Let me start by stating a fact: Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) actually suffered at the hands of the inquisitors. On February 17, 1600, the thinker was burned in the Piazza des Flowers in Rome. Regardless of any interpretations and interpretations of events, the fact always remains: the Inquisition sentenced Bruno to death and carried out the sentence. Such a step can hardly be justified from the point of view of evangelical morality. Therefore, Bruno's death will forever remain a regrettable event in the history of the Catholic West. The question is different. Why did Giordano Bruno suffer? The existing stereotype of a science martyr does not even allow one to think about the answer. How for what? Naturally, for your scientific views! However, in reality this answer turns out to be at least superficial. But in fact, it is simply incorrect.

I'm making up hypotheses!

As a thinker, Giordano Bruno, of course, had a great influence on the development of the philosophical tradition of his time and - indirectly - on the development of modern science, primarily as a continuer of the ideas of Nicholas of Cusa, which undermined the physics and cosmology of Aristotle. Moreover, Bruno himself was neither a physicist nor an astronomer. The ideas of the Italian thinker cannot be called scientific, not only from the standpoint of modern knowledge, but also by the standards of 16th-century science. Bruno didn't study scientific research in the sense in which they were dealt with by those who really created the science of that time: Copernicus, and later Newton. The name Bruno is known today primarily because of the tragic ending of his life. At the same time, we can say with full responsibility that Bruno did not suffer for his scientific views and discoveries. Simply because... he didn't have any! Bruno was religious philosopher, not scientists. Natural scientific discoveries interested him primarily as reinforcement of his views on completely non-scientific issues: the meaning of life, the meaning of the existence of the Universe, etc. Of course, in the era of the emergence of science, this difference (scientist or philosopher) was not as obvious as it is now. Soon after Bruno one of the founders modern science, Isaac Newton, will define this boundary as follows: “I invent no hypotheses!” (i.e. all my thoughts are confirmed by facts and reflect the objective world). Bruno "invented hypotheses." Actually, he didn’t do anything else.

Let's start with the fact that Bruno was disgusted by the dialectical methods known to him and used by scientists of that time: scholastic and mathematical. What did he offer in return? Bruno preferred to give his thoughts not the strict form of scientific treatises, but poetic form and imagery, as well as rhetorical colorfulness. In addition, Bruno was a proponent of the so-called Lullian art of linking thoughts - a combinatorial technique that involved modeling logical operations using symbolic notation (named after the medieval Spanish poet and theologian Raymond Lull). Mnemonics helped Bruno remember important images that he mentally placed in the structure of the cosmos and which were supposed to help him master divine power and comprehend the internal order of the Universe.

The most accurate and most vital science for Bruno was...! The criteria for his methodology are poetic meter and Lully's art, and Bruno's philosophy is a peculiar combination of literary motifs and philosophical reasoning, often loosely related to each other. It is therefore not surprising that Galileo Galilei, who, like many of his contemporaries, recognized Bruno’s outstanding abilities, never considered him a scientist, much less an astronomer. And in every possible way he avoided even mentioning his name in his works.

It is generally accepted that Bruno's views were a continuation and development of the ideas of Copernicus. However, facts indicate that Bruno’s acquaintance with the teachings of Copernicus was very superficial, and in the interpretation of the works of the Polish scientist, the Nolanian23 made very serious mistakes. Of course, Copernicus' heliocentrism had a great influence on Bruno and on the formation of his views. However, he easily and boldly interpreted the ideas of Copernicus, putting his thoughts, as already mentioned, in a certain poetic form. Bruno argued that the Universe is infinite and exists forever, that there are countless worlds in it, each of which in its structure resembles the Copernican solar system.

Bruno went much further than Copernicus, who showed extreme caution here and refused to consider the question of the infinity of the Universe. True, Bruno’s courage was based not on scientific confirmation of his ideas, but on the occult-magical worldview, which was formed in him under the influence of the ideas of Hermeticism, popular at that time. Hermeticism, in particular, assumed the deification of not only man, but also the world, therefore Bruno’s own worldview is often characterized as pantheistic (pantheism is a religious doctrine in which material world). I will give only two quotes from the Hermetic texts: “We dare to say that man is a mortal God and that the God of heaven is an immortal man. Thus, all things are governed by the world and man,” “The Lord of eternity is the first God, the world is the second, man is the third. God, the creator of the world and everything that it contains, controls this whole whole and subjects it to the control of man. This latter turns everything into the subject of his activity.” As they say, no comments.

Thus, Bruno cannot be called not only a scientist, but even a popularizer of the teachings of Copernicus. From the point of view of science itself, Bruno rather compromised the ideas of Copernicus, trying to express them in the language of superstition. This inevitably led to a distortion of the idea itself and destroyed its scientific content and scientific value. Modern historians of science (in particular, M.A. Kissel) believe that in comparison with the intellectual exercises of Bruno, not only the Ptolemaic system, but also medieval scholastic Aristotelianism can be considered the standards of scientific rationalism. Bruno had no actual scientific results, and his arguments “in favor of Copernicus” were just a set of meaningless statements that primarily demonstrated the ignorance of the author.

Are God and the universe “twin brothers”?

So, Bruno was not a scientist, and therefore it was impossible to bring against him the charges that, for example, were brought against Galileo. Why then was Bruno burned? The answer lies in his religious views. In his idea of ​​​​the infinity of the Universe, Bruno deified the world and endowed nature with divine properties. This idea of ​​the Universe actually rejected the Christian idea of ​​God, who created the world ex nihilo (out of nothing - lat.).

