Burned Alive: Giordano Bruno, Galileo and the Inquisition by Alberto A. Martínez (review)

Having read Burned Alive, I was left unsure whether it was pitched at a popular or a scholarly audience. It opens with the observation that whilst many know of Galileo and his trial, few are aware of Giordano Bruno, the renegade Dominican friar executed for heresy in Rome's Campo de'Fiori in 1600. Given that Bruno is one of the most studied Renaissance philosophers, it seemed that Martínez was not directing his remarks to scholars. This view was reinforced by the author's observation that many scientists and teachers are unaware that Bruno was himself a scientist, and that he was burned alive for his scientific beliefs. Indeed, he continued, to hold that either of these propositions were untrue, was to accept a myth created by historians. Martínez therefore signalled his intention not only to correct these popular misapprehensions, but also to engage with the work of historians on which they rest. In the latter sections of his book he continued this work of historical revision by offering a new means to connect the trials of Bruno and Galileo. These sections are informed by historiographical excurses, which although useful to the historian would, I suspect, be of little interest to the casual reader. Given the ambiguous nature of the book's intended audience, I will proceed by reviewing the book's arguments primarily from the perspective of a historian, and seek to assess their value to a scholarly rather than a popular audience.

Martínez advanced three main historical theses. The first was the argument that Bruno's beliefs were underpinned by an adherence to Pythagoreanism. As Martínez acknowledged, his argument turned on the identification of Pythagorean beliefs. Since there was no extant Pythagorean corpus, Bruno and his contemporaries only knew of the ideas of Pythagoras and his followers through the writings of later authors. Martínez maintained that it is nevertheless possible to identify a number of distinctively Pythagorean concepts, such as the idea of an infinite universe, multiple inhabited worlds, the motion of the Earth, and the transmigration of souls. As Martínez shows, Bruno defended a number of these ideas and attributed at least some of them to Pythagoras. I was not convinced, however, that this insight provides the key to interpret his thought. Martínez also suggests that Bruno was executed primarily for maintaining two scientific ideas inspired by his Pythagorean beliefs, namely, the motion of the Earth and the existence of multiple other populated worlds. The sources required to determine definitively the reason for Bruno's execution simply do not exist, however. To make his case, Martínez offers a lively, albeit selective, reading of the extant sources. Notably, he listed but did not discuss the significance of the numerous other non-scientific charges that the Inquisition may have levelled at Bruno.

Martínez's book also provides a contribution to the literature on the Galileo Affair. He suggested that Catholic censors reacted with horror to Galileo's defence of the Copernican system because they feared that, like Bruno, he was part of a Pythagorean sect. In this section, Martínez has assembled an impressive array of primary sources, which indicate that many contemporaries did indeed view Galileo, or at least elements of his thought, as Pythagorean. In perhaps the book's most important section, Martínez discussed two hitherto neglected writings by the Jesuit Melchior Inchofer, a theologian who made a significant contribution to Galileo's trial. These documents show that Inchofer did harbour concerns about the Pythagorean elements of Galileo's thought. Although this evidence is suggestive, it is insufficient conclusively to prove that the Inquisition considered Bruno and Galileo to be part of a subversive Pythagorean sect, or that these suspicions played any direct role in Galileo's trial.

Finally, Martínez suggested that the Inquisition silenced Bruno so effectively that he was erased from history. This explains why modern scientists and teachers are unaware of...