There are two main historical figures that are often cited as supposed “martyrs for science.” The first is the Neoplatonic philosopher and mathematician Hypatia of Alexandria, who was murdered in March 415 AD by a mob of Christians who supported Cyril, the bishop of Alexandria. The second is the Italian mystic Giordano Bruno, who was burned alive on 17 February 1600 by the Roman Inquisition.
Hypatia was a real scientist (or at least proto-scientist), but she was murdered for reasons entirely unrelated to her scientific work. As I discuss in this article I published in August 2018, all the surviving contemporary sources indicate that Hypatia was murdered due to her involvement in a bitter political feud between Orestes, the Christian Roman governor of Egypt, and Cyril, the bishop of Alexandria. Hypatia was one of Orestes’s major allies. Her murder was basically a political assassination.
Giordano Bruno, on the other hand, was not a scientist at all and he was executed for reasons entirely unrelated to science. Ironically, by insisting on calling him a “martyr for science,” Bruno’s admirers are kind of shooting themselves in the foot by destroying their own credibility.
Popular claims about Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno’s admirers routinely portray him as a brave, scientific-minded skeptic who dared to speak out against the evil Catholic Church and was consequently burned at the stake. For instance, here is an image that was shared to the Atheists Against Pseudoscientific Nonsense group on Facebook on 17 February 2017:
Giordano Bruno really did believe all the things that are listed here. He also believed in heliocentrism, as his other admirers will gleefully tell you. He also really was burned at the stake. Unfortunately, there is a lot of information that is (perhaps deliberately) left out of this picture that seriously undermines the central claim that the maker of this image is trying to make.
Let’s start out by talking about how Giordano Bruno didn’t actually come up with a single one of the ideas listed in the image above himself. In fact, all of these ideas predate him by centuries at least.
Heliocentrism
As I discuss in this article from December 2019, heliocentrism is first known to have been proposed as a hypothesis by the ancient Greek astronomer Aristarchos of Samos (lived c. 310 – c. 230 BC), who wrote a book in which he argued for it. Aristarchos’s book has not survived, so we don’t know exactly what his argument was.
Nonetheless, we know from surviving sources written by people who had access to his book that he argued that the sun and the fixed stars remain unmoving, that all the planets, including the earth, move around the sun in circular orbits, and that the earth rotates on its axis. This hypothesis was widely rejected at the time it was proposed because whatever evidence Aristarchos had to support it was deemed insufficient and the geocentric model was seen as more compatible with the available evidence.
Eventually, after over a thousand years, heliocentrism was revived as a hypothesis by the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (lived 1473 – 1543), who published a treatise titled De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium in which he laid out a mathematical model for it. Copernicus knew of Aristarchos, but he does not seem to have been aware that Aristarchos had proposed a heliocentric model of the universe. Copernicus’s treatise was widely circulated among intellectuals in the sixteenth century, although his hypothesis was not widely accepted. It is from Copernicus that Giordano Bruno got the idea of heliocentrism.
Not only did Giordano Bruno not come up with heliocentrism himself, he accepted it purely for mystical reasons, without any kind of solid evidence. Indeed, his treatment of heliocentrism in his dialogue Ash Wednesday Supper, which he wrote in 1584, shows that he misunderstood many of the details of Copernicus’s heliocentric model and was willing to accept or reject parts of it based purely on whether they agreed with his mystical intuition.
ABOVE: Portrait from c. 1580 of the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, from whom Giordano Bruno got the idea of heliocentrism
The stars as distant suns, the multiplicity of worlds, and alien life
The idea that there are infinitely many worlds and that some of these worlds are inhabited goes at least as far back as the Greek philosopher Anaximandros of Miletos (lived c. 610 – c. 546 BC). Anaximandros’s own writings have not survived, but we know a lot about what he believed from works written by later ancient authors who had access to copies of his works. His idea of the multiplicity of worlds is known to have been embraced by the Atomist school of Greek philosophy, which included Demokritos of Abdera (lived c. 460 – c. 370 BC).
