The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori)
G >> Giordano Bruno >> The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori)THE
HEROIC ENTHUSIASTS
(_GLI EROICI FURORI_)
An Ethical poem
BY GIORDANO BRUNO
PART THE FIRST
TRANSLATED BY
L. WILLIAMS
_WITH AN INTRODUCTION, COMPILED CHIEFLY FROM DAVID LEVI'S
GIORDANO BRUNO O LA RELIGIONE DEL PENSIERO_
LONDON
GEORGE REDWAY
YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN
1887
PREFACE.
When this Translation was begun, more than two years ago, for my own
pleasure, in leisure hours, I had no knowledge of the difficulty I
should find in the work, nor any thought of ever having it printed; but
as "Gli Eroici Furori" of Giordano Bruno has never appeared in English,
I decided to publish that portion of it which I have finished.
I wish to thank those friends who have so kindly looked over my work
from time to time, and given me their help in the choice of words and
phrases. I must, moreover, confess that I am keenly alive to the
shortcomings and defects of this Translation.
I have used the word "Enthusiasts" in the title, rather than
"Enthusiasms," because it seemed to me more appropriate.
L. W.
FOLKSTONE, _September 1887_.
ERRATA
Page 3, line 10, _for_ "also mother" _read_ "also my mother."
Page 47, line 9, _for_ "poisons" _read_ "poison."
INTRODUCTION.
Nola, a city founded by the Chalcidian Greeks, at a short distance from
Naples and from Vesuvius, was the birth-place of Giordano Bruno. It is
described by David Levi as a city which from ancient times had always
been consecrated to science and letters. From the time of the Romans to
that of the Barbarians and of the Middle Ages, Nola was conspicuous for
culture and refinement, and its inhabitants were in all times remarkable
for their courteous manners, for valour, and for keenness of perception.
They were, moreover, distinguished by their love for and study of
philosophy; so that this city was ever a favourite dwelling-place for
the choice spirits of the Renaissance. It may also be asserted that Nola
was the only city of Magna Graecia which, in spite of the persecutions of
Pagan emperors and Christian princes and clergy, always preserved the
philosophical traditions of the Pythagoreans, and never was the sacred
fire on the altar of Vesta suffered to become entirely extinct. Such was
the intellectual and moral atmosphere in which Bruno passed his
childhood. His paternal home was situated at the foot of Mount Cicada,
celebrated for its fruitful soil. From early youth his pleasure was to
pass the night out on the mountain, now watching the stars, now
contemplating the arid, desolate sides of Vesuvius. He tells how, in
recalling those days--the only peaceful ones of his life--he used to
think, as he looked up at the infinite expanse of heaven and the
confines of the horizon, with the towering volcano, that this must be
the ultimate end of the earth, and it appeared as if neither tree nor
grass refreshed the dreary space which stretched out to the foot of the
bare smoky mountain. When, grown older, he came nearer to it, and saw
the mountain so different from what it had appeared, and the intervening
space that, seen from afar, had looked so bare and sterile, all covered
with fruit-trees and enriched with vineyards, he began to see how
illusory the judgment of the senses may be; and the first doubt was
planted in his young soul as he perceived that, while the mind may grasp
Nature in her grandeur and majesty, the work of the sage must be to
examine her in detail, and penetrate to the cause of things. When he
appeared before the tribunal of the Holy Office at Venice, being asked
to declare who and what he was, he said: "My name is Giordano, of the
family of Bruno, of the city of Nola, twelve miles from Naples. There
was I born and brought up. My profession has been and is that of
letters, and of all the sciences. My father's name was Giovanni, and my
mother was Francesca Savolini; and my father was a soldier. He is dead,
and also mother. I am forty-four years old, having been born in 1548."
He always regarded Nola with patriotic pride, and he received his first
instruction in his father's house and in the public schools. Of a sad
disposition, and gifted with a most lively imagination, he was from his
earliest years given to meditation and to poetry. The early years of
Bruno's life were times of agitation and misfortune, and not propitious
to study. The Neapolitan provinces were disturbed by constant
earthquakes, and devastated by pestilence and famine. The Turks fought,
and ravaged the country, and made slaves of the inhabitants; the
neighbouring provinces were still more harassed by hordes of bandits and
outlaws, who invested Calabria, led by a terrible chief called Marcone.
The Inquisition stood prepared to light its fires and slaughter the
heretic. The Waldensians, who had lately been driven out of Piedmont,
and had sought a shelter in the Calabrian territory, were hunted down
and given over to the executioner.
