Giordano Bruno's Conflict with Oxford

Abstract

When Giordano Bruno came to Elizabethan Oxford and expounded his Copernican philosophy he met with a great deal of opposition, some idea of which can be gathered from his Cena de le ceneri (1584)1, in which he describes an encounter with two Aristotelian pedants, and from the beginning of his De la causa, principio e uno2, where he makes a half-hearted apology for the strictures on English academic learning in the earlier work. Writers on Bruno have generally assumed that his clash with Aristotelianism in England is symbolic of the conflict between the "old" and the "new," the "old," in their eyes, being the medieval world-system and the authoritarian rigidity of mediaeval Aristotelianism whilst the "new" is represented by what they believe to be Bruno's acceptance of the new science (i.e. the Copernican theory) on rational grounds and his determination to build upon it a thought-structure unhampered by the chains of scholastic orthodoxy. On this view Torquato and Nundinio, the Oxford Aristotelians of the Cena de le ceneri, would represent the dead hand of traditionalism lying heavy upon their ancient university, whilst Bruno's stormy encounter with them would typify the new boldness of Renaissance thought breaking through Ptolemaic barriers into the boundless possibilities of the infinite. A suspicion that this generalisation may be misleading can be gained by a study of the historical background of Bruno's visit to England. A moment's reflection will suggest that the Oxford truly representative of mediaeval philosophy must have been severely shaken under Henry VIII, ravaged under Edward VI, and confused by the counter revolution under Mary, so that in these Elizabethan years of Bruno's visit it can hardly have borne much resemblance to the Oxford of Roger Bacon or of Duns Scotus. Bruno's biographers have not ignored this fact. One of the earliest of them gave a fairly comprehensive account of the upheavals at Oxford since the Middle Ages and knew that the reputation of the university had suffered in the process.3 One of the most authoritative was aware that the doctors whom Bruno met at Oxford were of a new kind.4 But there has been no systematic attempt to relate the English background to the character of Bruno's satire as a whole, and it is vaguely assumed that Oxford was disgusted with him because of the "modernity" of his ideas. A more exact study of this question has recently been made by Signor L. Limentani5 who, in the course of an examination of the mention of Bruno by Gabriel Harvey, points out that Harvey was a Ramist and discusses what effect his might be likely to have had upon his reactions to Bruno. This recognition of the fact that Ramist anti-Aristotelianism existed in the England which Bruno visited should serve as a reminder that Tudor philosophy was not mediaeval