinito Universo e Jlondi (On the Infinity of the Universe and of Worlds). The doctrine enun ciated in these is pantheistic. B. held that the infinite soul of God did not merely inhabit or pervade the universe, but that the universe was simply a manifestation of him, and therefore itself divine. God was therefore, in the most literal and physical sense, all in all. B.'s philosophy, in later times, was quite unappreciated, and even neglected, until Jacobi drew public attention to it in his Letters on the Doctrine of Spinoza. Both Spinoza and Descartes were much indebted to Bruno. His influence is also discernible in the pantheistic speculation of modern Germany. Original editions of B.'s works are very rare. Those in Italian were published by Wagner in 1830: sortie Latin ones by Gfrorer in 1836. See Bartholome's Bruno (1846); Berti's Vita di B. (1868).