The philosopher Anaxarchos of Abdera (lived c. 380 – c. 320 BC), who travelled with Alexander the Great, is said to have taught that there are infinitely many worlds also. The Greek writer Ploutarchos of Chaironeia (lived c. 46 – c. 120 AD) tells this famous anecdote about Anaxarchos’s teaching of the multiplicity of worlds in his essay “On Tranquility of Mind,” as translated by W. C. Helmbold:
“Alexander wept when he heard Anaxarchos discourse about an infinite number of worlds, and when his friends inquired what ailed him, ‘Is it not worthy of tears,’ he said, ‘that, when the number of worlds is infinite, we have not yet become lords of a single one?’”
Other worlds and alien life also appear in works of ancient fiction. As I discuss in this article from January 2020, over a thousand years before Giordano Bruno, the Syrian writer Loukianos of Samosata (lived c. 125 – after c. 180 AD) wrote a satirical novel titled A True Story in which the characters visit the moon and encounter all sorts of bizarre aliens from the moon, the sun, and various star systems.
None of these ideas were forgotten after the rise of Christianity—or, at least if they were forgotten, they did not remain forgotten for long. Nicholas of Cusa (lived 1401 – 1464), a Catholic astronomer and mystic who was greatly revered in Bruno’s time, published a treatise De Docta Ignorantia in 1440 in which he speculated that the universe is infinite and without center, that there are infinitely many worlds, and that some other worlds may be inhabited, perhaps even by intelligent life forms.
Far from being burned at the stake, Nicholas of Cusa was made a cardinal by Pope Nicholas V in 1448, eight years after he published his treatise in which he argued for the multiplicity of worlds. In 1459, he was appointed vicar general over the Papal States. Giordano Bruno read Nicholas of Cusa’s work and it was from him that he got the ideas of an infinite universe, the multiplicity of worlds, and life on other planets.
Bruno does seem to have made one slight modification to Nicholas’s cosmological model, which was combining it with Copernicus’s heliocentrism. Bruno proposed that at least some of the fixed stars were, in fact, extremely distant suns with earths orbiting around them. He didn’t make this conclusion based on any kind of empirical evidence or observation, but rather simply on intuition. He happened to be right, albeit entirely due to luck.
ABOVE: Painting from c. 1480 of Nicholas of Cusa, the Catholic cardinal from whom Giordano Bruno got the ideas of an infinite, centerless universe and the multiplicity of worlds
Denial of transubstantiation
The doctrine of transubstantiation, meanwhile, has always been one of the most widely criticized teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. In the eleventh century, for instance, the scholar Berengar of Tours (lived c. 999 – 1088) openly taught that there was absolutely no material change in the bread and wine during the Eucharist. His denial of transubstantiation provoked outrage, but he was probably never excommunicated.
In the early sixteenth century, Protestant reformers heavily debated the nature of the Eucharist. The German reformer Martin Luther (lived 1483 – 1546) rejected the teaching that the bread and wine could literally and completely transform into the body and blood of Christ as absurd, but maintained that Christ was indeed present in the ritual of the Eucharist in some manner.
The Swiss reformer Huldrych Zwingli (lived 1484 – 1531), on the other hand, declared that the Eucharist was simply a commemorative meal. He maintained that the bread and wine did not literally become the body and blood of Christ in any sense, but rather were only meant to symbolically represent the body and blood of Christ.
When Giordano Bruno denied the miracle of transubstantiation, this was not a new idea he’d just come up with on his own, but rather something that critics of church authority had been saying literally for centuries and that contemporary Protestants were openly proclaiming at the time.
ABOVE: Portrait painted in 1531 by the painter Hans Asper of the Swiss reformer Huldrych Zwingli, who taught that the Eucharist was simply a commemorative meal and that the bread and wine only symbolically represented the body and blood of Jesus
Some other things Giordano Bruno believed in that his fans don’t talk about
Giordano Bruno got all of the “scientific” ideas that he has been credited with from others and, in many cases, didn’t fully understand them. Furthermore, he also believed in a wide array of mystical ideas, many of which are derived from ancient Pythagoreanism and Hermeticism, including:
- that astrology is real
- that the universe is eternally preexistent with no beginning and no end
- that stars and planets are animated by living souls
- that souls can wander from one body to another and even visit other planets
- that a single soul can exist in two bodies
- that magic is real, that practicing it is entirely permissible, and that practicing it can bring great benefits to a person
- that Moses was a magician
- that Jesus was not divine in any sense, but rather merely an unusually skilled human magician
- that most of the apostles were magicians
- that there is a universal spirit that encompasses all living and nonliving things
- that even Satan will attain salvation
- that only Jewish people are descended from Adam and Eve, since everyone else is descended from people God created the day before
And a whole bunch of other things.
