cond half of his life in
attempting to undo the great work of his prime. The _Gerusalemme
Conquistata_ and the _Sette Giornate_ are thus the splendid triumph
achieved by the feebler over the stronger portions of his nature, the
golden tribute paid by his genius to the evil genius of the age
controlling him. He was a poet who, had he lived in the days of Ariosto,
would have created in all senses spontaneously, producing works of
Virgilian beauty and divine melancholy to match the Homeric beauty and
the divine irony of his great peer. But this was not to be. The spirit
of the times which governed his education, with which he was not
revolutionary enough to break, which he strove as a critic to assimilate
and as a social being to obey, destroyed his independence, perplexed his
judgment, and impaired his nervous energy. His best work was
consequently of unequal value; pure and base metal mingled in its
composition. His worst was a barren and lifeless failure.

CHAPTER IX.

GIORDANO BRUNO.

Scientific Bias of the Italians checked by Catholic
Revival--Boyhood of Bruno--Enters Order of S. Dominic at
Naples--Early Accusations of Heresy--Escapes to Rome--Teaches the
Sphere at Noli--Visits Venice--At Geneva--At Toulouse--At
Paris--His Intercourse with Henri III.--Visits England--The French
Ambassador in London--Oxford--Bruno's Literary Work in
England--Returns to Paris--Journeys into Germany--Wittenberg,
Helmstaedt, Frankfort--Invitation to Venice from Giovanni
Mocenigo--His Life in Venice--Mocenigo denounces him to the
Inquisition--His Trial at Venice--Removal to Rome--Death by Burning
in 1600--Bruno's Relation to the Thought of his Age and to the
Thought of Modern Europe--Outlines of his Philosophy.

The humanistic and artistic impulses of the Renaissance were at the
point of exhaustion in Italy. Scholarship declined; the passion for
antiquity expired. All those forms of literature which Boccaccio
initiated--comedy, romance, the idyl, the lyric and the novel--had been
worked out by a succession of great writers. It became clear that the
nation was not destined to create tragic or heroic types of poetry.
Architecture, sculpture and painting had performed their task of
developing mediaeval motives by the light of classic models, and were
now entering on the stage of academical inanity. Yet the mental vigor of
the Italians was by no means exhausted. Early in th