Giordano Bruno: His Life and Thought
CHAPTER THREE
FOOTNOTES
1 In mediaeval Christian versions of the scheme, divine power is sometimes shewn acting through the labour of angels imparting motion by cranks (cf. Israel Abrahams, Edwin Bevyn, and Charles Singer, The Legacy of Israel [Oxford, 1927], Fig. 25 from a fourteenth century manuscript).
2 De coelo, 113-14, 286b 10-287b 21, and see below.
3 De gen. et corr., II, 11, 338a; Physica, VIII, 8, 264b; De coelo, II, 3, 286a.
4 De coelo, IV, 3-4, 310a-312a.
5 Physica, VIII, 6, 258a-259b.
6 De coelo, II, 8, 289b.
7 Metaphysica, XII, 8, 1074a, 13. In De gen. et corr., II, 2, Aristotle distinguishes between the elements as perceptible bodies which are always encountered by us in "alteration" or mixture with one another, and the originative sources of these elements "which are equal in number (four) and identical in kind with those in the sphere of the eternal and primary things" (Cf. De gen. et corr., II, 9, 335a).
8 Date of publication of Kepler's Astronomia nova.
9 Ptolemy, Almagest, III, 3 and XII, 1. The text was first introduced to the Latin-speaking world by Gerard of Cremona (1114-1187) who translated the Arabic version. Gerard's translation was first printed at Venice in 1515. Ptolemy's Greek text was printed 13 years later in 1528. The systems of excentric and deferent are very clearly and summarily shewn in Angus Armitage, Copernicus the Founder of Modern Astronomy (Allen and Unwin, 1938), p. 28. An interesting survey of the stages in the development of the Ptolemaic system is in Grant McColley, "Humanism and the History of Astronomy" in Studies and Essays in the History of Science and Learning Offered in Homage to George Sarton on the Occasion of His Sixtieth Birthday 3r Aug. 1944 (New York, 1946), edited by M. F. Ashley Montagu, pp. 323 seqq. Cf. also by the same author "A Facsimile of Salusbury's Translation of Didacus à Stunica's Commentary upon Job" in Annals of Science (London, 1937), II, ii, 179-182.
10 Cf. La cena de le ceneri, Dial. I, pp. 5-7 (Gentile, Op. ital., I, 22; Lagarde, Op. ital., I, 124, 125); also De immenso et innumerabilibus, Lib. III (Op. lat., I, i, especially p. 395, where Copernicus is criticized, "non mathematicus sed physicus").
11 For relativity of time, cf. De immenso, Lib. I, Cap. 12, and for analogy of number, Cap. 13 (Op. lat., I, i, 244, 248, etc.).
12 Cf. p. 71.
13 De rerum natura, I, 951-80 seqq. Cf. also I, 1008-13 (the Infinite Universe compounded of Matter and Void); II, 1048 seqq.; VI, 648-79, etc.
That Bruno carried Lucretius round with him we know from the remark of Cotin (cf. p. 136) that Bruno had hired out his copy to John Sambucius, "domesticus aulae Caesaris." Sambucius, physician, poet and humanist, died in 1584.
14 The poem of Lucretius was rediscovered in 1417 by Poggio Bracciolini (1380-1459) on an expedition during the Council of Constance. He had a copy made and sent to Niccolo Niccoli, who apparently kept it till 1434, making meanwhile the beautiful transcript now in the Laurentian Library. Cf. R. Sabbadini, Le scoperte dei codici latini e greci ne' secoli XIV e XV (Florence, 1905); and J. E. Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship (Cambridge, 1908), I, 79-80, citing Lehnerdt, Lucretius in der Renaissance (1904). The poem was printed s.l. et a. perhaps at Brescia, 1470. It appeared again at Verona in 1486 and the Aldine edition was printed in 1500. The work exercised a great influence on late fifteenth and especially on sixteenth century writers.