The convent was the only refuge from violence, and Bruno, either from
religious enthusiasm, or in order to be able to devote himself to study,
became a friar at the age of fifteen. There, in the quiet cloister of
the convent of St. Dominic at Naples, his mind was nourished and his
intellect developed; the cloistral and monkish education failed to
enslave his thought, and he emerged from this tutelage the boldest and
least fettered of philosophers. Everything about this church and this
convent, famous as having been the abode of Thomas Aquinas, was
calculated to fire the enthusiasm of Bruno's soul; the leisure and
quiet, far from inducing habits of indolence, or the sterile practices
of asceticism, were stimulants to austere study, and to the fervour of
mystical speculations. Here he passed nearly thirteen years of early
manhood, until his intellect strengthened by study he began to long for
independence of thought, and becoming, as he said himself, solicitous
about the food of the soul and the culture of the mind, he found it
irksome to go through automatically the daily vulgar routine of the
convent; the pure flame of an elevated religious feeling being kindled
in his soul, he tried to evade the vain exercises of the monks, the
puerile gymnastics, and the adoration of so-called relics. His character
was frank and open, and he was unable to hide his convictions; he put
some of his doubts before his companions, and these hastened to refer
them to the superiors; and thus was material found to institute a cause
against him. It became known, that he had praised the methods used by
the Arians or Unitarians in expounding their doctrines, adding that they
refer all things to the ultimate cause, which is the Father: this, with
other heretical propositions, being brought to the notice of the Holy
Office, Bruno found himself in the position of being first observed and
then threatened. He was warned of the danger that hung over him by some
friends, and decided to quit Naples. He fled from the convent, and took
the road to Rome, and was there received in the monastery of the
Minerva. A few days after his arrival in Rome he learned that
instructions for his arrest had been forwarded from Naples; he tarried
not, but got away secretly, throwing aside the monk's habiliments by the
way. He wandered for some days about the Roman Campagna, his destitute
condition proving a safeguard against the bands of brigands that
infested those lands, until arriving near Civita Vecchia, he was taken
on board a Genoese vessel, and carried to the Ligurian port, where he
hoped to find a refuge from his enemies; but the city of Geneva was
devastated by pestilence and civil war, and after a sojourn of a few
days he pursued once more the road of exile. Seeking for a place wherein
he might settle for a short time and hide from his pursuers, he stayed
his steps at Noli, situated at a short distance from Savona, on the
Riviera: this town, nestled in a little bay surrounded by high hills
crowned by feudal castles and towers, was only accessible on the shore
side, and offered a grateful retreat to our philosopher. At Noli, Bruno
obtained permission of the magistracy to teach grammar to children, and
thus secured the means of subsistence by the small remuneration he
received; but this modest employment did not occupy him sufficiently,
and he gathered round him a few gentlemen of the district, to whom he
taught the science of the Sphere. Bruno also wrote a book upon the
Sphere, which was lost. He expounded the system of Copernicus, and
talked to his pupils with enthusiasm about the movement of the earth and
of the plurality of worlds.
As in that same Liguria Columbus first divined another hemisphere
outside the Pillars of Hercules, so Bruno discovered to those astonished
minds the myriads of worlds which fill the immensity of space. Columbus
was derided and banished by his fellow-citizens, and the fate of our
philosopher was similar to his. In the humble schoolmaster who taught
grammar to the children, the bishop, the clergy, and the nobles, who
listened eagerly to his lectures on the Sphere, began to suspect the
heretic and the innovator. After five months it behoved him to leave
Noli; he took the road to Savona, crossed the Apennines, and arrived at
Turin. In Turin at that time reigned the great Duke Emanuele Filiberto,
a man of strong character--one of those men who know how to found a
dynasty and to fix the destiny of a people; at that time, when Central
and Southern Italy were languishing under home and foreign tyranny, he
laid the foundations of the future Italy.
He was warrior, artist, mechanic, and scholar. Intrepid on the field of
battle, he would retire from deeds of arms to the silence of his study,
and cause the works of Aristotle to be read to him; he spoke all the
European languages; he worked at artillery, at models of fortresses, and
at the smith's craft; he brought together around him, from all sides of
Italy, artisans and scientists to promote industry, commerce, and
science; he gathered together in Piedmont the most excellent compositors
of Italy, and sanctioned a printer's company.