According to Christian views, God, being an absolute and uncreated Being, does not obey the laws of space-time created by Him, and the created Universe does not possess the absolute characteristics of the Creator. When Christians say: “God is Eternal,” this does not mean that He “will not die,” but that He does not obey the laws of time, He is outside of time. Bruno's views led to the fact that in his philosophy God dissolved in the Universe, the boundaries between the Creator and creation were erased, and the fundamental difference was destroyed. God in Bruno’s teaching, unlike Christianity, ceased to be a Person, which is why man became only a grain of sand in the world, just as the earthly world itself was only a grain of sand in Bruno’s “many worlds.”

The doctrine of God as a Person was fundamentally important for the Christian doctrine of man: man is a person, since he was created in the image and likeness of the Person - the Creator. The creation of the world and man is a free act of Divine Love. Bruno, however, also talks about love, but with him it loses its personal character and turns into a cold cosmic aspiration. These circumstances were significantly complicated by Bruno’s passion for occult and hermetic teachings: the Nolan was not only actively interested in magic, but also, apparently, no less actively practiced the “magical art.” In addition, Bruno defended the idea of ​​the transmigration of souls (the soul is capable of traveling not only from body to body, but also from one world to another), questioned the meaning and truth of the Christian sacraments (primarily the sacrament of Communion), ironized the idea of ​​​​the birth of the God-man from the Virgin and etc. All this could not but lead to conflict with the Catholic Church.

Why were the inquisitors afraid of the verdict?

From all this it inevitably follows that, firstly, the views of Giordano Bruno cannot be characterized as scientific. Therefore, in his conflict with Rome there was not and could not be a struggle between religion and science. Secondly, the ideological foundations of Bruno’s philosophy were very far from Christian. For the Church he was a heretic, and heretics at that time were burned.

It seems very strange to the modern tolerant consciousness that a person is sent to the stake for deifying nature and practicing magic. Any modern tabloid publication publishes dozens of advertisements about damage, love spells, etc.

Bruno lived in a different time: in the era religious wars. The heretics in Bruno’s time were not harmless thinkers “not of this world” whom the damned inquisitors burned for no reason. There was a struggle. The struggle is not just for power, but a struggle for the meaning of life, for the meaning of the world, for a worldview that was affirmed not only with the pen, but also with the sword. And if power were seized, for example, by those who were closer to the views of the Nolanite, the fires would most likely continue to burn, as they burned in the 16th century in Geneva, where Calvinist Protestants burned Catholic inquisitors. All this, of course, does not bring the era of witch hunts closer to living according to the Gospel.

Unfortunately, full text The verdict with charges against Bruno has not been preserved. From the documents that have reached us and the testimony of contemporaries, it follows that those Copernican ideas that Bruno expressed in his own way and which were also included in the accusations did not make any difference in the inquisitorial investigation. Despite the ban on Copernicus’s ideas, his views, in the strict sense of the word, were never heretical for the Catholic Church (which, by the way, a little over thirty years after Bruno’s death largely predetermined the rather lenient sentence of Galileo Galilei). All this once again confirms the main thesis of this article: Bruno was not and could not be executed for scientific views.

Some of Bruno’s views, in one form or another, were characteristic of many of his contemporaries, but the Inquisition sent only a stubborn Nolanite to the stake. What was the reason for this sentence? Most likely, it is worth talking about a number of reasons that forced the Inquisition to take extreme measures. Don't forget that the investigation into Bruno's case lasted eight years.

The inquisitors tried to understand Bruno's views in detail, carefully studying his works. And, apparently, recognizing the uniqueness of the thinker’s personality, they sincerely wanted Bruno to renounce his anti-Christian, occult views. And they persuaded him to repent for all eight years. That's why famous words Bruno that the inquisitors with great fear they pass a sentence on him, than he listens to it, can also be understood as the obvious reluctance of the Roman throne to pass this sentence. According to eyewitness accounts, the judges were indeed more dejected by their verdict than the Nolan man. However, Bruno's stubbornness, refusing to admit the charges brought against him and, therefore, to renounce any of his views, actually left him no chance of pardon.

The fundamental difference between Bruno's position and those thinkers who also came into conflict with the Church was his conscious anti-Christian and anti-church views. Bruno was judged not as a scientist-thinker, but as a runaway monk and an apostate from the faith. The materials on Bruno's case paint a portrait not of a harmless philosopher, but of a conscious and active enemy of the Church. If the same Galileo never faced a choice: the Church or his own scientific views, then Bruno made his choice. And he had to choose between church teaching about the world, God and man and his own religious and philosophical constructs, which he called “heroic enthusiasm” and “the philosophy of the dawn.” If Bruno had been more of a scientist than a “free philosopher,” he could have avoided problems with the Roman throne. It was precise natural science that required, when studying nature, to rely not on poetic inspiration and magical sacraments, but on rigid rational constructs. However, Bruno was least inclined to do the latter.

According to the outstanding Russian thinker A.F. Losev, many scientists and philosophers of that time in similar situations they preferred to repent not out of fear of torture, but because they were frightened by a break with church tradition, a break with Christ. During the trial, Bruno was not afraid of losing Christ, since this loss in his heart, apparently, happened much earlier...

Literature:

1. Barbour I. Religion and science: history and modernity. M.: BBI, 2000.

2. Gaidenko P. P. History of modern European philosophy in its connection with science. M.: PER SE, 2000.

3. Yeats F. Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic tradition. M.: New Literary Review, 2000.

4. Losev A. F. Aesthetics of the Renaissance. M.: Mysl, 1998.

5. Mentsin Yu. L. “Earthly chauvinism” and the star worlds of Giordano Bruno // Questions of the history of natural science and technology. 1994, no. 1.

6. Philosophical and religious origins of science. Rep. editor P. P. Gaidenko. M.: Martis, 1997.

22) For the first time: Foma, 2004, No. 5.