15 Timaeus, 29-30. Cf. Jowett, Dialogues of Plato (3rd ed., 1892), III, 353.
16 It is noteworthy that Padua, the one Italian university without effective religious tests either for students or for professors, was also the home of the scientific movements of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Yet we shall not be surprised to find that this great institution, freed from theological orthodoxy, nevertheless developed an academic orthodoxy that prevented too easy a path for the great innovators in her midst.
17 But see a very interesting comparison between the thought of Cusanus and that of Spinoza by Fiorentino in Bernardino Telesio ossia studi storici su l'idea della natura (Florence, 1874), II, especially 73 seqq.
18 In a work On Static Experiments (the fourth Dialogue of his ldiotae de Sapientia or Wisdom of the Simple Man), he describes experiments that he himself carried out on the floating property of pieces of wood of different sizes and different shapes. Cusanus is the very first in the Western world who employed weighing as a method for discovery of natural laws. Lynn Thorndike has pointed out that in this respect, Cusanus was partially (though only partially) anticipated by Blasius of Parma (fl. 1377) (cf. History of Magic and Experimental Science, IV, 75-76 and App. C). Cusanus describes a crucial experiment by which he placed 100 pounds of earth in a pot in which he then planted seeds. He observed that as the seeds grew, the weight of the earth diminished, shewing that they had extracted considerable matter from the earth. The same experiment he repeated, planting growing herbs instead of seeds. He suggests that it is water which is thus extracted from the earth. Moreover, he carried the experiment further by burning the plants in a closed vessel and weighing the ashes. He opines that all the "virtues" of the water must have weight. He suggests that the fertility of soils might be appraised by comparing their respective weights. Moreover, he suggests that by properly devised experiments, the weight of the whole earth may be ascertained. Again he suggests that the force of the wind could be estimated by the weight it is capable of moving. The passage of time throughout both the day and the year he proposes to record by a method of weights.
19 De docta ignorantia. First published in Opuscula varia, s.l. et d., perhaps circ. 1489. The most accessible edition is that of Basle, 1565 (in the Opera omnia). The views described above will be found also in other works of Cusanus.
20 Cf. especially De docta ignorantia, Lib. II, Capp. 11-12, for these views.
21 Cf. especially De docta ignorantia, Lib. II, Capp. 8-10. Again, "Intellectus autem iste in nostra anima eapropter in sensum descendit, ut sensibile ascendat in ipsum. Ascendit ad intellectum sensibile ut intelligentia ad ipsum descendat...." (De coniecturis, Lib. II, Cap. 16); and "Quia mens est quoddam divinum semen sua vi complicans omnium rerum exemplaria notionaliter: tunc a Deo, a quo hanc vim habet, eo ipso quod esse recepit est simul et in convenienti terra locatum, ubi fructum facere possit et ex se return universitatem notionaliter explicare, alioqui haec vis seminalis frustra data ipsi esset, si non fuisset addita opportunitas in actum prorumpendi" (ldiotae, Lib. III, Cap. 5). Cf. Ernst Cassirer, lndividuum und Kosmos ... (Leipzig, 1927), pp. 47 seqq. Cf. also infra p. 86.
22 Cf. especially De docta ignorantia, Lib. II, Cap. 7. Cf. also De coniecturis, Lib. I, Cap. 11 with figure.
23 A good study of the relation between the philosophies of Cusanus and of Bruno will be found in F. Fiorentino, Il panteismo di Giordano Bruno (Naples, 1861), Chap. 2. Cf. also M. M. Gorce, L'essor de la pensée au moyen age (Paris, 1933).
24 Cf. Op. lat., I, i, 68, 70 seqq. Many such passages might be quoted from all Bruno's works, including the one here translated. Cf. De immenso, Lib. I, where especially Cap. 1 unfolds a magnificent vision of the infinity of the universe, and of the vast range and virtue of the mind which informs this universe (Op. lat., I, i, 202-6, etc.). Or again those wonderful lines in Cap. 7 (Op. lat., I, i, 226). Cf. also p. 370. But we have not space here even to refer to a tithe of the noble passages in which Bruno's spirit soars toward apprehension of the infinite.
