Description
Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake in Rome in 1600, accused of heresy by the Inquisition. His life took him from Italy to Northern Europe and England, and finally to Venice, where he was arrested. His six dialogues in Italian, which today are considered a turning point towards the philosophy and science of the modern world, were written during his visit to Elizabethan London, as a gentleman attendant to the French Ambassador, Michel de Castelnau. He died refusing to recant views which he defined as philosophical rather than theological, and for which he claimed liberty of expression. The papers in this volume derive from a conference held in London to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Bruno's death. A number focus specifically on his experience in England, while others look at the Italian context of his thought and his impact upon others. Together they constitute a major new survey of the range of Bruno's philosophical activity, as well as evaluating his use of earlier cultural traditions and his influence on both contemporary and more modern themes and trends.
Table of Contents
Contents: Preface; Introduction; Giordano Bruno as philosopher of the Renaissance, Giovanni Aquilecchia; Bruno and Italy: The image of Giordano Bruno, Lars Berggren; Philosophy versus religion and science versus religion: the trials of Bruno and Galileo, Maurice Finocchiaro; Giordano Bruno and Neapolitan neoplatonism, Ingrid D. Rowland; Images of literary memory in the Italian dialogues: some notes on Giordano Bruno and Ludovico Ariosto, Lina Bolzoni; Bruno in England: Giordano Bruno and the Protestant ethic, Hilary Gatti; John Charlewood, printer of Giordano Bruno’s Italian dialogues, and his book production, Tiziana Provvidera; Giordano Bruno’s infinite worlds in John Florio’s Worlds of Words, Michael Wyatt; Ultima Thule: contrasting empires in Bruno’s Ash Wednesday Supper and Shakespeare’s Tempest, Elisabetta Tarantino; Philosophical Themes: Giordano Bruno and astrology, Leen Spruit; Simulacra e Signacula: memory, magic and metaphysics in Brunian mnemonics, Stephen Clucas; Metempsychosis and monism in Bruno’s nova filosofia, Ramon G. Mendoza; The necessity of the minima in the Nolan philosophy, Ernesto Schettino; Meanings of ’contractio’ in Giordano Bruno’s Sigillus sigillorum, Leo Catana; Influence and Tradition: Giordano Bruno’s mnemonics and Giambattista Vico’s recollective philology, Paul Colilli; Macrocosm, microcosm and the circulation of the blood: Bruno and Harvey, Andrew Gregory; Monadology and the reception of Bruno in the young Leibniz, Stuart Brown; Being a modern philosopher and reading Giordano Bruno, Paul Richard Blum; Index.
