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Michael White.
The Pope and the Heretic: A True Story of Courage and Murder at the Hands of the Inquisition.
London: Little, Brown, 2002.
ISBN 0316854913;
ISBN-13: 9780316854917.
Hardback, perfect bound.
140x222xmm.
xvii,205pp.
English.
Good condition, unused, but with some shop wear: page edges yellowed; some white residue on the front of the dustjacket, where a small sticker has been peeled off.
[Publisher's price £16.99]
365g.The compelling story of one of natural philosphy's lesser-known but continually intriguing figures: that of Giordano Bruno.
A natural philosopher and visionary, Bruno was not limited to one discipline: instead his erudite mind accepted nothing and challenged everything in his pursuit for an all-embracing system of thought. It was an openness that brought him patronage from some of the most powerful figures of the day, such as Henry III of France and Elizabeth I of England, but which also brought him into direct conflict with the Catholic Church. Returning to Italy, Bruno was arrested by the Inquisition and tried as a heretic. After enduring almost eight years of imprisonment and repeated torture, Bruno was burned at the stake in Rome.
What remained of Bruno's body was smashed to powder with hammers and the ashes were cast to the wind. But the Inquisition's attempts to obliterate Bruno were a spectacular failure, as his philosophy and his influence spread: Galileo, Newton, Huygens and Leibniz all built upon his ideas; his thought experiments predated the work of such twentieth-century luminaries as Karl Popper; his religious thinking figured large for radicals such as Spinoza; and his work on the art of memory had a profound effect on, among others, William Shakespeare.
The Pope and the Heretic chronicles Bruno's work, his life and his extraordinary legacy. Michael White brilliantly pieces together his dramatic final years, his capture and his trial, and explains why the Catholic Church felt so threatened by Bruno that it made him science's first martyr.
Related pages: | heresy | esoterica |
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