s to the ultimate cause, which is the Father: this, with
other heretical propositions, being brought to the notice of the Holy
Office, Bruno found himself in the position of being first observed and
then threatened. He was warned of the danger that hung over him by some
friends, and decided to quit Naples. He fled from the convent, and took
the road to Rome, and was there received in the monastery of the
Minerva. A few days after his arrival in Rome he learned that
instructions for his arrest had been forwarded from Naples; he tarried
not, but got away secretly, throwing aside the monk's habiliments by the
way. He wandered for some days about the Roman Campagna, his destitute
condition proving a safeguard against the bands of brigands that
infested those lands, until arriving near Civita Vecchia, he was taken
on board a Genoese vessel, and carried to the Ligurian port, where he
hoped to find a refuge from his enemies; but the city of Geneva was
devastated by pestilence and civil war, and after a sojourn of a few
days he pursued once more the road of exile. Seeking for a place wherein
he might settle for a short time and hide from his pursuers, he stayed
his steps at Noli, situated at a short distance from Savona, on the
Riviera: this town, nestled in a little bay surrounded by high hills
crowned by feudal castles and towers, was only accessible on the shore
side, and offered a grateful retreat to our philosopher. At Noli, Bruno
obtained permission of the magistracy to teach grammar to children, and
thus secured the means of subsistence by the small remuneration he
received; but this modest employment did not occupy him sufficiently,
and he gathered round him a few gentlemen of the district, to whom he
taught the science of the Sphere. Bruno also wrote a book upon the
Sphere, which was lost. He expounded the system of Copernicus, and
talked to his pupils with enthusiasm about the movement of the earth and
of the plurality of worlds.

As in that same Liguria Columbus first divined another hemisphere
outside the Pillars of Hercules, so Bruno discovered to those astonished
minds the myriads of worlds which fill the immensity of space. Columbus
was derided and banished by his fellow-citizens, and the fate of our
philosopher was similar to his. In the humble schoolmaster who taught
grammar to the children, the bishop, the clergy, and the nobles, who
listened eagerly to his lectures on the Sphere, began to suspect the
heretic