25 De l'infinito universo et mondi, Dial. II, pp. 40-41 (Gentile, Op. ital., I, 316; Lagarde, Op. ital., I, 328, 329).
26 Liber excitationum, Lib. I (Op. omnia [Basle, 1565], pp. 367-68). Cf. De immenso, Lib. I, Cap. 12 (Op. lat., I, i, 244). Cf. also Cusanus, "ut infinitus et aeternus mundus cadat absque proportione, ab absoluta infinitate et aeternitate, et unum ab unitate," De docta ignorantia, Lib. II, Cap. 4 (Op. omnia, p. 28).
27 De l'infinito universo et mondi, Dial. V, p. 154 (Gentile, Op. ital., I, 404; Lagarde, Op. ital., I, 389).
28 De docta ignorantia, Lib. II, Cap. 12 (Op. omnia, pp. 40-41). Cf. De l'infinito universo et mondi, Dial. III, p. 99 (Gentile, Op. ital., I, 362; Lagarde, Op. ital., I, 360).
29 Cf. Wisdom of Solomon VIII, 21-IX, 2; IX, 4, 10, 11.
30 Cf. Job XXVIII, 12-14, 21-23.
31 Cf. Proverbs VIII, 1.
32 Psalms XIX, 1.
33 Oratio valedictoria (Op. lat., I, i, 12-14). Cf. the work here translated, Dedication to Mauvissièe, p. 4 (Gentile, Op. ital., I, 270; Lagarde, Op. ital., I, 292) and De la causa, principio et uno, Dial. V, p. 222 (Gentile, Op. ital., I, 252; Lagarde, Op. ital., I, 280).
34 De immenso, Lib. II, Cap. 12 (Op. lat., I, i, 307).
35 It is hardly possible to observe a strictly logical sequence in dealing with the views of Bruno and the influences on him. This survey of contemporary astronomy seems, however, most appropriate here.
36 De immenso, Lib. II, Cap. 3 (Op. lat., I, i, 266).
37 De tripliei minimo et mensura, Lib. I, Cap. 9 (Op. lat., I, iii, 169). Cf. Lucretius: "There are living things sometimes so small that a third part of them could by no means be seen. Of what kind must we think any one of their entrails be? What of the round ball of their heart or eye? What of their members? What of their limbs? How small are they? Still more, what of the several first-beginnings whereof their soul and the nature of their mind must needs be formed? Do you not see how fine and tiny they are? Moreover, whatever things breathe out a pungent savour ... learn that many idols of things wander abroad in many ways with no powers, unable to be perceived" (De rerum natura, IV, 116-28).
38 One of the clearest of these passages, in which it is obvious that Bruno has confirmed his views by simple experiment, is De immenso, Lib. IV, Cap. 5 (Op. lat., I, ii, 25) but many other such passages will be found both in the Latin and Italian works, including that here translated.
39 Francis R. Johnson, Astronomical Thought in Renaissance England (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press, 1938), p. 181, citing Andrew Clark, Register of the University of Oxford (Oxford, 1887), II, 170.
40 Ephemeris anni 1557 currentis iusta Copernici et Reinhaldi canones ... supputata ac examinata ad meridianum Londinensem (London, 1556).
41 Fol. M. 2.
42 The whole of the Perfit Description is printed by Francis R. Johnson and Sanford V. Larkey in "Thomas Digges, the Copernican System, and the Idea of the Infinity of the Universe in 1576," Huntington Library Bulletin, No. 5 (April 1934).
43 De magnete magnetisque corporibus et de magno magnete tellure philosophia nova plurimis argumentis demonstrata (London, 1600).
44 Gilbert, On the Loadstone, trans, from the Latin by Silvanus P. Thompson (London, Chiswick Press, 1900), pp. 215-16.
45 Philosophia nova (Amsterdam, 1651).
46 Quoted by Yates in A Study of "Love's Labour's Lost," p. 94, from B. M. Additional MS 6789, ff. 425-26. Miss Yates notes that this passage was first observed by Henry Stevens, Hariot and His Associates (London, 1900).
47 This was first brought to notice by Miss Ethel Seaton in a paper read before the Elizabethan Literary Society in February 1933.