Bruno, attracted to Turin by the favour that was shown to letters and
philosophy, hoped to get occupation as press reader; but it was
precisely at that time that the Duke, instigated by France, was
combating, with every kind of weapon, the Waldensian and Huguenot
heresies, and had invited the Jesuits to Turin, offering them a
substantial subsidy; so that on Bruno's arrival he found the place he
had hoped for, as teacher in the university, occupied by his enemies,
and he therefore moved on with little delay, and embarked for Venice.
Berti, in his Life of Bruno, remarks that when the latter sought refuge
in Turin, Torquato Tasso, also driven by adverse fortune, arrived in the
same place, and he notes the affinity between them--both so great, both
subject to every species of misfortune and persecution in life, and
destined to immortal honours after their death: the light of genius
burned in them both, the fire of enthusiasm flamed in each alike, and on
the forehead of each one was set the sign of sorrow and of pain.
Both Bruno and Tasso entered the cloister as boys: the one joined the
Dominicans, the other the Jesuits; and in the souls of both might be
discerned the impress of the Order to which they belonged. Both went
forth from their native place longing to find a broader field of action
and greater scope for their intellectual powers. The one left Naples
carrying in his heart the Pagan and Christian traditions of the noble
enterprises and the saintly heroism of Olympus and of Calvary, of Homer
and the Fathers, of Plato and St. Ignatius; the other was filled with
the philosophical thought of the primitive Italian and Pythagorean
epochs, fecundated by his own conceptions and by the new age;
philosopher and apostle of an idea, Bruno consecrated his life to the
development of it in his writings and to the propagation of his
principles in Europe by the fire of enthusiasm. The one surprised the
world with the melody of his songs; being, as Dante says, the "dolce
sirena che i marinari in mezzo al mare smaga," he lulled the anguish
that lacerated Italy, and gilded the chains which bound her; the other
tried to shake her; to recall her to life with the vigour of thought,
with the force of reason, with the sacrifice of himself. The songs of
Tasso were heard and sung from one end of Italy to the other, and the
poet dwelt in palaces and received the caress and smile of princes;
while Bruno, discoursing in the name of reason and of science, was
rejected, persecuted, and scourged, and only after three centuries of
ingratitude, of calumny, and of forgetfulness, does his country show
signs of appreciating him and of doing justice to his memory. In Tasso
the poet predominates over the philosopher, in Bruno the philosopher
predominates over and eclipses the poet. The first sacrifices thought to
form; the second is careful only of the idea. Again, both are full of a
conception of the Divine, but the God that the dying Tasso confessed is
a god that is expected and comes not; while the god that Bruno proclaims
he already finds within himself. Tasso dies in his bed in the cloister,
uneasy as on a bed of thorns; Bruno, amidst the flames, stands out as on
a pedestal, and dies serene and calm. We must now follow our fugitive to
Venice.
At the time Giordano Bruno arrived in Venice that city was the most
important typographical centre of Europe; the commerce in books extended
through the Levant, Germany, and France, and the philosopher hoped that
here he might find some means of subsistence. The plague at that time
was devastating Venice, and in less than one year had claimed forty-two
thousand victims; but Bruno felt no fear, and he took a lodging in that
part of Venice called the Frezzeria, and was soon busy preparing for the
press a work called "Segni del Tempo," hoping that the sale of it would
bring a little money for daily needs. This work was lost, as were all
those which he published in Italy, and which it was to the interest of
Rome to destroy. Disappointed at not finding work to do in Venice, he
next went to Padua, which was the intellectual centre of Europe, as
Venice was the centre of printing and publishing; the most celebrated
professors of that epoch were to be found in the University of Padua,
but at the time of Bruno's sojourn there, Padua, like Venice, was
ravaged by the plague; the university was closed, and the printing-house
was not in operation. He remained there only a few days, lodging with
some monks of the Order of St. Dominic, who, he relates, "persuaded me
to wear the dress again, even though I would not profess the religion it
implied, because they said it would aid me in my wayfaring to be thus
attired; and so I got a white cloth robe, and I put on the hood which I
had preserved when I left Rome." Thus habited he wandered for several
months about the cities of Venetia and Lombardy; and although he
contrived for a time to evade his persecutors, he finally decided to
leave Italy, as it was repugnant to his disposition to live in forced
dissimulation, and he felt that he could do no good either for himself
or for his country, which was then overrun with Spaniards and scourged
by petty tyrants; and with the lower orders sunk in ignorance, and the
upper classes illiterate, uncultivated, and corrupt, the mission of
Giordano Bruno was impossible. "Altiora Peto" was Bruno's motto, and to
realize it he had gone forth with the pilgrim's staff in his hand,
sometimes covered with the cowl of the monk, at others wearing the
simple habit of a schoolmaster, or, again, clothed with the doublet of
the mechanic: he had found no resting-place--nowhere to lay his head, no
one who could understand him, but always many ready to denounce him. He
turned his back at last on his country, crossed the Alps on foot, and
directed his steps towards Switzerland. He visited the universities in
different towns of Switzerland, France, and Germany, and wherever he
went he left behind him traces of his visit in some hurried writings.
