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The Worlds of Giordano Bruno: The Man Galileo Plagiarized
116 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2011
About the author
Alan W. Powers
6 books340 followersEducated at Amherst College and the University of Minnesota, plus post-docs at Princeton, Brown, Harvard, Cornell, the Folger Library, Breadloaf, Villa Vergilliana (Cuma, Italy) and the American Academy, Rome. Taught and published on 17C English and Comparative Literature and History, especially Shakespeare and Giordano Bruno. Wrote two books of verse. Appeared in two poetry films, Keats and his Nightingale, and A Loaded Gun. Composed several song settings to Yeats and Dylan Thomas, and jazz heads largely based on birds like Wood Thrush, Oriole, and the European Blackbird. See Google profile for NYT publications and www.zoomusicology.com. Mentors include Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Leonard Unger, Jean D'Amato Thomas, Thomas M Greene, Annabel Patterson, Marjorie Garber, Sander Gilman, Tony Molho, LL Lipking, G. Armour Craig, Richard Cody and Theodore Baird.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 23, 2021
Though I wrote this book, I am amazed how beautiful the British art publisher made it.* An early sample of my writing on Bruno was complimented as "better than academic" by my back-cover author, Archibald MacLeish. He added, "It leaves me feeling learned and grateful," responding to my addendum on lunar mapping int he 17C, mainly by Riccioli who gave "Mare Tranquillitatis" its famous name, in 1651. I hope my book is better than academic; but it is also very academic, almost too well researched. Light and witty in parts, I hope, especially at the start of chapters, or even of the book, "Giordano Bruno was sent to the Inquisition, and its customary care of his soul, by one bad student evaluation"(v). I worked on Bruno's Latin for forty years, since two months after we landed on the Moon until a post-doc seminar in his Napoli and then my last sabbatical, at the Vatican Secret Archives and the Marciana Library in Venice.
Forty years ago I translated Bruno's Chapter on Copernicus in his 400 page "De innumerabilibis, immenso universo & mondis," Ch.4, line 2, "Fly on reason, stand on your understanding"(75).
"I uphold the Sun, and by such a star I am upheld,
And I hold heaven, as I am by Heaven held in turn:
Thus I support the weight of an Atlas" (79: Ch. 4.i, 39-41)
Chapter Three, a learned survey, really should be at the end of the book.
I have given thirty talks from this book, including many of its photos, like the two Bruno statues in Roma (bronze) and Napoli (marble). I have spoken at the Villa Vergilliana, Cuma, IT, at Marquette University (Astronomy and Physics Departments), SUNY-New Paltz (Italian Studies), University of Notre Dame, London (Institute for Historical Research and Global Studies), and Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The latter is on Youtube if you google: Giordano Bruno Harvard Video. (It's 23 minutes, some fun at the start and finish, and especially good from 10-15 minutes according to a London actor-director.)
* I must also add, a decade later, how the British copy editor added commas and phrases that slow down readers. I recall the hundreds of cumbersome "corrections," though not precisely where. I suspect this was one on Bruno: "But he also makes fun of himself, for instance in his [account of a] trip by water taxi and [of] his falling into the Thames" (36).
Forty years ago I translated Bruno's Chapter on Copernicus in his 400 page "De innumerabilibis, immenso universo & mondis," Ch.4, line 2, "Fly on reason, stand on your understanding"(75).
"I uphold the Sun, and by such a star I am upheld,
And I hold heaven, as I am by Heaven held in turn:
Thus I support the weight of an Atlas" (79: Ch. 4.i, 39-41)
Chapter Three, a learned survey, really should be at the end of the book.
I have given thirty talks from this book, including many of its photos, like the two Bruno statues in Roma (bronze) and Napoli (marble). I have spoken at the Villa Vergilliana, Cuma, IT, at Marquette University (Astronomy and Physics Departments), SUNY-New Paltz (Italian Studies), University of Notre Dame, London (Institute for Historical Research and Global Studies), and Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The latter is on Youtube if you google: Giordano Bruno Harvard Video. (It's 23 minutes, some fun at the start and finish, and especially good from 10-15 minutes according to a London actor-director.)
* I must also add, a decade later, how the British copy editor added commas and phrases that slow down readers. I recall the hundreds of cumbersome "corrections," though not precisely where. I suspect this was one on Bruno: "But he also makes fun of himself, for instance in his [account of a] trip by water taxi and [of] his falling into the Thames" (36).
October 28, 2014
Bruno joins Sokrates, Yeshua, and Pound in his martyrdom: for this, his tongue submitted to a box of metal. Galileo held his.
Nola near Naples: where Bruno begins. It's a matter of course that his first journey of significance, in wise both of distance and education, and which takes him to Noli (the alpha, take care to notice, substituted for an I), takes him past/thru Rome: thus, his thirtieth, and not his third, thought will be his grave. Did I mention that he substitutes an alpha--alternately Aristotle (in opposition to whom he joins Pound, Whitehead, and Olson) and Christ--for an I?
The author's metaphor, which makes a pinball of the Nolan (up from Rome to Noli to Venice to Milan to Geneva to Lyon and Toulouse, farther for Paris, a channel-swim to London, then Oxford, and back down to Paris, veering off to Marburg to Wittenberg to Helmstedt and Frankfurt, then down to Venice, Ancona, and Rome), makes one feel the wrong sort of guilt for having never finished Pynchon's first novel, with its human yo-yo.