48 Cf. Charles and Dorothea Singer, "The Scientific Position of Girolamo Fracastoro (1478?-1553)," Annals of Medical History, Vol. I, No. 1 (New York, 1917).
49 Homocentrica sive de stellis, first published in 1538. Cf. especially § 2, Chap. 2. For Fracastoro's cosmological and astronomical views, see J. L. E. Dreyer, History of Planetary Systems (Cambridge, 1906), and G. Rossi, Fracastoro in relazione all' Aristotelismo e alle scienze nel rinascimento (Pisa, 1892). For other passages where Bruno draws on Fracastoro, see F. Tocco, Le opere latine di Giordano Bruno esposte e confrontate con le italiane (Florence, 1889). Cf. also infra p. 102.
50 Cf. Bruno's Valedictory Oration to the professors and the audience at Wittenberg University, 1588 (Op. lat., I, i, 17). Palingenio's poem is dedicated to Ercole d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, and he himself is identified with Pietro Manzoli of Ferrara. The Zodiacus vitae appeared first in 1530 and again at Lyons, 1552, and in many subsequent editions. The author propounds eight finite spheres and an infinite ninth sphere beyond. Palingenio is cited also in De immenso, Lib. VIII, Cap. 2, and again in Cap. 4 in connection with the views of Plato and those of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. Cf. Op. lat., I, ii, 292 seqq.
51 Op. lat., I, i, 17 (see above, note 50), and again in the Preface to the Lullian De lampade combinatoria dedicated to the Rector and Senate of Wittenberg University. Op. lat., II, ii, 234.
52 Op. lat., II, ii, 235 (see above, note 51). Agrippa started life as a soldier, but soon turned to teaching, and held a series of posts; he lectured on Hebrew, on theology, and on the writings of Hermes Trismegistus; he was Syndic and Orator to the city of Mainz, practised medicine in Lyons, entered the service of Margaret of Austria and finally was historiographer to the Emperor Charles V. Bruno remarks that Agrippa comments on himself rather than on Lull! Agrippa holds an honourable place among the heralds of "Nature Philosophy" and was one of the earliest to take up the defence of the hapless victims accused of witchcraft.
53 De immenso, Lib. I, Cap. 5 (Op. lat., I, i, 218-19). Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), Danish astronomer, opened his career by observing a new star in Cassiopeia on 11th November, 1572, of which he printed an account in the following year. From 1576 he systematically studied the heavens for 21 years at his famous laboratory Urania on the Baltic island of Hveen. In 1588 Tycho published his own system of the world. The earth is the centre of it and centre also of the orbits of sun, moon and fixed stars. The sun is centre of the orbits of the five planets. This system is a mere alternative to that of Copernicus, since all the computations of the positions of heavenly bodies are identical for the two. In Tycho's diagram of the universe, the stars are represented in a sphere. His universe was thus Ptolemaic and Copernican.
54 De immenso, Lib. IV, Cap. 13 (Op. lat., I, ii, 70-74). Cornelius Gemma (1535-1577) was born and passed his life at Louvain, where he occupied the chair of medicine. He occupied himself largely with astrology and mathematics but is remembered for his observations of an eclipse of the moon in 1569 and of the new star in Cassiopeia, which appeared in 1572. He recorded this star on 9th November, two days before it was seen by Tycho Brahe. His work attracted the attention of Galileo. Helisaeus or Elyseus Roeslin of Strassbourg became physician to the Count of Hanover. He published several astronomical works of which the first was Theoria nova codestium meteorum (Strassbourg, 1578). He was also the author of a work on medical astrology, 1609.
55 Cf. below, p. 196.
56 De immenso, Lib. III, Cap. 10 (Op. lat., I, i, 395). Leo Hebraeus, the inventor of "Jacob's staff" for measuring the position of stars, was the French Jew Levi ben Gerson (1288-1344), philosopher and astronomer.
