en his occupations up to this date. It is
only certain that he had already composed a comedy, _Il Candelajo_:
which furnishes sufficient proof of his familiarity with mundane
manners. It is, in fact, one of the freest and most frankly satirical
compositions for the stage produced at that epoch, and reveals a
previous study of Aretino. Nola, Bruno's birthplace, was famous for the
license of its country folk. Since the day of its foundation by
Chalkidian colonists, its inhabitants had preserved their Hellenic
traditions intact. The vintage, for example, was celebrated with an
extravagance of obscene banter, which scandalized Philip II.'s viceroy
in the sixteenth century.[85] During the period of Bruno's novitiate,
the ordinances of the Council of Trent for discipline in monasteries
were not yet in operation; and it is probable that throughout the
thirteen years of his conventual experience, he mixed freely with the
people and shared the pleasures of youth in that voluptuous climate. He
was never delicate in his choice of phrase, and made no secret of the
admiration which the beauty of women excited in his nature. The
accusations brought against him at Venice contained one article of
indictment implying that he professed distinctly profligate opinions;
and though there is nothing to prove that his private life was vicious,
the tenor of his philosophy favors more liberty of manners than the
Church allowed in theory to her ministers.[86]

[Footnote 85: See 'Vita di Don Pietro di Toledo'_ (Arch. Stov._ vol. ix.
p. 23)]

[Footnote 86: See the passage on polygamy in the _Spaccio della Bestia_.
I may here remark that Campanella, though more orthodox than Bruno,
published opinions upon the relations of the sexes analogous to those of
Plato's Republic in his _Citta del Sole_. He even recommended the
institution of brothels as annexes to schools for boys, in order to
avoid the worse evil of unnatural vice in youth.]

It is of some importance to dwell on this topic; for Bruno's character
and temper, so markedly different from that of Sarpi, for example,
affected in no small measure the form and quality of his philosophy. He
was a poet, gifted with keen and lively sensibilities, open at all pores
to the delightfulness of nature, recoiling from nothing that is human.
At no period of his life was he merely a solitary thinker or a student
of books. When he came to philosophize, when the spiritual mistress,
Sophia, absorbed all other