The Forbidden Universe by Lynn Picknett, Clive Prince Read Free Book Online Page A

devoted much of his time in Germany to organizing a secret society, the Giordanisti, to further his ambitions. This underground network would act as contingency should there be a Catholic take-over of Europe, which seemed only too likely. The Giordanisti were effectively a Hermetic resistance movement. One fellow guest of the Inquisition in Rome said that Bruno had declared:
    … that he had begun a new sect in Germany, and if he could get out of prison he would return there to organize it better, and that he wished that they would call themselves Giordanisti. 34
     
    The chief informer against him, Zuan Mocenigo, said that shortly before his arrest Bruno had ‘revealed a plan of founding a new sect’ to him. 35 Although this revelation suggests that Bruno was still at the initial planning stages, his activities just before returning to Italy suggest otherwise. In retrospect it seems improbable that such a messianic figurehead would not have organized cells of disciples wherever he went, linking them into an underground network. Forming secret groups is what Hermeticists do.
    Bruno had certainly acquired disciples and devotees in France and England. During his return to Paris he published works under his followers’ names in order to disguise his authorship – although this may not have been favourable for those whose names he adopted – another sign that he was becoming more cautious and secretive. He was now building a following in the states of Germany. And despite restrictions caused by the problems of transport, because the formal organization was university-based, there would have been a constant movement of professors and students to other parts of Europe, all carrying Bruno’s message.
    Part of Bruno’s new project involved the publication, in 1590 and 1591, of three lengthy poems expounding his magical philosophy, the progress of which he controlled more meticulously than any of his more overtly arcane and philosophical works. He even travelled to Frankfurt to oversee their production. One of the poems, On the Threefold Minimum and Measure ( De triplici minimo et mensura ) included symbols and diagrams for which – uniquely – Bruno made the woodcuts himself.
    It has been suggested that Bruno lavished all this love on this particular work because it incorporated the Giordanisti’s secret symbols and contained ciphered messages for its initiates. 36 Again, this makes sense in terms of a feared Catholic clampdown, in which his overtly Hermetic treatises would be banned. Of all Bruno’s works this was the one that was ultimately responsible for his downfall.
    Being such a high-profile possessor of Hermetic secrets was never going to be a passport to freedom of speech and a guarantee of personal safety, but clearly something in Bruno’s character either persuaded him he would always lead a charmed life or he simply craved danger. Perhaps he also craved martyrdom.
    A fiery fate was already waiting in the wings. While in Frankfurt, Bruno met Giovanni Battista Ciotto, an innocent-seeming book dealer from Venice. Back home, Ciotto sold a copy of Bruno’s poem On the Threefold Minimum and Measure to a wealthy Hermetic dabbler, Zuan Mocenigo, which prompted him to invite Bruno to be his guest and teacher. At the age of forty-three, and after ten years away from Italian soil, Bruno accepted the offer. This would not turn out to be his best idea.
    To modern eyes it seems as if Bruno was somewhat overoptimistic , seeing his return to Italy as a golden opportunity to inveigle himself into the Pope’s favour. He even wrote to an old Dominican acquaintance in Venice that he hoped to receive papal absolution. Certainly further political change had rekindled his hopes of establishing a new age of Hermetic religion through an internal transformation of the Catholic Church. He still envisaged a French monarch who would bridge the divide between Catholics and Protestants, but fate would ultimately act against him there,