Now some people may be thinking, “Big deal. So what if Bruno believed in all sorts of mystical flim-flam? So did Hypatia, Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, and Isaac Newton. How’s he any different from them?”
What makes Giordano Bruno different from Newton all those other scientists who believed in magic and mysticism is that those other people actually did empirical scientific work; whereas Bruno didn’t do any kind of empirical scientific work of any kind whatsoever. In fact, he outright rejected the idea of empiricism altogether and maintained that mystical insight was a far superior way of understanding the universe.
Giordano Bruno was not a scientist; he was a mystic who happened to sprinkle a few speculative ideas from various fringe scientific writings into his mystical cosmology. Some of those ideas happened to be right, but Bruno’s acceptance of them had little to do with empirical evidence and a lot more to with him just thinking that they sounded right intuitively.
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a star-forming region of the Large Magellanic Cloud. Giordano Bruno believed that there were infinitely many worlds.
Giordano Bruno’s historical context
One thing that the popular narrative surrounding Giordano Bruno usually leaves out is the historical context in which he lived and died. In the Late Middle Ages (lasted c. 1250 – c. 1500), the intellectual climate in western Europe was relatively open. Thus, people like Nicholas of Cusa were able to advance radical ideas like the multiplicity of worlds and the possibility of alien life completely unmolested by the Catholic Church.
Then, in the early sixteenth century, the Protestant Reformation happened. The Catholic Church saw its power in parts of Europe slipping away, so it launched its own Counter-Reformation, which emphasized piety, discipline, orthodoxy, and the authority of the church. The principles of this Counter-Reformation were most famously articulated by the Council of Trent, which took place on and off between 1545 and 1563.
In this new atmosphere, the church became less tolerant of certain kinds of philosophical and theological speculation. The Inquisition in Italy became increasingly wary of Protestant-sounding ideas. Any challenge to the authority of the church became viewed as a potential threat.
Lots of people mistakenly believe that Giordano Bruno lived during the Middle Ages, but, in reality, the fact that he lived after the end of the Middle Ages may have been part of his problem. If he had lived even a century earlier in the late fifteenth century rather than the late sixteenth century, many of his beliefs might have been less heavily scrutinized.
ABOVE: Painting of the Council of Trent, which articulated the principles of the Counter-Reformation
Giordano Bruno’s personality and the road to execution
Another fact that is often left out of popular narratives of Giordano Bruno’s execution is that he was a colossal jerk, which undoubtedly contributed significantly to his ultimate demise. He was extremely arrogant, outspoken, stubborn, and argumentative and he had a remarkable talent for attracting controversy, forming bitter rivalries, and alienating his own supporters. He believed (often without justification) that he was right about everything and that everyone else was wrong. These traits often got him into trouble.
In August 1579, while he was staying in Geneva, he published a work attacking Antoine de la Faye, the supreme doctor of theology at the university there. As a result of this attack, he was denied communion. Bruno, however, refused to apologize and insisted on defending his attacks.
While Bruno was living in Paris in late 1585 under the nominal protection of King Henry III, he published a series of four treatises attacking Aristotle and the Italian mathematician Fabrizio Mordente (lived 1532 – c. 1608) for the pettiest imaginable reasons.
Mordente had recently invented the proportional eight-pointed compass. Bruno claimed that this invention disproved Aristotle’s hypothesis of the incommensurability of infinitesimals and thereby proved the existence of an atomic “minimum.” He called Mordente a “triumphant idiot” for having supposedly revealed this great truth by accident without having the faintest clue what he was really doing. He also mocked Morente, implying that he wasn’t a real scholar because he didn’t know Latin.
Mordente was understandably offended by Bruno’s relentless trolling, so he rounded up as many copies of Bruno’s treatises as he could find and destroyed them. He then got support from Charles, 4th Duke of Guise. A violent confrontation followed and Bruno was forced to flee to Germany.
