The last news we have of him in Venice is when, “having been bidden several times,” he rose from his knees, after confessing his penitence, on that 30th of July, 1592. The authorities of the Inquisition at Rome immediately opened negotiations for his extradition. The Doge and Senate demurred; they hesitated before establishing the precedent whereby Rome could reach over and punish Venetian culprits. Time was, indeed, when Venice allowed no one, though he were the Pope, to meddle in her administration; but, alas! the lion had died out in Venetian souls. Finally, “wishing to give satisfaction to his Holiness,” Doge and Senators consented to deliver Bruno up; the Pope expressed his gratification, and said that he would never force upon the Republic “bones hard to gnaw.” So Bruno was taken to Rome. In the “list of the prisoners of the Holy Office, made Monday, April 5, 1599,” we find that he was imprisoned on February 27, 1593. What happened during almost seven years we can only surmise. We may be sure the Inquisitors searched his books for further heretical doctrine. We hear that they visited him in his cell from time to time, and exhorted him to recant, but that he replied that he had nothing to abjure, and that they had misinterpreted him. A memorial which he addressed to them they did not read. Growing weary of their efforts to save his soul, they would temporize no more; on a given day he must retract, or be handed over to the secular arm. That day came: Giordano Bruno stood firm, though he knew the penalty was death. We cannot tell when he first resolved to dare and suffer all. Some time during those seven years of solitude and torment, he awoke to the great fact that “’Tis man’s perdition to be safe, When for the truth he ought to die.”