On Saturday, the 23d of May, 1592, Giovanni Mocenigo, son of the late excellent Marcantonio Mocenigo, addressed to the Father Inquisitor of Venice a letter containing charges of heresy against Giordano Bruno, the Nolan. Among other things, he alleged that Bruno had said “that it is a great blasphemy to say, as Catholics do, that bread is changed to flesh; that he is hostile to the mass; that no religion satisfies him; that Christ was a good-for-nothing, and did wretched tricks to seduce the people, and ought to have been hanged; that there is no separating God into persons; that the world is eternal; that worlds are infinite, and God makes an infinite number of them continually; that Christ wrought apparent miracles and was a magician, and so were the Apostles; that Christ showed that he died unwillingly, and evaded death as long as he could; that there is no punishment of sins; and that souls created by the agency of nature pass from one animal into another; and that as the brutes are begotten of corruption, so also are men. Further, he has denied that the Virgin could have borne a child; he asserted that our Catholic faith is full of blasphemies against the majesty of God; that he wished to give himself to the diviner’s art, and draw the whole world after him; that St. Thomas and all the doctors were blockheads compared with himself. Therefore, urged by my conscience and by command of my confessor, I have denounced this Bruno to the Holy Office. Suspecting that he might depart, I have locked him up in one of my rooms, at your requisition; and because I believe him possessed of a demon, I pray you to take speedy resolution concerning him.” Two days later, this Mocenigo, of whom we know no more than that he belonged to one of the illustrious families of Venice, and was thirty-four years of age, added to his accusations: “On that day when I had Giordano Bruno locked up, on my asking him if he would teach me what he had promised, in view of the many courtesies and gifts he had had from me, so that I might not accuse him of the many wicked words which he had said to me, both against our Lord and against the Holy Catholic Church, he replied that he was not afraid of the Inquisition, because he offended nobody in living as he chose; and then that he did not remember to have said anything bad to me, and that even if he had said it he had said it to me alone, and that he did not fear that I could harm him in this way, and that, even should he come under the hand of the Inquisition, it could at the most force him to wear his friar’s gown again.”