A Biographical Dictionary of Freethinkers of All Ages and NationsWheeler, J. M. (Joseph Mazzini)
Religion
A Biographical Dictionary of Freethinkers of All Ages and Nations
Wheeler, J. M. (Joseph Mazzini)
Free thought -- Biography
Bruno (Giordano), Freethought martyr, b. at Nola, near Naples, about
1548. He was christened Filippo which he changed to Filoteo, taking
the name of Giordano when he entered the Dominican order. Religious
doubts and bold strictures on the monks obliged him to quit Italy,
probably in 1580. He went to Geneva but soon found it no safe abiding
place, and quitted it for Paris, where he taught, but refused to attend
mass. In 1583 he visited England, living with the French ambassador
Castelnau. Having formed a friendship with Sir Philip Sidney, he
dedicated to him his Spaccio della Bestia Triomfante, a satire on all
mythologies. In 1585 he took part in a logical tournament, sustaining
the Copernican theory against the doctors of Oxford. The following year
he returned to Paris, where he again attacked the Aristotelians. He
then travelled to various cities in Germany, everywhere preaching
the broadest heresy. He published several Pantheistic, scientific and
philosophical works. He was however induced to return to Italy, and
arrested as an heresiarch and apostate at Venice, Sept. 1592. After
being confined for seven years by the Inquisitors, he was tried,
and burnt at Rome 17 Feb. 1600. At his last moments a crucifix was
offered him, which he nobly rejected. Bruno was vastly before his age
in his conception of the universe and his rejection of theological
dogmas. A statue of this heroic apostle of liberty and light, executed
by one of the first sculptors of Italy, is to be erected on the spot
where he perished, the Municipal Council of Rome having granted the
site in face of the bitterest opposition of the Catholic party. The
list of subscribers to this memorial comprises the principal advanced
thinkers in Europe and America.
Brzesky (Casimir Liszynsky Podsedek). See Liszinski.
Bucali or Busali (Leonardo), a Calabrian abbot of Spanish descent,
who became a follower of Servetus in the sixteenth century, and had
to seek among the Turks the safety denied him in Christendom. He died
at Damascus.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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