The only work of the Nolan, written in Italy, which has survived is "Il
Candelajo," which was published in Paris. Levi, in his Life of Bruno,
passes in review his various works; but it will suffice here to
reproduce what he says of the "Eroici Furori," the first part of which
I have translated, and to note his remarks upon the style of Bruno,
which presents many difficulties to the translator on account of its
formlessness. Goethe says of Bruno's writings: "Zu allgemeiner
Betrachtung und Erhebung der Geistes eigneten sich die Schriften des
Jordanus Brunous von Nola; aber freilich das gediegene Gold and Silber
aus der Masse jener zo ungleich begabten Erzgaenge auszuscheiden und
unter den Hammer zu bringen erfordert fast mehr als menschliche Kraefte
vermoegen."
I believe that no translation of Giordano Bruno's works has ever been
brought out in English, or, at any rate, no translation of the "Eroici
Furori," and therefore I have had no help from previous renderings. I
have, for the most part, followed the text as closely as possible,
especially in the sonnets, which are frequently rendered line for line.
Form is lacking in the original, and would, owing to the unusual and
often fantastic clothing of the ideas, be difficult to apply in the
translation. He seems to have written down his grand ideas hurriedly,
and, as Levi says, probably intended to retouch the work before
printing.
Following the order of Levi's Life of Bruno, we next find the fugitive
at Geneva. He was hardly thirty-one years old when he quitted his
country and crossed the Alps, and his first stopping-place was Chambery,
where he was received in a convent of the Order of Predicatori; he
proposed going on to Lyons, but being told by an Italian priest, whom he
met there, that he was not likely to find countenance or support, either
in the place he was in or in any other place, however far he might
travel, he changed his course and made for Geneva.
The name of Giordano Bruno was not unknown to the Italian colony who had
fled from papal persecution to this stronghold of religious reform. He
went to lodge at an inn, and soon received visits from the Marchese di
Vico Napoletano, Pietro Martire Vermigli, and other refugees, who
welcomed him with affection, inquiring whether he intended to embrace
the religion of Calvin, to which Bruno replied that he did not intend to
make profession of that religion, as he did not know of what kind it
was, and he only desired to live in Geneva in freedom. He was then
advised to doff the Dominican habit, which he still wore; this he was
quite willing to do, only he had no money to buy other clothing, and was
forced to have some made of the cloth of his monkish robes, and his new
friends presented him with a sword and a hat; they also procured some
work for him in correcting press errors.
The term of Bruno's sojourn in Geneva seems doubtful, and the precise
nature of his employment when there is also uncertain; but his
independent spirit brought him into dispute with the rigid Calvinists of
that city, who preached and exacted a blind faith, absolute and
compulsory. Bruno could not accept any of the existing positive
religions; he professed the cult of philosophy and science, nor was his
character of that mould that would have enabled him to hide his
principles. It was made known to him that he must either adopt Calvinism
or leave Geneva: he declined the former, and had no choice as to the
latter; poor he had entered Geneva, and poor he left it, and now turned
his steps towards France.
He reached Lyons, which was also at that time a city of refuge against
religious persecutions, and he addressed himself to his compatriots,
begging for work from the publishers, Aldo and Grifi; but not succeeding
in gaining enough to enable him to subsist, after a few days he left,
and went on his way to Toulouse, where there was a famous university;
and having made acquaintance with several men of intellect, Bruno was
invited to lecture on the Sphere, which he did, with various other
subjects, for six months, when the chair of Philosophy becoming vacant,
he took the degree of Doctor, and competed for it; and he continued for
two years in that place, teaching the philosophy of Aristotle and of
others. He took for the text of his lectures the treatise of Aristotle,
"De Anima," and this gave him the opportunity of introducing and
discussing the deepest questions--upon the Origin and Destiny of
Humanity; The Soul, is it Matter or Spirit? Potentiality or Reality?
