Giordano Bruno: Philosopher/Heretic | 
 enlarge | Author: Ingrid D. Rowland
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Category: Book
List Price: $27.00
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Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 29073
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.2
ISBN: 0809095246
Dewey Decimal Number: 195
EAN: 9780809095247
ASIN: 0809095246
Publication Date: August 19, 2008
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Product Description
Giordano Bruno is one of the great figures of early modern Europe, and one of the least understood. Ingrid D. Rowland’s pathbreaking life of Bruno establishes him once and for all as a peer of Erasmus, Shakespeare, and Galileo, a thinker whose vision of the world prefigures ours. By the time Bruno was burned at the stake as a heretic in 1600 on Rome’s Campo dei Fiori, he had taught in Naples, Rome, Venice, Geneva, France, England, Germany, and the “magic Prague” of Emperor Rudolph II. His powers of memory and his provocative ideas about the infinity of the universe had attracted the attention of the pope, Queen Elizabeth—and the Inquisition, which condemned him to death in Rome as part of a yearlong jubilee. Writing with great verve and sympathy for her protagonist, Rowland traces Bruno’s wanderings through a sixteenth-century Europe where every certainty of religion and philosophy had been called into question and shows him valiantly defending his ideas (and his right to maintain them) to the very end. An incisive, independent thinker just when natural philosophy was transformed into modern science, he was also a writer of sublime talent. His eloquence and his courage inspired thinkers across Europe, finding expression in the work of Shakespeare and Galileo. Giordano Bruno allows us to encounter a legendary European figure as if for the first time.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Giordanu Bruno: Philosopher/Heretic November 14, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
A very well researched book about a man who refused to back down to the Inquisition.For this he was burned at the stake in 1600. He could have saved his life as did Galileo. He chose not to do so. His statue overlooks the marketplace of Campo de' Fiori (Field of Flowers) in Rome where he died. He was a martyr to his ideas which he refused to deny. He started out as a monk but became a visionary of modern science questioning just about everything the Catholic church held sacred predicting that there could be many worlds beside ours which could be inhabited by many other forms of life.The Holy Inquisition declared him to be "an impenitent, pertinacious, and obstinate heretic." He was indeed all that and one of our early heroes, a model for free thinking.
 A Dull Bio of a Sharp Man October 17, 2008
6 out of 12 found this review helpful
Rowland's work was a pretty big disappoint for me. Everything that was wonderful about Stephen Greenblatt's "Will in the World" (i.e. it was as fun to read as it was educationally rewarding) was missing in "Giardano Bruno". For a religious humanist who was so incredibly courageous, clever, exciting, and ahead of his time, his story, as told in this book, isn't a story at all. It is a dissertation on Italy during the time of the Inquisition. Rowland leaves literally no stone unturned, going on, sometimes for pages, about obscure influences and their influences, remarking on meaningless descriptions of plazas and statues that Bruno may have seen in the cities through which he traveled. The chapter on "The Art of Memory" was especially disappointing as, true to her form in the rest of the book, Rowland barely described this most famous aspect of Bruno's skill and philosophy, saying only that Bruno recited a psalm backward. I was looking forward to an enjoyable read. Bruno, if I get anything out of this book, was one of those rare geniuses, like a Shakespeare or a Poe, who had a sense of humor as well as a limitless intellect. This book was tedious and slow; I often, literally, had to force my way through it. For a book titled "Giardano Bruno: Philosopher, Heretic" I'd say about 75% of the novel isn't even about Bruno, his philosophy or his heresy. Rowland seemed to be more intent on displaying the breadth of her own research and understanding of the time period than on shedding any light on this remarkable and remarkably obscure man. I don't recommend this unless you're a Ph.d. candidate specializing in late 16th Century Italian Religious Figures Who Suffered Under the Inquisition and the World They Populated. The wikipedia entry on Giardano Bruno will tell you more about him in way less time. Ouch.
 Roamin' Nolan August 26, 2008
29 out of 31 found this review helpful
Here Ingrid Rowland continues to demonstrate her profound mastery of the society and space of sixteenth-century Rome. Unlike most other accounts, Rowland emphasizes Bruno's role as a writer and shows that his fiery death at the stake in the Campo de' Fiori provoked change in the policy of the Roman Inquisition's treatment of intellectuals. I admire most of all Rowland's ability to bring forth vivid details from Bruno's beginnings in Naples, from his travels through France, England and even to the Frankfurt book fair, and from his obstinate conclusions both religious and scientific. She does much to humanize both Bruno and his chief prosecutor, Cardinal Bellarmine, and in the end suggests how science and religion soon found that they belong together rather than in conflict. This bright and polished biography does much to put the imagination of Bruno and his moving historical context in this reader's mind.
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