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of one side of a proportional compass
In 1591, while Bruno was living in Frankfurt, the Italian aristocrat Giovanni Mocenigo, who was impressed by his outstanding memory, invited him to come stay at his mansion in Venice as an in-house tutor. Bruno moved in with Mocenigo in March 1592 and tutored him for two months, but he was a terrible house guest and he kept trying to impose his own heretical theology onto his host, so Mocenigo reported him to the Venetian Inquisition for blasphemy, heresy, and immoral conduct.
Bruno was at first tried by the Venetian Inquisition, but the Roman Inquisition requested for him to be extradited there. After several months of argumentation, the Venetian authorities agreed. He was sent to Rome in February 1593. He was imprisoned there for seven years, during which time he was offered many opportunities to recant his heretical teachings in exchange for a lighter sentence. He insisted that he accepted all the dogmatic teachings of the Catholic Church, but repeatedly refused to fully recant his philosophy.
Finally, on 20 January 1600, Bruno was formally declared a heretic by Pope Clement VIII and, on 8 February, the Inquisition sentenced him to death. On 17 February 1600, Bruno was hung upside-down in the Campo de’ Fiori with his tongue in a gag and burned alive in front of a large crowd. A monument to him now stands in the square where he was executed.
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of the monument to Giordano Bruno that now stands in the center of the Campo de’ Fiori, where he was burned alive in the year 1600
Why was Giordano Bruno executed?
Giordano Bruno was clearly not a scientist, but some people might still try to argue that he was sentenced to death for heresy for believing scientific things. Unfortunately, we do not have a list of the final charges against Giordano Bruno; the records were most likely lost when Napoleon Bonaparte’s forces raided the Vatican in 1810 and stole many of the official Papal records.
We do, however, have a letter written in Latin on 17 February 1600—the day of Bruno’s execution—by the German humanist scholar Gaspar Schoppe, who was living in the palace of Cardinal Ludovico Madruzzo, one of the leading inquisitors at Bruno’s trial. The letter contains a list of “the most horrible and absurd things” that Bruno supposedly taught. Here is the complete list, as rendered in this translation of the letter published on Tim O’Neill’s website in May 2017:
- “that there’s a countless amount of Worlds;”
- “that a soul can indeed migrate from a body to another body and also to another World;”
- “that a single soul can form two bodies;”
- “that magic is a good thing and it is allowed to practice it;”
- “that the Holy Ghost is none other than the soul of the World and this is what Moses meant when he wrote that it hovered over the waters;”
- “that the World exists from everlasting;”
- “that Moses performed the miracles through magic, in which he had greater skill than the rest of the Egyptians;”
- “that Moses fabricated the Laws himself;”
- “that the Holy Scriptures are a fable;”
- “that the Devil will be saved;”
- “that only the Hebrew descend from Adam and Eve and that the rest of the Nations descend from two people that God made the day before;”
- “that Christ was not God, but a distinguished magician that mocked people and because of that he wasn’t crucified but rightly hanged;”
- “that the Prophets and Apostles were vile magicians and most of them were hanged.”
Notice that heliocentrism isn’t even on Schoppe’s list. Why? Because heliocentrism evidently wasn’t one of the things he taught that the church deemed heretical. We know this because, even though we don’t have the official list of charges against him, there is compelling circumstantial evidence that heliocentrism wasn’t on the list.
The Roman Inquisition relied heavily on precedent. Whenever it was first investigated whether or not a certain teaching was heretical, there had to be a formal assessment. Once the assessment was made, it could be cited in future cases. We know that, in 1616, when Galileo was brought before the Inquisition for the first time, Cardinal Bellarmine, who had been the leading prosecutor at Bruno’s trial, ordered an assessment of whether or not heliocentrism was heretical.
If heliocentrism had been one of the charges of heresy against Giordano Bruno, that would mean that the Inquisition had already determined it was heretical in 1599. Why, then, did Cardinal Bellarmine order an assessment of whether it was heretical seventeen years later in 1616? The most parsimonious explanation is that heliocentrism was never ruled heretical in 1599 because it was never one of the official charges against Giordano Bruno.
The Inquisition was evidently far more concerned about Bruno’s belief in things like the multiplicity of worlds, metempsychosis, the goodness of magic, an eternally preexistent universe, the salvation of the Devil, and Jesus being a mortal magician.
