Renaissance · Europe · Religion

1600

Giordano Bruno Burned in Rome

February 17, 1600

After seven years in Inquisition cells, the Dominican heretic Giordano Bruno was led to the Campo de' Fiori with an iron spike driven through his tongue. He had argued the universe was infinite, peppered with inhabited worlds, and God immanent in matter. The flames silenced a mind three centuries ahead of itself.