Giordano Bruno was one of the most celebrated philosophers of his day. He travelled far and wide from Italy and Switzerland, to France, Germany and England, making open profession of the reformed religion. But he was rash enough to venture back to Italy, going first to Padua, where he fancied himself safe from the Inquisition. He was sadly mistaken for the Venetian authorities were no friends to heresy, and he was arrested and removed to the prison of the Piombi, under the “Leads” of the doge’s palace in Venice, and detained there for six years, after which he was taken to Rome. Here he underwent numerous examinations and constantly disputed with the best theologians, among the rest with Cardinal Bellarmine, the chief inquisitor. This trial was prolonged for two years until, wearied out by his unchanging firmness, he was taken into the great hall of the palace of the Inquisition and his sentence read to him as he knelt before the cardinals. After reciting in full his many offences, it was ordered that he should be degraded, for he had received priest’s orders, excommunicated and delivered to the secular arm for punishment, which was to be “inflicted as tenderly as possible and without effusion of blood.” Bruno heard the sentence without emotion, remarking: “I dare say you feel greater pain in pronouncing these penalties than I do in receiving them.” The governor of Rome now took charge of him and he was locked up for a week in one of the common gaols of the city where he was closely watched, in the vain hope that he might yield; but he was firm to the last, when he was taken to the stake, still obstinately refusing to make recantation. The fire was lighted under him and he was burned alive, without even raising his eyes to the crucifix thrust into his face. Thus perished one of the first scholars in Europe.