he existence of God in all.
After nine months' imprisonment in Venice, towards the end of January
1593, Bruno, in chains, was conveyed from the Bridge of Sighs through
the lagoons to Ancona, where he remained incarcerated until the prison
of the Roman Inquisition received him. If we look upon "Gli Eroici
Furori" as a prophetical poem, we see that his sufferings in the
loneliness of his prison and in the torture-chamber of the Inquisition
passed by anticipation before his mind in the book written when he was
free and a wanderer in strange lands.

"By what condition, nature, or fell chance,
In living death, dead life I live?"

he writes eight years and more before he ever breathed the stifling air
of a dungeon; and again:

"The soul nor yields nor bends to these rough blows,
But bears, exulting, this long martyrdom,
And makes a harmony of these sharp pangs."

Further details of the trial of Giordano Bruno are to be found in Levi's
book. It is well known how he received the sentence of death passed upon
him, saying: "You, O judges! feel perchance more terror in pronouncing
this judgment than I do in hearing it." The day fixed for the burning,
which was to take place in the Campo dei Fiori, was the 17th February in
the year 1600. Rome was full of pilgrims from all parts, come to
celebrate the jubilee of Pope Clement VIII. Bruno was hardly fifty years
old at this time; his face was thin and pale, with dark, fiery eyes; the
forehead luminous with thought, his body frail and bearing the signs of
torture; his hands in chains, his feet bare, he walked with slow steps
in the early morning towards the funeral pile. Brightly shone the sun,
and the flames leapt upwards and mingled with his ardent rays; Bruno
stood in the midst with his arms crossed, his head raised, his eyes
open; when all was consumed, a monk took a handful of the ashes and
scattered them in the wind. A month later, the Bishop of Sidonia
presented himself at the Treasury of the Pope, and demanded two scudi in
payment for having degraded Fra Giordano the heretic.

"L'incendio e tal, ch'io m'ardo e non mi sfaccio."

EROICI FURORI.

THE

HEROIC ENTHUSIASTS.

=First Dialogue.=

TANSILLO, CICADA.

TANS. The enthusiasms most suitable to be first brought forward and
considered are those that I now place before you in the order that seems
to me most fitting.

CIC. Begin, then, to read.

TANSILLO.

1.

Ye