23) Nolanets - Bruno’s nickname after his place of birth - Nola

24) Hermeticism is a magical-occult teaching that, according to its adherents, goes back to the semi-mythical figure of the Egyptian priest and magician Hermes Trismegistus, whose name we meet in the era of the dominance of religious and philosophical syncretism of the first centuries new era, and expounded in the so-called “Corpus Hermeticum”... In addition, Hermeticism had extensive astrological, alchemical and magical literature, which according to tradition was attributed to Hermes Trismegistus... the main thing that distinguished esoteric-occult teachings from Christian theology... was the belief in the divine - uncreated - essence of man and the belief that there are magical means of purifying man that return him to the state of innocence that Adam possessed before the Fall. Having been cleansed of sinful filth, a person becomes the second God. Without any help or assistance from above, he can control the forces of nature and, thus, fulfill the covenant given to him by God before his expulsion from paradise.” (Gaidenko P. P. Christianity and the genesis of modern European natural science // Philosophical and religious sources of science. M.: Martis, 1997. P. 57.)

V.R. Legoyda “Do jeans interfere with salvation?” Moscow, 2006

On July 21, 1542, Pope Paul III established the central tribunal of the Inquisition, whose rights were not limited, by the bull “Licet ab inicio” (“Follows from the beginning”). Bonfires have been burning throughout Christian Europe for several centuries, but now the fight against heretics has reached an unprecedented scale. Witch trials, a huge staff of spies who reported on heretics and received generous rewards for this, secret prisons - the Inquisition system in Rome was very similar to the Spanish one. The instruments of torture used by the inquisitors amaze the imagination with their cruelty.

The Inquisition did not spare scientists, military leaders and preachers who dared to challenge the tenets of Catholicism. Read about its most famous victims, as well as those who managed to escape from the hands of the Inquisition, in our material.

Jan Hus (1369−1415)

The ideologist of the Czech Reformation gave lectures in which he criticized the feudal lords and the Catholic Church (in particular, the system of indulgences). At that time this was unheard of audacity. In addition, Jan Hus changed the rules of Czech spelling and composed several songs that became very popular among the people. Huss's influence grew. In 1409, the Pope issued a bull directed against a Czech priest. His sermons were banned, but Jan Hus was in no hurry to give up and continued his activities. In 1414 he was summoned to the city of Constance for the XVI ecumenical council while guaranteeing complete safety. However, soon after his arrival, the thinker was arrested and accused of heresy.

He did not renounce his beliefs. On July 6, 1415, Jan Hus was burned at the stake. After his death, the Hussite wars broke out on the territory of the modern Czech Republic, in which the preacher's followers and Catholics fought each other.

Joan of Arc (1412−1431)

The Frenchwoman, who inspired thousands of soldiers to feat of arms, did not escape persecution by the Inquisition. She was tried on charges of heresy, but she was kept in prison under the guard of the British as a prisoner of war. For Joan of Arc, the judges set cunning traps to reach a verdict as quickly as possible. For example, during a meeting she was asked to read a prayer. Meanwhile, the slightest hesitation or error in reading would be interpreted as an admission of heresy. The girl insisted on saying a prayer during confession.

At one of the meetings, Jeanne named the names of the saints whose voices she heard, described her visions and predicted the military defeat of the British. Charges were quickly fabricated from her testimony. Frightened of being extradited to the British, Jeanne renounced her testimony and promised to return to the bosom of the church. In this case, burning at the stake was replaced by life imprisonment. However, while in custody, the girl again put on her men's suit. Jeanne was excommunicated from the church. The judges decided to hand over D'Arc to secular justice, and on May 30, 1431, she was burned at the stake.

Later, an ally of the Maid of Orleans, the French Marshal Gilles de Rais, was executed.

Giordano Bruno (1548−1600)

The Italian philosopher was denounced by an aristocrat from Venice, Giovanni Mocenigo, to whom Bruno gave lessons. These denunciations said that the scientist called Jesus a magician and denied basic Christian dogmas. At first, the philosopher was imprisoned in Venice, but the local Inquisition did not dare to complete the process on their own - his fame was too great. Then he was transported to Rome: here Giordano spent 6 years in captivity. Nothing made him give up his beliefs.

On February 9, 1600, the inquisitorial tribunal declared the scientist a heretic. On February 17, he was burned in one of the central squares of Rome. Several thousand people watched the execution. It should be noted that in Bruno’s death sentence there is no mention of the heliocentric system of the world he defended. The scientist was executed, first of all, for heretical statements that refuted Christian dogmas.

Galileo Galilei (1564−1642)

Galileo's contribution to science is difficult to overestimate. He founded experimental physics and also laid the foundation for classical mechanics. Alas, the scientist’s views on the structure of the world led him into the hands of the Inquisition. “Well-wishers” reported to the Pope about Galileo’s book “Dialogue on the Two Most Important Systems of the World—Ptolemaic and Copernican.” Pope Urban VIII recognized himself in one of the heroes, and this infuriated him. The scientist was summoned to Rome for trial: despite his advanced age and poor health, his requests to postpone the hearing were refused.

In prison, Galileo lost his sight. Historians still debate whether he was subjected to torture. After a trial that lasted 3 months, he renounced his beliefs, which saved his life. Until his death he was under house arrest and the vigilant supervision of the Inquisition.

Alessandro Cagliostro (1743−1795)

The famous mystic spent most of his life searching for the elixir of immortality. He introduced himself to his acquaintances as nothing other than “ great person", and spread incredible rumors about himself. In London and Paris it was rumored that Cagliostro was able to turn lead into gold and speak with the souls of the dead. In addition, Alessandro allegedly knew how to heal seriously ill patients. He also visited St. Petersburg as a healer, but mysticism was not held in high esteem by the nobles at that time.