57 De l'infinito universo et mondi, Dial. IV, pp. 151-52 (Gentile, Op. ital., I, 402; Lagarde, Op. ital., I, 388).
58 De immenso, Lib. VI, Cap. 19 (Op. lat., I, ii, 228-29). For the Renaissance illustrations of this phrase, "Veritas temporis filia," see F. Saxl in Philosophy and History: Essays Presented to E. Cassirer (Warburg Library, London, 1936).
59 Cf. pp. 68 and 102.
60 De minimo, Lib. III, Cap. 2 and Lib. IV, Cap. 1 (Op. lat., I, iii, 237 and 269).
61 De immenso, Lib. II, Cap. 5 (Op. lat., I, i, 273).
62 De l'infinito universo et mondi, "Introductory Epistle," (Argument of the Fifth Dialogue) p. 24 (Gentile, Op. ital., I, 282; Lagarde, Op. ital., I, 303).
63 Ibid., Dial. II, pp. 47-48 (Gentile, Op. ital., I, 321; Lagarde, Op. ital., I, 332). 64 "Digestione."
65 De l'infinito universo et mondi, Dial. IV, pp. 112-13 (Gentile, Op. ital., I, 373; Lagarde, Op. ital., I, 367).
66 But many passages in Lucretius suggest a cosmic metabolism in which every sort of atom is combined. Cf. De rerum natura, I, 208-37, 296-326, 498-502; II, 62-79, 991-1022; V, 828-36. The motion of the parts within the motionless whole, in II, 317-32, just fails to suggest a discrete continuum.
67 De l'infinito universo et mondi, Dial. II, pp. 51-52 (Gentile, Op. ital., I, 323-24; Lagarde, Op. ital., I, 334).
68 For example, cf. Cusanus, De docta ignorantia, Lib. I, capp. 2, 5, 11; Lib. II, Cap. 3, etc. (Opera, pp. 2, 4, 8, 26, etc.); De coniecturis, Lib. I, capp. 4, 11; Lib. II, Cap. 6 (Opera, pp. 77, 85, 99); De filiatione dei (Opera, pp. 156, 162-63, 171); De ludo globi, Lib. II (opera, p. 231); De beryllo, Cap. 17 (Opera, p. 272); De venatione sapientiae, capp. 21, 36 (opera, pp. 314, 328); Liber excitationum, Lib. X (opera, p. 676); complementum theologium, Cap. 9 (Opera, pp. 1114 seqq.).
69 Cf. especially De minimo (Op. lat., I, iii, 119-361) and De monade, numero et figura (Op. lat., I, ii, 320-473).
70 De minimo, Lib. I, Cap. 2 (Op. lat., I, iii, 138-40).
71 Literally: Individual matter (materia particularis).
72 De immenso, Lib. I, Cap. I (Op. lat., I, i, 204).
73 Part I, Rome, 1565; Part II, Rome, 1587. Cf. De la causa, principio et uno, pp. 62-63 (Lagarde, Op. ital., I, 246). A correspondence has survived between Telesio and Francesco Patrizzi (1529-1597) who objected that the universal elemental "matter" of Telesio cannot be apprehended by the senses, which reveal it only under changing manifestations. He begged Gregory XIV to forbid the study of Aristotle at the universities, maintaining that Platonism was consonant with the Catholic faith! See Fiorentino, Bernardino Telesio (Florence, 1874), II, 2 seqq. Bruno stigmatizes Patrizzi as a rotten Italian pedant, bracketing him with "the arch-pedant Frenchman" Ramus (De la causa, principio et uno, Dial. III, p. 62 [Lagarde, Op. ital., I, 246; Gentile, Op. ital., I, 202]). Cf. Bruno's attack on Ramus in the Eroici furori (Gentile, Op. ital., II, 436). As Gentile points out, Bruno was concerned only to refute the Aristotelian cosmology -- not the other Peripatetic views, all of which were opposed by Ramus.
74 Works condemned to be burned, Paris, 1210. Cf. De la causa, principio et uno, p. 10, "Argomento del terzo dialogo" (Lagarde, Op. ital., I, 203) and cf. below pp. 98-9, n. 19.
