BRUNO 179 



ancients. He chose for the most part the form of the Platonic 

 dialogue. He handles it lightly and easily. A little later, 

 when Galileo wins literary renown, he employs the same form. 



It was in England that Bruno wrote the two volumes in 

 which he gave the widest expression to his cosmical theories. 

 The first of these was La Cena de le Ceneri, the Ash- Wednesday 

 Evening's Supper. It owed its title to its peculiar origin. Sir 

 Fulke Greville, a friend of Sir Philip Sidney's, had invited a 

 company of philosophers to dine and hear his defence of the 

 Coppernican ideas. When the book finally appeared, even 

 though it was written in Italian, it must have aroused a tempest ; 

 he was compelled for some time to remain in concealment. Yet 

 this was in the England of the Golden Age of Elizabeth. 



But Bruno was not content merely to announce the new 

 truth ; he stood forth to do battle. He must have been a 

 disturbing guest ; wherever he goes he sows unrest ; he is a 

 warrior against his time. When he returns to Paris with his 

 patron and frienfl, the French ambassador, he offers the rector 

 of the Sorbonne a modest tract of one hundred and twenty 

 theses it is the habit of the time in which he sets forth his 

 philosophy and his variance from the accepted belief with a 

 boldness and precision which must have made that distinguished 

 functionary gasp. Strange to say, the document was printed 

 and publicly read. Perhaps they were preoccupied with other 

 things ; Paris was then in civil tumult ; he takes his way across 

 the Rhine. At Marburg he is denied a hearing ; but at Witten- 

 berg he meets with a remarkable reception. The stately little 

 mediaeval town passed then for the Athens of Germany ; he 

 spent here two happy years, writing, lecturing, defending his 

 faith. 



The civil power changes ; he dwells for a time in Prague, 

 in Helmstatt, finally in Frankfurt-am-Main, finding his living 

 as a corrector of proofs, publishing his own books, and living, 

 since he is denied right of residence in the city itself, in 

 a near-by monastery. There he receives an invitation from a 

 rich young man, son of a noble family, to come to Venice. It 

 is his end. Whether or not he was deliberately trapped is not 

 clear ; at any rate he is shortly after denounced to the Inquisi- 

 tion by this wretched miscreant. In Venice he might well have 

 thought himself safe ; but even there the power of the Inquisition 

 was strong. 