Cagliostro wandered throughout Europe until he returned to Rome in 1789. Almost immediately upon arrival he was arrested on charges of Freemasonry. During the trial, all of Cagliostro's fraudulent affairs came to light. By the way, his wife testified against him. The “Great Alchemist” was sentenced to be burned, but after repentance the capital punishment was replaced with life imprisonment. After four years in prison, Alessandro died.

Story:/ However

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Why was Giordano Bruno burned?

The minority is always wrong - at first!

...The scientist was sentenced to be burned.

When Giordano ascended the fire,

The Supreme Nuncio in front of him lowered his gaze...

- I see how afraid you are of me,

Not being able to refute science.

But the truth is always stronger than fire!

I don’t renounce and I don’t regret.

...The heretic was executed for his idea,

The fire was burning on the Square of Flowers...

...Then they threatened Galileo with torture...

With science, darkness will not build bridges.

As the Earth turns, he is ready to renounce...

The earth is round, Galileo declared in 1633, but in order to avoid the fate of Giordano Bruno, being burned alive at the stake, he was forced to abandon his teaching and admit that the earth cannot rotate. But, leaving the Inquisition hall, the great scientist uttered his famous phrase:“But still she spins!” Whether it was true or not, the stubborn exclamation has survived the centuries. It now means:“Say what you want, I’m sure I’m right!”

On Orthodox forums there are often topics about the burning of Giordano Bruno, where Christians very passionately and convincingly argue that Bruno was burned “not for science,” but for heresy. Thank you for the fact that the very fact of grief is not denied. And Bruno himself, presumably, did not care what he was formally burned alive for - for science or heresy. Well, they burned and burned, so what...

Needless to say, Christianity strenuously disavows the medieval persecution of science, trying to tear away Bruno’s image as a martyr of science and prove that the entire Holy Inquisition are the nicest, kindest and most intelligent people. In principle, we have almost been convinced that science in the Middle Ages developed solely thanks to the care and patience of the Inquisition. I willingly believe it.

Bruno refused to recognize the main of his theories as false and was sentenced to death by the Catholic Church, and then burned alive by Christians at the stake in Rome's Campo di Fiore on February 17, 1600. Last words Bruno were:“You probably announced this verdict with more fear than I listened to it... Burning does not mean refute.”

There is such a legend. When Giordano Bruno was being burned in the Piazza des Flowers in Rome, the fire suddenly began to die out: either the wind blew, or the wood became damp. From the crowd of onlookers watching the execution, an old woman, God's dandelion, suddenly rushed to the pyramid of firewood on which Giordano was tied and carefully thrust an armful of dry straw into the dying fire. Remember what Baron Munchausen said in the famous film by Mark Zakharov:“In the end, Galileo also renounced! That's why I always loved Giordano Bruno more..." . And indeed, even under the threat of the death penalty, the medieval thinker remained true to his convictions.

Why did Giordano Bruno so frighten the Catholic Church that, having lost to him in a philosophical dispute, it did not find any other way to fight philosophy and science than to burn its representative? Bruno in his teaching asserted what every person has known for a long time and was even recently recognized by the Vatican, which acquitted Galileo. The Universe is infinite, as is the number of stars in it, the Sun is not a lit fire Christian god to revolve around a stationary strip of the Earth and illuminate it, and one of the countless stars, which, like the Earth, rotates in space along its own trajectory. Our Earth is not the only planet in the universe where life exists.

He argued that the same laws apply throughout the universe, and they are based on the material principle. On June 9, 1889, in Rome, in the square of flowers - Campo dei Fiori, where the great scientist Giordano Bruno was burned in 1600, a monument to him was erected. The church made its last justification for the inhumanity of the “holy” Inquisition through the lips of the Jesuit historian Luigi Cicuttini in 1950, who literally said the following:"The manner in which the Church intervened in Bruno's case is justified... the right to intervene is an inherent right, which is not subject to the influence of history" ...Neither subtract nor add.

Notice of the burning of Giordano Bruno.

On Thursday morning, at Campo di Fiore, the Dominican criminal Brother Nolanets, about whom it has already been written before, was burned alive; a most stubborn heretic who, at his own will, created various dogmas against our faith and, in particular, against Holy Virgin and saints, stubbornly wanted to die, remaining a criminal, and said that he was dying as a martyr and voluntarily, and knew that his soul would ascend along with the smoke to the Rule. But now he will see whether he was telling the truth.

...No, people have not forgotten that fire

At the turn of the Renaissance.

And three centuries have not passed since then -

Became a monument to Bruno for his torment.

In monastic granite vestments

He looks at Rome from the Square of Flowers...

Heirs of the "seditious" teaching

They follow him in understanding the world.

The path to other Universes is open, to other worlds...

Why did the State Duma speaker “burn” Copernicus, for Galileo’s statement?

“But still she spins!” - “Say what you want, I’m sure I’m right!”

“The boyars in the Duma speak according to what is not written, so that everyone’s stupidity can be seen.” - Peter the First.

State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov demonstrated his scholarship “without a piece of paper” in an online interview. Speaking on May 28, 2010 at the press center of Gazeta.Ru (the speech was broadcast on the Internet), he, in particular, touched upon issues of pseudoscience. Speaking about this, the speaker said the following phrase:“These are the Middle Ages! So, Copernicus was burned at the stake because he said, “Still, the Earth rotates!”

Let us recall that Nicolaus Copernicus lived peacefully to the age of 70 and died of a stroke. Phrase“But still the Earth rotates!” attributed to Galileo Galilei, who also died in his bed. And the scientist philosopher Giordano Bruno was burned.“To burn does not mean to refute.”

