Renaissance · Europe · Religion

1592

Pope Clement VIII Elected

1592

Ippolito Aldobrandini was elected Pope Clement VIII and immediately set about tightening the Inquisition's grip in Italy, authorizing a new edition of the Index, and hosting the Forty Hours devotion. Under his pontificate Giordano Bruno would burn and Galileo would begin edging toward his collision with orthodoxy. His authorization of Giordano Bruno's execution for heretical cosmology became one of the most infamous acts of religious persecution in intellectual history.