We don’t know for certain, but it is likely that believing in the multiplicity of worlds was one of the charges of heresy for which Bruno was ultimately convicted. This wasn’t really a scientific idea, though; no one at the time had any empirical evidence for the existence of planets outside our solar system, let alone earth-like ones. Bruno believed in the multiplicity of worlds simply because he believed that an infinitely powerful God must rule over infinitely many worlds.
Conclusion
Neither Hypatia nor Giordano Bruno was a “martyr for science.” Neither of their cases demonstrates that Christianity has historically been opposed to science, nor does either of their cases prove that Christianity as a whole is evil. Nonetheless, both their cases do reflect poorly on specific Christian individuals and institutions.
Hypatia’s murder shows that Cyril of Alexandria, a very prominent figure in early Christianity, was at the very least willing to turn a blind eye to his supporters using acts of outrageous violence to bolster his power within the city of Alexandria and intimidate his enemies.
Giordano Bruno’s death demonstrates that, during the Counter-Reformation in the late sixteenth century, the Roman Inquisition could be extraordinarily brutal to certain people who espoused views that went against the teachings of the Catholic Church. Bruno was a reckless jerk and he believed a lot of weird things, but he certainly didn’t deserve to be burned alive. He wasn’t a “martyr for science,” but I think you could legitimately call him a “martyr for religious freedom.”
If you want to criticize Christianity, there’s still fertile ground for criticism in both of these cases. Just make sure you get your facts straight.
ABOVE: The only surviving portrait of Giordano Bruno, an engraving made by Johann Georg Mentzel and first published in 1715, over a century after his death, possibly based on an earlier portrait that has since been lost
Thanks for that interesting post. I was pleased to see you cite the ‘History for Atheists’ blog. Eastern-Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart is also good on the subject of how atheists get history wrong (see his ‘Atheist Delusions’, 2010). Your point about the significance of the Counter-Reformation is similar to one made by philosopher Stephen Toulmin in ‘Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity’ (1990), where he attributes the search for certainty in philosophy to the religious and political turmoil of the seventeenth century, and the Thirty Years War in particular.
Bruno wasn’t killed for science, but he did illustrate the difference between the Church and science. Scientists agree to disagree and their debates can become acrimonious. The Church deals with with those who have different ideas by authority and if one is not humble enough in one’s acceptance of said authority, then one is burned at the stake. Like the religion, small offenses are punished by massive overkill.
Although there is undoubtedly a distinction to be made between religion and science, in terms of mindset, method, and discourse, the comment by Steve Ruis pushes the distinction too far. Some have even argued that the Catholic church can take some of the credit for scientific discovery, since it promoted the idea that the world is ultimately intelligible. Listen to the fourth item here, for instance (at 42 mins):
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/counterpoint/20-07/12462698
We may argue that intolerance, including religious intolerance, is a bad thing. But it is wrongheaded to define religion as inherently intolerant, and science as inherently tolerant. There is much disagreement in theology too, and debate there can also be acrimonious, and theologians can agree to disagree. As the author of this post made clear, historical context (the Counter-Reformation) may have had a significant influence on Bruno’s condemnation. Some eras are more tolerant than others.
I think you are greatly overgeneralizing. Giordano Bruno’s execution demonstrates that some religious people are sometimes intolerant; it does not demonstrate that all religions are inherently intolerant or even that the Catholic Church is always intolerant. I think that perhaps the greatest error made by certain atheists today is the assumption that all religious people are fundamentally the same; they are not.
It’s worth noting that Giordano Bruno had many wealthy and powerful supporters. For a while, he was literally under the personal protection of King Henry III of France, who was, as it happens, a Catholic.
“Neither of their cases demonstrates that Christianity has historically been opposed to science”…
Hmmm… maybe this relatively very recent case is rather telling about (W.A.S.P.) Christianity’s view of science :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopes_Trial …
As a P.S. , “the evil Catholic Church” is another standard intellectual undercurrent of W.A.S.P. thought… being, theoretically, of the Other other Christian side, I do allow myself the occasional “MontyPythonic” comment.
I DO however greatly enjoy your writings, they are so refreshing in the desert of internet drivel …
Have a nice day…!
