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[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Giordano Bruno - Tortured and Burned For His Beliefs of The Universe

Filippo (Giordano) Bruno was born in Nola, Italy in 1548. His father was Giovanni Bruno, a soldier, and his mother was Fraulissa Savolino. In 1561, he enrolled in school at the Monastery of Saint Domenico, best known for its famous member, Thomas Aquinas. Around this time, he took the name Giordano Bruno and within a few years had become a priest of the Dominican Order.
Giordano Bruno was a brilliant, if eccentric, philosopher, but the life of a Dominican priest in the Catholic Church apparently didn’t suit him. He left the order in 1576 and started wandering Europe as a travelling philosopher, lecturing in various universities. His chief claim to fame was the Dominican memory techniques he taught, bringing him to the attention of royalty, including King Henry III of France and Elizabeth I of England.

His memory enhancement techniques, described in his book "The Art of Memory" are still used today.
Though outspoken, and perhaps, not truly appreciated while in the Dominican Order, his troubles truly began around 1584 with the publication of his book "Dell Infinito, universo e mondi" ("Of Infinity, the Universe, and the World"). Being a philosopher and not an astronomer, Giordano Bruno would not have even warranted our attention if not for this book and the consequences of it.

Hearing the ideas of Copernicus about the nature of the universe sent Giordano Bruno into a veritable frenzy of philosophical thought. If the Earth was not the center of the universe, and all those stars clearly seen in the night sky were also suns, then there must exist an infinite number of earths in the universe, inhabited with other beings like ourselves.

This idea about the universe did not sit well with the Catholic Church. They lured Giordano Bruno to Rome with the promise of a job, where he was immediately turned over to the Inquisition and charged with heresy.

Giordano Bruno spent the next eight years in chains in the Castel Sant’Angelo, where he was routinely tortured and interrogated until his trial. Despite this, he remained unrepentant, stating to his Catholic Church judge, Jesuit Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, "I neither ought to recant, nor will I." Even a death sentence handed down by the Catholic Church did not change his attitude as he defiantly told his accusers, "In pronouncing my sentence, your fear is greater than mine in hearing it."

Immediately after the death sentence was handed down, Giordano Bruno’s jaw was clamped shut with an iron gag, his tongue was pierced with an iron spike and another iron spike was driven into his palate. On February 19, 1600, he was driven through the streets of Rome, stripped of his clothes and burned at the stake.

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I was not aware of Giordano and his persecution.

His story should be told more.

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Astronomy Rebel With A Cause

The son of a famous musician and music theorist, Galileo was born near Pisa, Italy. He was educated by monks at Vallombrosa, then entered the university of Pisa in 1581 to study medicine. There, he found his interests changing to philosophy and mathematics and he ended his university career in 1585 without a degree.

Despite his lack of a degree, he tutored privately for a while until he became professor of mathematics at Pisa in 1589. Legend has it that while teaching there, he demonstrated to his students that Aristotle was wrong about speed of fall being related to the weight of an object by dropping two items off the leaning tower.

Contradicting Aristotle was considered almost a heresy by many at the time, and he was not invited back to the university in 1592.

That same year, though, he secured a position as chair of mathematics at the University of Padua. He remained there until 1610.

Galileo thrived at Padua where he invented an early calculator called a compass which helped solve complex mathematical problems. He began studying physics, discovering the law of falling bodies as well as the parabolic path of projectiles. He also studied the motion of pendulums, began studying mechanics and material tactile strengths. He professed no interest in Astronomy, though he did favor the Copernican universe model over the Ptolemaic or Arisotalian.

After learning of the invention of the spyglass in Holland, he built a telescope of his own, which had a magnification factor of 20. With this new tool, he found mountains and craters on the moon, discovered that the Milky Way was composed of stars, and discovered the four largest moons of Jupiter. After publishing his findings in The Starry Messenger in March of 1610, he was appointed court mathematician at Florence, freeing him from his teaching duties and giving more time for research. By December, he had observed the phases of Venus, further contradicting Ptolemy and confirming the Copernican theory.

Many scientists of the day disputed Galileo’s discoveries and theories, often because of their disagreement with Aristotle. In 1614, a priest in Florence denounced him and his followers from a pulpit, causing Galileo to compose an open letter on the irrelevance of the bible in scientific arguments and that scientific positions should never be made articles of Roman Catholic faith.

In 1616, Copernican books were censored by the church and Galileo was told by cardinal Robert Bellarmine to no longer defend the concept that the Earth moves. He made no complaints, continuing his work on determining longitudes at sea, based on his predictions of the positions of Jupiter’s satellites. He continued to study falling objects and penned a book on Comets called The Assayer, which was published in 1623.

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Some just cannot let go of established beliefs. I'm glad he and progressive people like Galileo are vindicated.