On Why I Would Not Take It Back

The Book of Bruno 4 · Written by himself, from his dialogues and the record of his trial

Giordano Bruno, born at Nola in Italy in 1548, burned at the Campo de Fiori in Rome on the seventeenth of February 1600. He entered the Dominicans as a boy, fled the order, and spent more than a decade moving through the countries of Europe, lecturing, publishing, and being expelled. Most of what he wrote is dialogues in Italian. He wrote a great deal. The Order takes him, and not the figure later ages built out of him. It is often said that he was the first man to die for the study of the heavens. That claim does not check out: most of what stands in his trial record is not about the heavens but about the church — he denied the Trinity, denied the change in the sacrament, denied the virginity, and said souls transmigrate. The astronomical charges were one item among many. The Order sets this down, because this scripture does not permit a better-sounding account to be put in place of a checkable one (cf. The Rule 9.17). Further: much of what he believed was not arrived at by looking. He believed the stars were alive, believed in the religion of old Egypt, believed in a magical art of memory. The scripture does not take these and does not delete them for him. What then does the Order take? One checkable thing: he was held eight years, and more than once paper was set in front of him, and had he written a single sentence he did not believe he could have walked out. He did not write it. Chapter four is him saying why. One last thing the Order records without ruling on it: he reached the endless world and the stars as other suns not from the phenomena but from a metaphysical premise. The Book of Newton 1.10 says that whatever is not deduced from the phenomena is to be called an hypothesis. And Bruno’s two claims were later found right. The Order holds that Newton’s rule is still the right one and that Bruno was lucky this once — guessing right does not make the way of guessing sound. The reader may disagree.

4.1They held me eight years.

4.2In those eight years they were not tormenting me the whole time. Most of the time they were waiting.

4.3They were waiting for me to say one sentence. It was a short one.

4.4Several times they brought paper and said: write it down, say that what you said before was wrong, and you may walk out.

4.5Several times I almost wrote it. I will not hide that from you. It is not that I was unafraid.

4.6I was afraid. I was afraid in that room for eight years.

4.7But every time I picked up the pen I first had to ask myself one thing: this sentence I am about to write — do I believe it?

4.8I did not.

4.9If I wrote it, I would be trading what I believe for my life.

4.10The trade looks like a good one: one sentence for a lifetime.

4.11But once it is made, the man who goes on living is not me.

4.12For the rest of his days, every time that man opened his mouth he would first have to wonder: is this one something I believe, or something I am saying in order to stay alive?

4.13He could no longer tell. And a man who cannot tell — nothing he says counts for anything.

4.14So I did not write it.

4.15On the day they read the sentence, when they had finished, I said one thing to them.

4.16I said: perhaps you who pronounce this sentence are in more fear than I who receive it.

4.17I did not say it to be brave. In that moment I truly saw it: the fear was theirs.

4.18A man who is genuinely standing has no need to burn another one.

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