So in the future we shouldn’t be too surprised if tomorrow our parliamentary “stargazer”, who, by the way, is also the chairman of the Supreme Council of the United Russia party, declares that the constellation Ursa Major is named so solely in honor of his favorite party, and corporation MP ROC “United Ecumenical Religion” and other religions cannot exist in Rus'...

In 2002, Pope John Paul II apologized for the executions carried out by the Holy Inquisition and declared that the Church repented of "actions dictated by intolerance and cruelty in the service of the faith." However, until now, the majority of Catholic hierarchs believe that both the torture of heretics and the persecution of “overzealous” scientists were completely justified. And the second secretary of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly the Holy Inquisition), in an interview given to English television in November 2005, agreed that “although the holiness of the late pontiff is not subject to discussion, his decision to condemn the Inquisition was premature.”

But if the methods of the medieval struggle against apostates from the official faith can still be debated, then the negative role of the Inquisition in the development of civilization and the nation is beyond doubt.

The Holy Tribunal was created...

In the Middle Ages Catholic Church distinguished itself by two striking and closely interrelated phenomena - the Crusades and the Holy Inquisition.

In total, since 1096, 8 crusades have been carried out to liberate the Holy Land from the infidels, of which only the first achieved any success - in 1099, the crusaders recaptured Jerusalem from the Muslims, plundered the city, but did not hold it for long. However, it was there, in the Middle East, far from the Holy See, that dissent began to mature among the knights who had seized upon easy prey. Thus, the Order of the Templars appeared, various reform movements began to emerge. In order to protect the official Christian doctrine, Pope Gregory IX created a permanent Inquisition of judges and monks in 1232. The duties of the inquisitors included the “salvation of lost souls” and the eradication of any deviations from the official point of view on both the spiritual and material construction of the world. Naturally, any scientific discovery that did not fit within the framework of the “papal” doctrine was recognized as harmful and was persecuted with maximum cruelty

The fight against science took on especially harsh forms after the papal bull “On Eradication” was issued in 1252, allowing torture.

One step forward and two steps back.

It should be recognized that even before the formation of the Holy Inquisition, the Catholic Church showed intolerance towards science. In 1163 the Pope Alexander III issued a bull banning the study of “physics or the laws of nature.” A century later, Pope Boniface VIII banned the dissection of corpses and chemical experiments. Those who ignored the Pope's orders were imprisoned and burned at the stake.

The situation worsened when, in the 13th century, the then influential theologian Thomas Aquinas put forward the idea of ​​“harmony of faith and reason.” According to it, the human mind is divine in nature, and therefore it must, first of all, substantiate and support the truths of faith, and not question them. Following this formula, pundits had no right to go beyond the boundaries outlined by the medieval theologian. At the same time, science often rolled back to pre-Christian positions, and the development of civilization slowed down. Suffice it to say that even the ancient Greek philosopher Plato in the 4th century BC. e. suggested that the Earth rotates and is spherical. And two millennia later (!) in 1600, according to the verdict of the Inquisition, the famous Italian philosopher, astronomer, mathematician and poet Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in Rome for the same assumption.

And this situation remained in literally all areas of scientific thought until the final abolition of the Holy Inquisition in the 19th century.

My tongue is my enemy?

The massacre of Giordano Bruno became the most striking, even textbook, example of the obscurantism of the medieval church.

He was born in 1548, was ordained a priest in 1572, but four years later he was forced to flee Italy for publicly discussing texts prohibited by the church and for some time taught at universities in Europe.

To be fair, it must be said that Giordano Bruno did not propose anything new in astronomy; he only developed and popularized the theory of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543).

Let us recall that Copernicus proposed the so-called heliocentric system for constructing planets, according to which the center of the Universe was not the Earth (which still somehow corresponded to church canons), but the Sun. In 1530, he completed his work “On the Conversion of the Heavenly Spheres,” in which he outlined this theory, but, being a skilled politician, did not publish it and thus avoided accusations of heresy from the Inquisition. For more than a hundred years, Copernicus’s book was secretly circulated in manuscript, and the church pretended not to know about its existence. When Giordano Bruno began to popularize this work of Copernicus at public lectures, she could not remain silent.

The church fathers were also irritated by the fact that for the Italian there seemed to be no authority at all. At lectures in Geneva and Axford, he criticized the teachings of Aristotle, which was the basis in the Middle Ages higher education. And revealing to students the secrets of the forbidden teachings of Copernicus, Giordano Bruno went even further - he suggested that the Universe is infinite and consists of a huge number of worlds similar to ours.

The freedom lover was lured back to Italy by deceit, in 1592 he was handed over to the Inquisition and eight years later he was burned at the stake.

In general, the attitude of the church and, accordingly, the Holy Inquisition to the theory of building the world, the development of civilization, reflects, as it were, all stages of its relationship with the progressive science of that time.

At first, the mere assumption that the Earth was round inevitably led a troublemaker to the stake - so, in 1327, the outstanding astronomer Cecco d'Ascoli was burned for such sedition. Then the disposition changed somewhat: if in the case of Copernicus, the scientist refused to promote his ideas and observed the unspoken rules of coexistence with church dogma, they did not touch him and even contributed to his secular career.

Giordano Bruno's mistake was that he did not hide his free-thinking and went into open confrontation with the fathers of the church.

The matches are damp and you can’t light a fire.

The next victim of obscurantism was Galileo Galilei. His fate, according to most researchers, reflects the beginning of the decline of the Holy Inquisition, although it, as we noted, existed until the 19th century.

Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa in 1564, thirty years after the publication of the work of Nicolaus Copernicus. Although he came from a rather wealthy noble family, his parents, seeing their son’s desire for exact sciences, allowed him to enter the university, after which he received the chair of mathematics in Padua in 1592. It was there that the scientist’s works on dynamics appeared. One by one According to the legends, Galileo carried out his experiments on gravity by throwing various items from the height of the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Nevertheless, it was not physics and mathematics that brought Galileo truly worldwide fame, but astronomical discoveries. In 1609, he improved the telescope invented by the Dutch a year earlier and almost immediately discovered that a number of planets had their own satellites. It has become another blow according to the geocentric system. In 1610, he published his discoveries and became the court philosopher and mathematician of the Duke of Tuscany. Three years later, he described spots on the Sun, the shape of Saturn and the phases of Venus, which proved its rotation around the Sun.

Galileo immediately accepted the theory of Copernicus, but, seeing how the church treated Giordano Bruno, he was in no hurry to publicly declare his views. Only in 1613 did he dare to write to the Pope open letter in defense of this theory and was almost immediately summoned to Rome to give explanations. There the Pope listened to him again, confirmed the unchangeable position of the church in relation to the teachings of Copernicus and forbade “discussing and teaching such heresy.” Galileo obeyed, but in 1632 he still could not stand it and published his famous work “Dialogue on the Two Major Systems of the World.” In it, he finally proved the inconsistency of Aristotle's geocentricity and, with the help of the discoveries he made, confirmed the theoretical constructions of Copernicus.

It seems that after such disobedience, the scientist faced an inevitable path to the Inquisition fire. But times have changed, more than thirty years have passed since the death of Giordano Bruno, the obscurantism of the Catholic Church was subject to increasing public condemnation, and only public renunciation was sufficient for the Holy Inquisition Galileo Galilei from your views. By the way, the church overturned the verdict of Galileo’s trial only in 1972. And 20 years later, John Paul II recognized both the verdict and the trial as a mistake. For almost 360 years, Galileo was officially considered a heretic!

However, let's go back to the 17th century. To paraphrase well-known words, we can say: since the time of Galileo, scientists no longer wanted, and the church could not live in the old way. The Holy Inquisition increasingly had to reckon with social processes, and it was coming to an all-powerful end.

A seditious desire to heal.

Before early XIX centuries, inquisitorial tribunals intervened in literally all spheres of human activity.

In the 15th century, the Spanish Inquisition executed the mathematician Valmes just because he solved an equation of incredible complexity. And this, according to church authorities, was “inaccessible to human reason.” According to some reports, the great Leonardo da Vinci left Italy, among other reasons, because the Inquisition in every possible way prevented his anatomical experiments. And Isaac Newton was saved from the reprisals of Rome only by the fact that the position of the “church courts” in Great Britain was not as strong as in Europe.

But perhaps, after astronomy and mathematics, medicine suffered the most from the Inquisition. We have already mentioned forced emigration Leonardo. Copernicus, Bruno and Galileo were also doctors by their main profession. In particular, Copernicus is credited with the first successful attempts to cure the plague. But if they all fell out of favor with the church for their other discoveries, then there were those who went to the stake precisely because of their desire to heal people.

Here the logic of the Inquisition was elementary: if God gave life to a person, then he has the right to take it away from him at any time. You shouldn’t interfere with him in this, which means it’s no good to treat people.

The Spanish and Portuguese branches of the Inquisition especially distinguished themselves. In 1553, the great Spanish thinker and physician Miguel Servet was sent to the stake. His only fault was that he dared to put forward the idea of ​​the existence of a pulmonary circulation and foresaw its physiological meaning. The great physician Paracelsus was forced to hide under false names for the last ten years of his life. The Church did not like his idea of ​​​​introducing chemicals into medicine. Even the intercession of high-ranking patients did not help him. Paracelsus died in 1541 in complete poverty.

At the same time, as in the case of astronomy, the actions of the Inquisition pushed medicine back thousands of years. For centuries the Catholic Church has resisted surgical intervention- while modern excavations show that already doctors Ancient Rome They successfully performed both abdominal surgeries and the most delicate surgeries on the retina. And chemical compounds in the treatment of gastric diseases were successfully used back in Ancient Egypt.

"Rome has a different opinion."

And of course, the Holy Inquisition could not ignore historians, philosophers, writers and even musicians. Cervantes, Beaumarchais, Molière, and even Raphael Santi, who painted numerous Madonnas and, at the end of his life, was appointed architect of St. Peter's Cathedral, had certain problems with the church. In 1510, Pope Julius II thought that the saints on the ceiling of one of the Vatican loggias were too naked. As a result, the artist was removed from work, and only after he fully realized his guilt and agreed to attribute the missing clothes to the saints, the order was resumed.

According to one version, even the death of the great Mozart is to blame for the Inquisition! Another thing is that in the 18th century, death at the stake was no longer so fashionable, and after the composer’s opera “The Magic Flute” was condemned, a poisoner was sent to Mozart under the guise of a customer... But if this version, like the version about the envious Salieri, still requires evidence, then church trials of philosophers and historians were quite commonplace.

The Italian writer and philosopher, author of the famous utopia “City of the Sun,” Tommaso Campanella, spent 27 years in prison. His "Philosophy Proved by Sensations" was recognized as a "harmful heresy" and was banned from publication.

In 1733, the Inquisition sentenced the historian Belando, whose works are still used in high places. educational institutions Spain. He was persecuted for drawing up civil history Spain, in which he outlined all the events that had occurred in that country since the accession to the throne of Philip V (1700-1733). The Vatican did not like the historian’s view of the Holy Inquisition, and even the intercession of the monarch did not help. “Rome has a different opinion,” the verdict read, and Belando was first imprisoned and then in a monastery under the strictest prohibition write something. Those who tried to stand up for the historian soon found themselves there as well.

