Giordano Bruno
1548 – 1600 Italian philosopher, cosmologist, Dominican friar
Hermetic philosopher burned for heresy who taught an infinite, living cosmos.
- Religion
- A Hermetic and pantheistic philosophy holding that the universe is infinite and divine, which he tied to Egyptian and Hermetic religion over conventional Christianity.
- Affiliations
- Former Dominican friar. No secret society; wandered Europe teaching his art of memory and cosmology.
Giordano Bruno fused Copernican astronomy with Hermetic religion, arguing for an infinite universe filled with countless worlds and a divine soul running through all things. He championed the memory arts of Ramon Llull and looked back to Egyptian Hermeticism as the true religion. The Roman Inquisition tried him for heresy and burned him at the stake in 1600.
Connections
- influenced Hermes Trismegistus — Held up Hermetic Egyptian religion as an ideal.
- influenced Ramon Llull — Adopted and expanded the Lullian art of memory.
- influenced Ramon Llull — Bruno adopted and expanded the Lullian art of combination and memory.
In the timeline
- 1548 Giordano Bruno born in Nola central figure
- 1584 Bruno publishes De l'infinito universo e mondi mentioned
- 1589 Bruno matriculates at Helmstedt University mentioned