75 De la causa, principio et uno, Dial. II, pp. 50-51 (Gentile, Op. ital., I, 189-90; Lagarde, Op. ital., I, 238).
76 De l'infinito universo et mondi, Dial. I, p. 24 (Gentile, Op. ltd., I, 304; Lagarde, Op. ital., I, 319-20). Cf. also among many passages spaccio de la bestia trionfante, p. 12, "Epistola esplicatoria" (Lagarde, Op. ital., I, 408).
77 Cf. p. 3.
78 De minimo, Lib. II, Cap. 6 (Op. lat., I, iii, 208-9).
79 For a masterly review of this subject, see Cassirer, lndividuum und Kosmos. Cf. also Jacob Teicher, "Il principio VERITAS FILIA TEMPORIS presso Azarjah de Rossi" in Reale Accad. Naz. dei Lincei Rendiconti della classe di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche, IX, Ser. VI (May 1933), 5-6.
80 Paris, 1514.
81 Cf. Preface to De lampade combinatoria (Op. lat., II, ii, 235). It is entertaining to find the ebullient Bruno awarding the palm to de Bovelles for a more modest style than that of Lefèvre.
82 But many Renaissance thinkers did not perceive the irreconcilable opposition between astrology and man's free will. We are startled to find astrology as part of the world picture of such figures as, for example, Kepler (1571-1630) and Prince Cesi (1585-1630), founder of the Academy of the Lynx.
83 Cf. On Shadows of Ideas, p. 18 and App. I, 1 (a).
84 Carolus Bovillus, Liber de sapiente in Opera (Paris and Amiens, 1510-11). The thesis is propounded at once in the Dedication to Guillaume Breçonnet (or Briçonnet, Bishop of Lodève and subsequently of Meaux, a former pupil and faithful disciple) which is illustrated by a most interesting woodcut replete with messages signifying that man must by knowledge be master of his fate. In the foreground are the seated figures of Fortuna and Sapientia. Fortuna is blindfolded and bears a revolving wheel in her hand. Her seat is an unstable sphere and above her the head of lnsipiens announces: "Thee, O Fortune, do we make our goddess and place thee in heaven." Wisdom, on the other hand, is seated on a four-square throne and gazes serenely into the Mirror of Wisdom which she bears in her hand. Above all is a head labelled Sapiens who proclaims: "Put thy faith in thine innate virtue [virtuti]: fortune is more fleeting than virtue." The Liber de sapiente with figures, edited by Raymond Klibansky from the Opera (1510-11), is appended to Cassirer, lndividuum und Kosmos.
85 De immenso, Lib. IV, Cap. 9 (Op. lat., I, ii, 146).
86 De gl' heroici furori, Dial. III, i, 83 (Gentile, Op. ital., II, 372; Lagarde, Op. ital., II, 650).
87 De immenso, Lib. I, Cap. 12 (Op. ital., I, i, 246-47).
88 Cf. p. 117. Synteresis, a term used by St. Thomas and by Jerome to signify the preservative or directive action of conscience. In 1483 Lydgate, translating the version by Jean de Gallopes of Guillaume de Deguilleville's Pylgremage of the Sowle, wrote: "Synderesys ... the hiher party of Resoun; whereby a man shall best discerne Hys conscience to governe." In modern mystic literature the word is used to denote "the divine nucleus, the point of contact between man's life and the divine life (E. Underhill, Mysticism, I, iii, 64).