It is believed that only in the 17th and XVIII centuries By decision of the “church tribunal”, more than a thousand writers, historians and philosophers were imprisoned, whose works were recognized as not corresponding to the official doctrine.

The story of Giordano Bruno is similar to a twisted detective story that humanity has been reading for more than four centuries, but cannot reach the end.

Lost Cause

“Detective,” whose main character is Giordano Bruno, could begin with a “flash-forward” to 1809, when Emperor Napoleon ordered the removal of papal Inquisition documents from the secret archives of the Vatican. Among the requisitioned papers was allegedly Bruno’s file, which included interrogation protocols and the text of the verdict itself. After the return of the Bourbon dynasty to the French throne, the Vatican requested the return of the documents. But Rome was disappointed: the French reported that part of the Inquisition archive had disappeared without a trace. However - oh, miracle! – the papers were soon found. They were discovered by Gaetano Marini, the Pope's envoy in Paris, "in the shops of herring and meat dealers." Secret archives got into Parisian "grocery stores" from light hand another by a representative of the Roman Curia, who sold them to shopkeepers as packaging. Having received an order from Rome to destroy particularly delicate papers from the archives of the inquisitors, Gaetano Marini found nothing better than to sell them as waste paper to a Parisian paper mill.

It would seem that this is the end of the story, but in 1886 a second miracle occurs - one of the Vatican archivists accidentally stumbles upon Bruno’s case in the dusty archives of the pontiff, which he immediately reports to Pope Leo XIII. How the documents were teleported from the French paper mill to Rome remains a mystery? As well as how much you can trust the authenticity of these documents. By the way, the Vatican for a long time did not want to share the find with the public. The Giordano case was not published until 1942.

Why was a fire lit in Rome's Square of Flowers?

There were some surprises too. The verdict against Giordano Bruno said nothing about his scientific beliefs - “The Earth is not the center of the Universe, which is infinite.” But “voluntary martyrdom” for science made Bruno an “icon” who inspired scientists to scientific exploits, and here it is! But the most curious thing in the verdict was that there was no specific indictment at all, except for the first sentence of the document: “You, brother Giordano Bruno, son of the late Giovanni Bruno, from Nola, about 52 years old, were already brought in eight years ago to the court of the Holy Office of Venice for declaring: it is the greatest blasphemy to say that bread was transformed into a body, etc.”

In his “Aesthetics of the Renaissance,” the Russian philosopher, professor Alexei Fedorovich Losev formulated important task before historical science, which had been awaiting publication of the case for several decades: “The historian must clearly answer the question: Why, in the end, was Giordano Bruno burned?”

Royal friend

For the Vatican, the verdict of Giordano Bruno was not just a condemnation of a Dominican monk who had fallen into heresy. At the end of the 16th century, in terms of popularity among European intellectuals, Bruno could have given odds to modern cosmologist Stephen Hawking. Giordano Bruno maintained very friendly relations with the kings of France Henry III and Henry IV, the British Queen Elizabeth I, the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II and many other European “rulers”. With a snap of his fingers, he could receive a chair and a professor's robe at any European university, his books were published in the best printing houses, and the best minds of the continent dreamed of his patronage.

Home business card Giordano Bruno was not interested in cosmology at all, but in his excellent memory. Bruno developed mnemonics (the art of memory), which was then at the height of fashion among intellectuals. They say that Giordano remembered thousands of books by heart, ranging from Holy Scripture and ending with Arabic alchemical treatises. It was the art of memorization that he taught to Henry III, who was proud of his friendship with the humble Dominican monk, and to Elizabeth I, who allowed Giordano to enter her chambers at any time, without reporting. In addition, the monarchs enjoyed how Bruno, with mocking grace, “knocked out” teams of Sorbonne and Oxford professors with his intellect on any issue.

For Giordano Bruno intellectual battles were a kind of sport. For example, Oxford academics recalled that he could easily prove that black is white, that day is night, and the Moon is the Sun. His debating style was similar to boxer Roy Jones in the ring at his best - a comparison that boxing fans will understand well. It must be admitted that it was hardly thanks to Bruno’s supernatural memory alone that he found himself on friendly terms with the most influential monarchs of Europe.

As biographers recall, some invisible force moved this Dominican monk through the life, easily brought him to the best palaces of Europe, protected him from the persecution of the Inquisition (for Bruno often mentioned theology in his statements). However, unexpectedly this force failed in May 1592.

Denunciation

On the night of May 23-24, 1592, Venetian inquisitors arrested Giordano Bruno following a denunciation from the local patrician Giovanni Mocenigo. Bruno personally taught the latter - for a huge reward - the art of memory. However, at some point the monk got bored with it. He declared the student hopeless and decided to say goodbye. Mocenigo tried everything possible ways to return the “guru,” but Bruno turned out to be adamant. Then the desperate student wrote a denunciation to the local Inquisition. To be brief, the informer claimed that his mentor violated Catholic dogmas, talked about some kind of “infinite worlds” and called himself a representative of a certain “new philosophy”.

It must be said that denunciations of violation of dogmas were the most common “signals” from honest citizens of the Inquisition. This was the most proven way to annoy a neighbor, a competing shopkeeper, a personal enemy... Most of these cases did not even reach the court, but in any case the Inquisition was obliged to respond to the “signal”. In other words, the arrest of Giordano Bruno can be considered “technical”. The prisoner himself generally took it as a joke. At the very first interrogations, he deftly brushed aside all accusations of heresy and friendly shared with the investigators his views on the structure of the Universe. However, this frankness of Bruno could in no way ease his situation. The fact is that the works of Copernicus, whose ideas he developed, were not prohibited (they would be prohibited only in 1616), so there were no grounds for arrest.

