To this temple Bruno, eager in his pursuit of the ever-eluding Truth,
had come,--"a foreigner, an exile, a fugitive, the sport of fortune,
meagre in body, slender of means, destitute of favour, pursued by the
hatred of the multitude and the contempt of fools and the base," and
could on leaving say to its people that he had become an "occasion,
or matter, or subject in whom they unfolded and demonstrated to the
world the beauty and wealth of their virtues of moderation, urbanity,
and kindness of heart." It was the last, or nearly the last, spell of
happiness that life had in store for him.
XII
[Sidenote: Prague: 1588.]
[Sidenote: June 10, 1588.]
[Sidenote: January 13, 1589.]
[Sidenote: Helmstadt.]
The court of the Emperor Rudolph II. was at Prague, in Bohemia; from
there his fame as a Maecenas of the learned, and especially of those
who claimed power to read the heavens or to work magic, had spread to
many countries. Perhaps Sidney, who had visited him from Elizabeth
on the death of Maximilian, may have spoken of him to Bruno: while
two of Bruno's friends, the Spanish Ambassador St. Clement and the
mathematician Mordentius, were at Prague in 1588. Thither, accordingly,
he now turned in the hope of settled quarters, introducing himself,
as was his frequent habit, with a Lullian work, which he caused to
be printed soon after his arrival, and dedicated to the Spanish
Ambassador.[95] The introductory letter is dated from Prague, June
10, 1588, and is in praise of Lully, whose importance to philosophy
Bruno values much more highly than his successors have done: it
promised at the same time a future work, the _Lampas Cabalistica_, in
which the inner secrets of Lullism were to be more fully revealed.
This, so far as we know, never appeared, and Bruno tried to obtain
the Emperor's patronage by a mathematical work dedicated to him, of
somewhat revolutionary type--"One hundred and sixty articles against
the mathematicians and philosophers of the day." The Emperor, however,
had few funds to spare for any but the professed astrologists and
alchemists in whom lay his real interest--not at all scientific,
although Tycho Brahé and Kepler profited themselves and the world by
it. With three hundred dollars, which the Emperor gave in recognition
of his powers, Bruno left about the close of the year, and on January
13, 1589, matriculated in the Julian university of Brunswick at
Helmstadt. This, the youngest university in Germany at the time, of
only twelve years' standing, had been founded for the Protestant
cause by the reigning Duke Julius, a breezy and popular prince, who
loved theologians little, Catholics not at all, and founded a model
university on liberal principles. It was not, however, an unqualified
success. Bruno received some recognition from the university, or
from the Duke, and when the latter died in May 1589 he obtained
permission to give a funeral oration some days after the official
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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