89 Cf. De divinls nominibus, Capp. 4-13, ff. 43-62, of the edition of Paris, 1566. An edition of the Opera omnia in terribly crabbed print appeared at Strassbourg in 1602. It has attractive figures (ff. XLVIII, LVI, LXXVIII) of the various souls all gathered into the world soul -- cf, especially the circles all intertwining and their lines converging in the largest circle which bears the legend "Providentia desideratur" on f. XLVIII. This edition has Commentaries by all the above named as well as by Hugo (of St. Victor), Grossetête and Leo of Vercelli, and a new translation by Ficino of the De mystica theologica and the De divinis nominibus. For these writers in this connection, see F. Morel, Essai sur l'introversion mystique, étude psychologique de Pseudo Denys l' 'Aréopagite (Geneva, 1918), Part II; E. Cassirer, op. cit.; F. Uberweg, Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie, Part II, "Die patristische und scholastische Philosophic" (11th ed. by E. Geyer, Berlin, 1928). The Commentary of Thomas is really an Epitome. He is dubious of this element in the thought of Ps.-Dionysius and notes that the latter "follows Plato when writing de speciebus naturalibus separatis but is entirely true and Christian when declaring God to be the First Principle." For an interesting discussion of Thomas and Albert and Averroist thought, see M. M. Gorce, L'essor de la pensée au moyen age. Ficino in his Introduction to his translation of De divinis nominibus equates the doctrine of Convergence of Contraries with Identity in the World Soul: "Soluta iam totaque surgit in unitatem suam per quam cum ipso uno rerum principio inexistimibalem consequetur unionem" (Part III, f. XX). In his work De sole et lumine (Venice, 1503), Ficino uses the Neo-Platonic conception elaborated by Dionysius of God as the Sun. Cusanus and Bruno both compare the One, the World Soul, to Light. The philosophy recently propounded by Lance Whyte as unitary process thought has also ancestry from the conception of convergence of contraries. Mr. Whyte recognizes Bruno among its forerunners and indeed takes it back to Heraclitus, but does not mention Cusanus or Pseudo-Dionysius.
90 De docta ignorantia, Lib. I, Cap. 3 seqq. (Opera, p. 2 seqq.). The views briefly described here are expounded many times throughout the works of Cusanus.
91 Liber excitationum, Lib. V (Opera, p. 482).
92 "Hic amor dei cure intelligentia conditus inebriat mentem," Liber excitationum, Lib. IV (Opera, p. 460);
"Bibitur quasi aqua spiritus dei per spiritum nostrum intellectualem...," ibid., Lib. VII (Opera, p. 585);
"Spiritus dei ... sicut amor veritatis est forma, animam intellectiuam formans et uiuificans atque in motu ponens," ibid., Lib. VII (Opera, p. 586);
"Spiritus rationis est uis libera intellectualis desiderii quae inhabitatio est ipsi spiritui possessio Dei seu vitae aeternae...," ibid., Lib. VIII (Opera, p. 591);
"Idem est intelligere et amare," ibid., Lib. X (Opera, p. 672).
93 Mathematics are used to illustrate the coincidence of contraries in many passages of Cusanus. The conception is formulated in the opening of De mathematica perfectione (Opera, p. 1120).
94 De docta ignorantia, Lib. I, Capp. 10, 12 seqq. and especially Cap. 23 (Opera, PP. 7, 9, 18, etc.).
95 De docta ignorantia, Lib. I, Cap. 22, and in many other passages (Opera, p. 17, etc.).
96 De coniecturis, Lib. I, Cap. 13 (Opera, pp. 88 seqq.). Cf. also De venatione sapientiae, Cap. 36 (Opera, p. 327) and many other passages.
97 De pace fidei (Opera, p. 862).
98 Ibid. (Opera, p. 879).
99 Cribrationis Alchoran, Lib. III, Cap. 13 (Opera, p. 924). This phrase gives us again an example of the tragic contrast between Cusanus the thinker and Cusanus the administrator. For while his episcopal rule was sullied by none of the sadistic violence which has periodically disgraced central Europe, yet there is no doubt that he inflicted the humiliating badge on Jews within his episcopal jurisdiction. To the all-knowing God he prays, "Thou remainest unknown to all and ineffable ... for there is no proportion between finite and infinite..." "Be thou gracious and shew thy face and all peoples will be saved ... If thou wilt deign to do so, the sword will cease and the malice of hatred and suchlike evils, and all will know that there is but one religion in the variety of rites" (De pace fidei, Cap. I [Opera, p. 863]). In the De visione dei, he perceives every individual as directly under the loving care of God and recalls in illustration certain portraits that appear to gaze directly at every beholder. Among these he mentions the portrait of himself by Roger van der Wcyden (circ. 1390-1464), cited also by Bruno in the work here translated.