The Scopes Trial was actually a publicity stunt intended to attract attention to the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, where the trial was held. Despite being technically illegal, evolution was included in all the school textbooks in the state. John T. Scopes was only a substitute teacher and he wasn’t even sure if he’d actually taught evolution, but he voluntarily incriminated himself just so the town would have a defendant to put on trial. In the end, he was found guilty, but the fine was only $100 and he was never actually forced to pay the fine anyway due to a technicality.
In other words, the whole thing was kind of a sham.
Hi Spencer, the introduction of science into this debate is a red herring. The church opposed heresy- the undermining of their platform. Applied equally to all including science which was not a term in use at that time.
If some research provided support for their beliefs then that would have been welcomed for example their rituals like Tran’s substantiation. If not then it became heresy.
Its just like organised crime. The mafia isn’t opposed to science any more than the church. They just don’t like science being used to out them.
I fail to see how your comparison to organized crime is in any way relevant. The Catholic Church and the mafia have little in common aside from the fact that they are both organizations that have some kind of power and that have killed at least some people for some reason at some point in the past. The Catholic Church during the Early Modern Period was far more like a government institution than the mafia.
Hi Spencer, the origins may have been different but the way they behave when threatened is the same. I am commenting here with reference to the Jiordono Bruno heresy article.
I am commenting on the similarities. You are talking about the differences.
Science is dragged into the discussion as a red herring. After all religion is the ultimate confidence trick – specially the monotheistic ones with the claim to be the one true church.
Of course whether you get your leg broken by a shark loan default or shot or forgiven depends on your utility to the mafia. The church is not much different. Girodono did not have much utility except as an example to be made of.
Great article that brings what I’m sure Bruno would embrace as “light” that illuminates yet another tangled set of histories.
Although I think you’re very correct in your assessment, I feel we would benefit from seeing where Bruno was scientific. Not only that, but I confident he did practice science in at least three clearly demonstrable ways.
One could readily dismiss each of these, but I feel that would be an error, possibly from territorializing the meaning of “science” a bit too tightly, as some are wont to do.
First, Bruno’s “self help” material in urges us to be scientific ourselves. It’s not as clear in my reading as you make it that he “teaches” the things you say. The Seal of Seals is a primer in critical thinking and throughout he is leading the student to learn “ars combinatoria” so they can arrive at better decisions.
Whether or not he does this perfectly or not is beside the point. He’s reproducing a program from Llull that is widely attributed to influencing Leibniz and the development of formal logic, etc. If there was not scientific reproducibility in these matters, either for self improvement purposes or clearer thinking, it’s unlikely such outcomes would have had any effect.
Second, Bruno is clearly practicing pedagogy. I feel it’s pretty clear, particular in the second part of the memory section of On the Shadows of the Ideas that Bruno is writing for teachers of memory, not students. His dedication to King Henry III also suggests as much, though there could be some sycophancy at play. But that also could be good rhetoric with good intent as well, and Bruno surely intends his memory training in that book to be understood in the context of rhetoric.
One could deny that he’s practicing any kind of “science” by writing a manual for teachers (if I’m correct in thinking that he was in this book). But how he encourages testing of what he’s saying seems perfectly in line with the scientific method.
Finally, memory training is without doubt science in action, if only at the personal level. He ran experiments and shared the results in ways that make it possible to repeat those experiments. Indeed, they still do.
Whether or not individual memory athletes or mnemonists think of themselves as scientists is again beside the point – they cannot hope to succeed without gathering and analyzing data from their practice in order to improve.
Hilary Gatti makes some compelling arguments in several places that Bruno probably influenced Bacon in these ways and others, so I would suggest interested readers to look into those writings, especially Essays on Giordano Bruno.
Clearly, none of the above has any direct impact on Bruno’s execution, and I would not blur it with his astronomy, atomism or anything else. But I think it’s worth at least running the counterfactual that those pushing for his execution saw a powerful rhetorician who was influencing a sufficient number of people to warrant their decision.
I would not limit his execution to them making an example of him, and I don’t think we’ll ever get to know as much as would be fully satisfying. But I feel that to deny Bruno of status as a scientist or proto-scientist if you please misses what science is, and more importantly what it can be.
Thanks again for the great article.