CHAPTER I 



THE SOURCES OF THE PHILOSOPHY 



IN the school and the monastery at Naples Bruno passed 

 as a matter of course through a training in the Scholastic 

 Philosophy. Before entering the monastery of St. 

 Dominic at fifteen years of age he had studied "humane 

 letters, logic, and dialectic," l and had attended, among 

 other lectures, a private course by Theophilus of Varrano, 

 an Augustine monk and distinguished Aristotelian. 

 From him, probably, Bruno received an impetus towards 

 the study of Aristotle in the original works, if not also 

 in the original tongue, which stood him in admirable 

 stead when he came later to attack the foundations of 

 the vulgar philosophy. He was familiar at first hand 

 with all the main writings of Aristotle. 2 He had read, i . 

 too, and cites, most of the earlier commentators r 

 Adrastus and Alexander of Aphrodisias, Porphyry, 

 Themistius, Simplicius, and " Philoponus " 3 as well as 

 the later, the Arabians and other Schoolmen. He had 

 accordingly a more thorough acquaintance with the 

 mind of Aristotle than any of the latter 's staunchest 

 supporters in his time : the lack of the historic sense 



1 Doc. 8 : the words suggest a special training in Latin, Greek, Philosophy, 

 and Rhetoric, not the whole Trivium and Quadrivium of the ordinary education of 

 the day, as Berti supposes. 



2 Cf. Op. Lot. ii. 2. 6 1 ; ii. 3 ; i. 4. 39, 65, 69 ; i. i. 256, etc. 



3 i. 4. 21 ; i. i. 223 j i. i. 231. 



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