100 It is impossible to cite all the passages. Cf. especially De docta ignorantia, De coniecturis, De ludo globi, De pace fidei, etc.
101 De docta ignorantia, Lib. III, Cap. 12 (Opera, p. 60); Liber excitationum, Lib. IX (Opera, p. 639).
102 De l'infinito universo et mondi, Dial. V, p. 163 (Gentile, Op. ital., I, 409-10; Lagarde, Op. ital., I, 393).
103 lndividui; lit., individuals.
104 De la causa, principio et uno, Dial. III, p. 83 (Gentile, Op. ital. I, 219; Lagarde, Op. ital., I, 258).
105 De immenso, Lib. V, Cap. 9 (Op. lat., I, ii, 146).
106 Cf. p. 23.
107 De la causa, principio et uno, Dial. I, p. 15 (Gentile, Op. ital., I, 50; Lagarde, Op. ital., I, 218) and Dial. II, pp. 34-5 (Gentile, Op. ital., I, 175-76; Lagarde, Op. ital., I, 228).
108 Ibid., Dial. V, pp. 139-40 (Gentile, Op. ital., I, 263-64; Lagarde, Op. ital., I, 288-89).
109 De immenso, Lib. II, Cap. 12 (Op. lat., I, i, 307).
110 An interesting study is B. Spaventa, "La dottrina della conoscenza di G. Bruno," Atti della R. Accad. di scienze morali e politiche di Napoli (Naples, 1865), II, 294 seq.
111 Cf. p. 73.
112 Olschki remarks that Bruno oscillated between theism and pantheism. I would rather say that the two views are reconciled in the single universe envisaged by him. Cf. L. Olschki, "Giordano Bruno," Deutsche Vierteljahrhundertschrift f. Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte, II, Heft i (Halle, 1924), (Italian trans. by G. Zamboni [Bari, 1927]).
113 De l'infinito universo et mondi, Dial. I, pp. 2-3 (Gentile, Op. ital., I, 288-89; Lagarde, Op. ital., I, 307-8). We may recall here also the magnificent poem to Mens at the opening of the De immenso (Op. lat., I, i, 201).
114 De l'infinito universo et mondi, Dial. III, p. 99 (Gentile, Op. ital., I, 362; Lagarde, Op. ital., I, 360).
115 De la causa, principio et uno, Dial. V, p. 124 (Gentile, Op. ital., I, 253; Lagarde, Op. ital., I, 281).
116 De Minimo, Lib. I, Cap. 2 (Op. lat., I, iii, 138).
117 De la causa, principio et uno, Dial. II, p. 39 (Gentile, Op. ital., I, 179; Lagarde, Op. ital., I, 231). The quotation is from the Aeneid of Virgil, VI, 726-27. These lines were quoted by Bruno at his Venice trial.
118 De immenso, Lib. VIII, Cap. 10 (Op. lat., I, ii, 314).
119 Ibid., Lib. IV, Cap. 9 (Op. lat., I, ii, 51).
120 Cf. the Lucretian view of the winds, scents, heat, cold and sound as mighty though invisible forces, "yet all these things must needs consist of bodily nature inasmuch as they can make impact on our senses" (On the Nature of Things, I, 302-3). Thus Bruno, "Even as light is physically poured without end into the vastness of space, the bright Spirit informeth, embraceth and filleth even those things that are guarded by the flame thereof or by flood" (De immenso, Lib. I, Cap. 7, [Op. lat., I, i, 226]).
121 This is recounted in many mediaeval works. For implanting operations, see De l'infinito universo et mondi, Dial. IV, p. 117 (Gentile, Op. ital., I, 377; Lagarde, Op. ital., I, 370).
122 De magia (Op. lat., III, 408-10). Bruno proceeds with an interesting argument that so-called magic is consonant with the laws of Nature.
123 De la causa, principio et uno, Dial. V, p. 122 (Gentile, Op. ital., I, 252; Lagarde, Op. ital., I, 280).