Essays on Giordano Bruno

by Hilary Gatti

Overview

This book gathers wide-ranging essays on the Italian Renaissance philosopher and cosmologist Giordano Bruno by one of the world's leading authorities on his work and life. Many of these essays were originally written in Italian and appear here in English for the first time. Bruno (1548-1600) is principally famous as a proponent of heliocentrism, the infinity of the universe, and the plurality of worlds. But his work spanned the sciences and humanities, sometimes touching the borders of the occult, and Hilary Gatti's essays richly reflect this diversity.


The book is divided into sections that address three broad subjects: the relationship between Bruno and the new science, the history of his reception in English culture, and the principal characteristics of his natural philosophy. A final essay examines why this advocate of a "tranquil universal philosophy" ended up being burned at the stake as a heretic by the Roman Inquisition. While the essays take many different approaches, they are united by a number of assumptions: that, although well versed in magic, Bruno cannot be defined primarily as a Renaissance Magus; that his aim was to articulate a new philosophy of nature; and that his thought, while based on ancient and medieval sources, represented a radical rupture with the philosophical schools of the past, helping forge a path toward a new modernity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691148397
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	11/07/2010
Pages:	376
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Hilary Gatti taught for many years at the University of Rome, La Sapienza. Her books include Giordano Bruno and Renaissance Science and The Renaissance Drama of Knowledge: Giordano Bruno in England. She is also the editor of Giordano Bruno: Philosopher of the Renaissance.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction Beginning as Negation in the Italian Dialogues of Giordano Bruno 1

Part 1 Bruno and the New Science

1 Between Magic and Magnetism: Bruno's Cosmology at Oxford 17

2 Bruno's Copernican Diagrams 40

3 Bruno and the New Atomism 70

4 The Multiple Languages of the New Science 91

Part 2 Bruno in Britain

5 Petrarch, Sidney, Bruno 115

6 The Sense of an Ending in Bruno's Heroici furori 127

7 Bruno and Shakespeare: Hamlet 140

8 Bruno's Candelaio and Ben Jonson's The Alchemist 161

9 Bruno and the Stuart Court Masques 172

10 Romanticism: Bruno and Samuel Taylor Coleridge 201

11 Bruno and the Victorians 220

Part 3 Bruno's Philosophy of Nature

12 Bruno's Natural Philosophy 249

13 Bruno's Use of the Bible in His Italian Philosophical Dialogues 264

14 Science and Magic: The Resolution of Contraries 280

15 Bruno and Metaphor 297

Epilouge Why Bruno's "A Tranquil Universal Philosophy" Finished in a Fire 309

Bibliography of Cited Works by and on Giordano Bruno 325

Index 335

What People are Saying About This

David Marsh

Hilary Gatti is a noted specialist on Giordano Bruno, and this book makes available a wide range of her studies about this complex figure. It makes an important contribution to the intellectual history of early modern Europe.
— David Marsh, Rutgers University

Arielle Saiber

Hilary Gatti's work on Giordano Bruno is among the most important and innovative of the past few decades. These essays will interest not only Bruno scholars and readers, but also scholars of English and Italian Renaissance literature, history, philosophy, religion, and the history of science. The contributions Gatti has made to Bruno studies have given direction and depth to research and dialogue, and will continue to do so for a long time to come.
— Arielle Saiber, Bowdoin College

From the Publisher

"Hilary Gatti's work on Giordano Bruno is among the most important and innovative of the past few decades. These essays will interest not only Bruno scholars and readers, but also scholars of English and Italian Renaissance literature, history, philosophy, religion, and the history of science. The contributions Gatti has made to Bruno studies have given direction and depth to research and dialogue, and will continue to do so for a long time to come."—Arielle Saiber, Bowdoin College

"Hilary Gatti is a noted specialist on Giordano Bruno, and this book makes available a wide range of her studies about this complex figure. It makes an important contribution to the intellectual history of early modern Europe."—David Marsh, Rutgers University

Editorial Reviews

"Gatti's specific attention in giving an account of the different critical interpretations of Bruno's philosophy and of the status quo of current research makes this book a particularly worthwhile read for students and scholars of Bruno and of the sixteenth century in general."—-Anna Laura Puliafito, Renaissance Quarterly

"This book provides an important update to the scholarly dialogue on Bruno's science and the reception of his thought in subsequent centuries. Students of Bruno's thought will benefit most from the historiographic sections, while scholars of the intellectual history of the seventeenth through the late twentieth centuries will profit from the well-balanced assessment of Bruno's science that is just sufficient for understanding his reoccurring role as an intellectual pioneer."—-David Porreca, Sixteenth Century Journal

From the Publisher

This book provides an important update to the scholarly dialogue on Bruno's science and the reception of his thought in subsequent centuries. Students of Bruno's thought will benefit most from the historiographic sections, while scholars of the intellectual history of the seventeenth through the late twentieth centuries will profit from the well-balanced assessment of Bruno's science that is just sufficient for understanding his reoccurring role as an intellectual pioneer.

Sixteenth Century Journal - David Porreca

Gatti's specific attention in giving an account of the different critical interpretations of Bruno's philosophy and of the status quo of current research makes this book a particularly worthwhile read for students and scholars of Bruno and of the sixteenth century in general.

Renaissance Quarterly - Anna Laura Puliafito

Gatti's specific attention in giving an account of the different critical interpretations of Bruno's philosophy and of the status quo of current research makes this book a particularly worthwhile read for students and scholars of Bruno and of the sixteenth century in general.
— Anna Laura Puliafito

Renaissance Quarterly