passions in his breast, his method of
exposition retained a tincture of that earlier phase of his experience.

It must not be thought, however, that Bruno prosecuted no serious
studies during this period. On the contrary, he seems to have amassed
considerable erudition in various departments of learning: a fact which
should make us cautious against condemning conventual education as of
necessity narrow and pedantic. When he left Naples, he had acquired
sufficient knowledge of Aristotle and the Schoolmen, among whom he paid
particular attention to S. Thomas and to Raymond Lully. Plato, as
expounded by Plotinus, had taken firm hold on his imagination. He was
versed in the dialectics of the previous age, had mastered mediaeval
cosmography and mathematics, and was probably already acquainted with
Copernicus. The fragments of the Greek philosophers, especially of
Pythagoras and Parmenides, whose metaphysics powerfully influenced his
mind, had been assimilated. Perhaps the writings of Cardinal Cusa, the
theologian who applied mathematics to philosophy, were also in his hands
at the same period. Beside Italian, he possessed the Spanish language,
could write and speak Latin with fluency, and knew something of Greek.
It is clear that he had practiced poetry in the vernacular under the
immediate influence of Tansillo. Theological studies had not been wholly
neglected; for he left behind him at Naples editions of Jerome and
Chrysostom with commentaries of Erasmus. These were books which exposed
their possessors to the interdiction of the Index.

It seems strange that a Dominican, escaping from his convent to avoid a
trial for heresy, should have sought refuge at S. Maria Sopra Minerva,
then the headquarters of the Roman Inquisition. We must, however,
remember that much freedom of movement was allowed to monks, who found a
temporary home in any monastery of their order. Without money, Bruno had
no roof but that of a religious house to shelter him; and he probably
reckoned on evading pursuit till the fatigues of his journey from Naples
had been forgotten. At any rate, he made no lengthy stay in Rome. News
soon reached him that the prosecution begun at Naples was being
transferred to the metropolis. This implied so serious a danger that he
determined to quit Rome in secret. Having flung his frock to the
nettles, he journeyed--how, we do not know--to Genoa, and thence to Noli
on the Riviera. The next time Bruno entered the Dominican c