The monk was kept under investigation largely because of his harmfulness: he behaved too derogatorily with the inquisitors.

Having taught the “proud man” a lesson, the Venetians were about to let him go, but then a request came from Rome demanding that the heretic be “transported” to The eternal City. The Venetians stood in a pose: “Why on earth?!” Venice is a sovereign republic!” Rome had to organize an entire embassy to Venice to convince. It is curious that the Venetian procurator Contarini firmly insisted that Giordano Bruno should remain in Venice. In his report to the Council of the Wise of Venice, he gave the following characteristic: “One of the most outstanding and rarest geniuses imaginable. He has extraordinary knowledge. He created a wonderful teaching."

However, Venice trembled under the pressure of the pope - Bruno went “in stages” to Rome.

Crusade against Aristotle

Now let's return to the denunciation of Giovanni Mocenigo - or rather one of its points, which states that Bruno considered himself a representative of a certain “new philosophy”. The Venetian inquisitors hardly paid any attention to this nuance of the accusation. But they were well familiar with this term in Rome.

The very concept of “New Philosophy” (or “New Universal Philosophy”) was introduced by the Italian philosopher Francesco Patrizi, who was very close to the papal curia. Patrizi argued that Aristotle's philosophy, which became the basis for medieval scholasticism and theology, was directly opposed to Christianity, since it denied the omnipotence of God.

The Italian philosopher saw this as the cause of all the discord that arose in the church, which resulted in the Protestant movements. Patruzi saw the restoration of a unified Church and the return of Protestants to its fold in the departure from scholasticism, built on Aristotle, and replacing it with a certain synthesis of Plato’s metaphysics, the views of the Neoplatonists and the pantheistic theosophical teaching of Hermes Trismegistus. This synthesis was called “New Universal Philosophy”. The idea of ​​ousting Aristotle from European universities (primarily Protestant) and regaining the status of an intellectual center with the help of the “New Philosophy” was liked by many in the papal curia. Of course, Rome could not make the “New Universal Philosophy” its official doctrine, but the fact that in those days the papal throne patronized teachings alternative to Aristotle is beyond doubt. And here Giordano Bruno played his bright role. From 1578 to 1590, he made an unprecedented tour of the largest universities in European cities: Toulouse, Sorbonne, Oxford, Wittenberg, Marburg, Helmstadt, Prague. All of these universities were either “Protestant” or were influenced by Protestantism.

In his lectures or debates with local professors, Bruno undermined precisely the philosophy of Aristotle. His sermons about the movement of the Earth and the multitude of worlds questioned Ptolemaic cosmology, built precisely on the teachings of Aristotle.

In other words, Giordano Bruno clearly followed the strategy of the “New Philosophy”. Did he fulfill secret mission Rome? Considering his “inviolability”, as well as his mysterious patronage, it is very likely.

Worse than the Knights Templar

Giordano Bruno spent eight years under investigation. This was a record for the proceedings of the Inquisition! Why so long? For comparison, the trial of the Templars lasted seven years, but there the case concerned the entire order. At the same time, as many as nine cardinals were involved in passing the verdict, which, let us recall, actually did not contain an indictment! Were the nine inquisitors general unable to find words to describe the “heretical” acts of a Dominican monk with a good memory?

One passage in the verdict is curious: “Moreover, we condemn, condemn and prohibit all of the above and other books and writings of yours, as heretical and erroneous, containing numerous heresies and errors. We command that from now on all your books, which are in the holy service and in the future will fall into her hands, be publicly torn up and burned in St. Peter before the steps, and as such were included in the list of prohibited books, and so be it as we have commanded.” But apparently the voice of the nine cardinals was so weak that Bruno’s books could be freely purchased in Rome and other Italian cities until 1609.

Another interesting detail: if in Venice Giordano Bruno very quickly makes excuses for accusations of violating Catholic dogmas, then in Rome he suddenly changes tactics and, according to the investigation materials, begins not only to admit it, but also to flaunt his anti-Christianity. At the trial, he even throws out to the judges:

“Perhaps you pronounce your sentence with more fear than I listen to it. I die a martyr voluntarily and I know that my soul will ascend to heaven with its last breath.”

Did Bruno really find the Venetian Inquisition more convincing in its ferocity, and did an atmosphere of humanism and philanthropy reign in the torture chambers of the Vatican?

Who burned at the stake?

The only written evidence of the execution of Giordano Bruno has reached us. The witness was a certain Kaspar Schoppe, a “repentant Lutheran” who went into the service of the cardinal. Schoppe wrote in a letter to his comrade that the “heretic” accepted death calmly: “Without repenting of his sins, Bruno went to the worlds he imagined to tell what the Romans were doing with blasphemers.” I wonder why Schoppe thought that Giordano Bruno’s heresy lay in his view of the Universe - nothing was said about this in the verdict?

Schoppe, by the way, pointed out in his letter to a friend one interesting detail - Giordano Bruno was taken to the stake with a gag in his mouth, which was not in the tradition of the Inquisitorial burnings. It is unlikely that the organizers of the execution were afraid of the possible dying curses of the condemned man - this, as a rule, was the format of any execution. As well as repentance. Why the gag? It is unlikely that in a matter of minutes of execution, even such an intellectual and polemicist as Bruno would have been able to convince the illiterate crowd of the infidelity of Aristotelian cosmology. Or the executioners were simply afraid that the condemned man, in a moment of absolute despair, would suddenly shout out the terrible: “I am not Giordano Bruno!”