Individual or Universal? Mortal or Eternal? Is Man alone gifted with
Soul, or are all beings equally so? Bruno's system was in his mind
complete and mature; he taught that everything in Nature has a soul, one
universal mind, penetrates and moves all things; the world itself is a
_sacrum animal_. Nothing is lost, but all transmutes and becomes. This
vast field afforded him scope for teaching his doctrines upon the world,
on the movement of the earth, and on the universal soul. The novelty and
boldness of his opinions roused the animosity of the clergy against him,
and after living two years and six months at Toulouse, he felt it wise
to retire, and leaving the capital of the Languedoc, he set his face
towards Paris.
The two books--the fruit of his lectures--which he published in
Toulouse, "De Anima" and "De Clavis Magis," were lost.
The title of Doctor, or as he said himself, "Maestro delle Arti," which
Bruno had obtained at Toulouse, gave him the faculty of teaching
publicly in Paris, and he says: "I went to Paris, where I set myself to
read a most unusual lecture, in order to make myself known and to
attract attention." He gave thirty lectures on the thirty Divine
attributes, dividing and distributing them according to the method of
St. Thomas Aquinas: these lectures excited much attention amongst the
scholars of the Sorbonne, who went in crowds to hear him; and he
introduced, as usual, his own ideas while apparently teaching the
doctrines of St. Thomas. His extraordinary memory and his eloquence
caused great astonishment; and the fame of Bruno reached the ears of
King Henry III., who sent for him to the Court, and being filled with
admiration of his learning, he offered him a substantial subsidy.
During his stay at Paris, although he was much at Court, he spent many
hours in his study, writing the works that he afterwards published.
Philosophical questions were discussed at the Sorbonne with much
freedom: Bruno showed himself no partisan of either the Platonic or the
Peripatetic school; he was not exclusive either in philosophy or in
religion; he did not favour the Huguenot faction more than the Catholic
league; and precisely by reason of this independent attitude, which kept
him free of the shackles of the sects, did he obtain the faculty of
lecturing at the Sorbonne. Nor can we ascribe this aloofness to
religious indifference, but to the fact that he sought for higher things
and longed for nobler ones. The humiliating spectacle which the positive
religions, both Catholic and Reformed, presented at that time--the
hatreds, the civil wars, the assassinations which they instigated--had
disgusted men of noble mould, and had turned them against these
so-called religions; so that in Naples, in Tuscany, in Venice, in
Switzerland, France, and England, there were to be found societies of
philosophers, of free-thinkers, and politicians, who repudiated every
positive religion and professed a pure Theism.
In the "Spaccio della Bestia Trionfante" he declares that he cannot ally
himself either to the Catholic or the Lutheran Church, because he
professes a more pure and complete faith than these--to wit, the love of
humanity and the love of wisdom; and Mocenigo, the disciple who
ultimately betrayed and sold him to the Holy Office, declares in his
deposition that Bruno sought to make himself the author of a new
religion under the name of "Philosophy." He was not a man to conceal his
ideas, and in the fervour of his improvisation he no doubt revealed what
he was; some tumult resulted from this free speaking of Bruno's, and he
was forced to discontinue his lectures at the Sorbonne.
Towards the end of the year 1583 the King became enthralled by religious
enthusiasm, and nothing was talked of in Paris but the conversion of
King Henry. This fact changed the aspect of affairs as far as Bruno was
concerned; he judged it prudent to leave Paris, and he travelled to
England.
The principal works published by Bruno during his stay in Paris are "Il
Candelajo" and "Umbrae Idearum." The former, says Levi, is a work of
criticism and of demolition; in this comedy he sets in groups the
principal types of hypocrisy, stupidity, and rascality, and exhibiting
them in their true colours, he lashes them with ridicule. In the "Umbrae
Idearum" he initiates the work of reconstruction, giving colour to his
thought and sketching his idea. The philosophy of Bruno is based upon
that of Pythagoras, whose system penetrates the social and intellectual
history of Italy, both ancient and modern. The method of Pythagoras is
not confined, as most philosophies are, to pure metaphysical
speculations, but connects these with scientific observations and social
practice. Bruno having resuscitated these doctrines, stamps them with a
wider scope, giving them a more positive direction; and he may with
propriety be called the second Pythagoras. The primal idea of
Pythagoras, which Bruno worked out to a more distinct development is
this: numbers are the beginning of things; in other words numbers are
the cause of the existence of material things; they are not final, but
are always changing position and attributes; they are variable and
relative. Beyond and above this mutability there must be the Immutable,
the All, the One.