, Campanella. The German reformer appealed to
the reason of the individual as conscience; the school of southern Italy
made a similar appeal to intelligence. In different ways Luther and
these speculative thinkers maintained the direct illumination of the
human soul by God, man's immediate dependence on his Maker, repudiating
ecclesiastical intervention, and refusing to rely on any principle but
earnest love of truth.

Had this new phase of the Italian Renaissance been permitted to evolve
itself unhindered, there is no saying how much earlier Europe might have
entered into the possession of that kingdom of unprejudiced research
which is now secured for us. But it was just at the moment when Italy
became aware of the arduous task before her, that the Catholic reaction
set in with all its rigor. The still creative spirit of her children
succumbed to the Inquisition, the Congregation of the Index, the decrees
of Trent, the intellectual submission of the Jesuits, the physical force
of Spanish tyranny, and Roman absolutism. Carnesecchi was burned alive;
Paleario was burned alive; Bruno was burned alive: these three at Rome.
Vanini was burned at Toulouse. Valentino Gentile was executed by
Calvinists at Berne. Campanella was cruelly tortured and imprisoned for
twenty-seven years at Naples. Galileo was forced to humble himself
before ignorant and arrogant monks, and to hide his head in a country
villa. Sarpi felt the knife of an assassin, and would certainly have
perished at the instigation of his Roman enemies but for the protection
guaranteed him by the Signory of Venice. In this way did Italy--or
rather, let us say, the Church which dominated Italy--devour her sons of
light. It is my purpose in the present chapter to narrate the life of
Bruno and to give some account of his philosophy, taking him as the most
illustrious example of the school exterminated by reactionary Rome.

Giordano Bruno was born in 1548 at Nola, an ancient Greek city close to
Naples. He received the baptismal name of Filippo, which he exchanged
for Giordano on assuming the Dominican habit. His parents, though
people of some condition, were poor; and this circumstance may perhaps
be reckoned the chief reason why Bruno entered the convent of S. Dominic
at Naples before he had completed his fifteenth year. It will be
remembered that Sarpi joined the Servites at the age of thirteen, and
Campanella the Dominicans at that of fourteen. In each of these
memorab