Page:The Gradual Acceptance of the Copernican Theory of the Universe.djvu/59

 Leaving Paris soon after his return thither, Bruno wandered into southern Germany. At Marburg he was not permitted to teach, but at Wittenberg the Lutherans cordially welcomed him into the university. After a stay of a year and a half, he moved on to Prague for a few months, then to Helmstadt, Frankfort and Zurich, and back to Frankfort again where, in 1591, he received an invitation from a young Venetian patrician, Mœcenigo, to come to Venice as his tutor. He re-entered Italy, therefore, in August, much to the amazement of his contemporaries. It is probable that Mœcenigo was acting for the Inquisition. At any rate, he soon denounced Bruno to that body and in May, 1592, surrendered him to it.

In his trial before the Venetian Inquisition, Bruno told the story of his life and stated his beliefs in answer to the charges against him, based mainly on travesties of his opinions. In this statement as well as in La Cena de le Ceneri, and in De Immenso et Innumerabilis, Bruno shows how completely he had not merely accepted the Copernican doctrine, but had expanded it far beyond its author's conception. The universe according to Copernicus, though vastly greater than that conceived by Aristotle and Ptolemy, was still finite because enclosed within the sphere of the fixed stars. Bruno declared that not only was the earth only a lesser planet, but "this world itself was merely one of an infinite number of particular worlds similar to this, and that all the planets and other stars are infinite worlds without number composing an infinite universe, so that there is a double infinitude, that of the greatness of the universe, and that of the multitude of worlds." How important this would be to the Church authorities may be realized by recalling the patristic doctrine that the universe was created for man and that his home is its center. Of course their cherished belief must be defended from such an attack, and naturally enough, the Copernican doctrine as the starting point of Bruno's theory of

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