It is, as foreconceived in light of its pictorial range of reference, an encyclopedic Something. Mr. Powers covers a lot of ground here--apposite to the task of tracking Bruno's travels, and travails--and in so few pages, though they are large leaves, closer in size to your local gazetteer's than the flimsy Mass Marketer whirling its jaundiced eye.
One remembers the philosophy books on the third floor. Bruno's books were stuffed with Latin. Who read them? Of course, Herakleitos and Eriugena were more important, then. There was the matter of deciphering Pound, who had been assimilating light with language in the Cantos.
The Nolan is, in more places than one expects to encounter, made to stand between Rabelais and Joyce. (No worry, when it's only a leap from 'pons' to 'pontifex'.) The author has included an handful of the page-long catalogs, many of his own translation--writing far from listless, charged with cheek and spleen, and funny as hell.
Yes, there's more. Mr. Powers has spoken (at the Harvard Center for Astrophysics).
As another has mentioned, the book is a wonderful introduction to the life and death of Bruno. And more than that: it is the sort of monograph that makes pale, and look wilted and flat, a Wikipedia page. It is an intellectual history, written with wit, and extends beyond facts to include non-facts, near-truths, fragments of obscure works, lists, opinions, travel through the eyes of another (Powers's), and another yet (Bruno's), and a realized and profound understanding of the man many of us will do better for having learned of and read.
Nola near Naples: where Bruno begins. It's a matter of course that his first journey of significance, in wise both of distance and education, and which takes him to Noli (the alpha, take care to notice, substituted for an I), takes him past/thru Rome: thus, his thirtieth, and not his third, thought will be his grave. Did I mention that he substitutes an alpha--alternately Aristotle (in opposition to whom he joins Pound, Whitehead, and Olson) and Christ--for an I?
The author's metaphor, which makes a pinball of the Nolan (up from Rome to Noli to Venice to Milan to Geneva to Lyon and Toulouse, farther for Paris, a channel-swim to London, then Oxford, and back down to Paris, veering off to Marburg to Wittenberg to Helmstedt and Frankfurt, then down to Venice, Ancona, and Rome), makes one feel the wrong sort of guilt for having never finished Pynchon's first novel, with its human yo-yo.
It is, as foreconceived in light of its pictorial range of reference, an encyclopedic Something. Mr. Powers covers a lot of ground here--apposite to the task of tracking Bruno's travels, and travails--and in so few pages, though they are large leaves, closer in size to your local gazetteer's than the flimsy Mass Marketer whirling its jaundiced eye.
One remembers the philosophy books on the third floor. Bruno's books were stuffed with Latin. Who read them? Of course, Herakleitos and Eriugena were more important, then. There was the matter of deciphering Pound, who had been assimilating light with language in the Cantos.
The Nolan is, in more places than one expects to encounter, made to stand between Rabelais and Joyce. (No worry, when it's only a leap from 'pons' to 'pontifex'.) The author has included an handful of the page-long catalogs, many of his own translation--writing far from listless, charged with cheek and spleen, and funny as hell.
Yes, there's more. Mr. Powers has spoken (at the Harvard Center for Astrophysics).
As another has mentioned, the book is a wonderful introduction to the life and death of Bruno. And more than that: it is the sort of monograph that makes pale, and look wilted and flat, a Wikipedia page. It is an intellectual history, written with wit, and extends beyond facts to include non-facts, near-truths, fragments of obscure works, lists, opinions, travel through the eyes of another (Powers's), and another yet (Bruno's), and a realized and profound understanding of the man many of us will do better for having learned of and read.
March 13, 2015
Giordano Bruno was a philosopher, a poet , an Astrologer, a mathematicians & many more appellation, I was almost unaware about him I just red a short story about him a Urdu translation of Bertolt Brecht , a Pakistani writer Dr Mubarak translated it from German . I wanted to read more about Bruno but didn't find any appropriate book about him but just before two weeks my dear respectable friend Alan Powers send me a gift a book " The World's of Giordano Bruno" the complete biography of Bruno , Alan Powers himself written this masterpiece book before reading it my knowledge about Bruno was almost equal to nothing Im thankful to Alan Powers the author of this book for this precious gift , this book is written very well nothing left behind about life & work of Bruno , his life from start to end & book is full with many of pictures as well .
I'm only a simple common person of this world but many of our philosophers & writers are not completely aware about Bruno's work they praised only Galileo who plagiarized Bruno's works but didn't describe him & his work but this book opens the mind of its readers about what was truth & what was false it also justify actual work of actual person we shouldn't forget the our World's heroes & no doubt he was a great man & hero he accepted his terrifying punishment of death but didn't left the truth.
I'm only a simple common person of this world but many of our philosophers & writers are not completely aware about Bruno's work they praised only Galileo who plagiarized Bruno's works but didn't describe him & his work but this book opens the mind of its readers about what was truth & what was false it also justify actual work of actual person we shouldn't forget the our World's heroes & no doubt he was a great man & hero he accepted his terrifying punishment of death but didn't left the truth.
March 17, 2013
A very well presented book that gives an excellent introduction to the life and death of Giordano Bruno. It left me wanting to understand more about the man who died for his belief that the universe was infinite, seriously doubt I would ever have that level of courage.
May 3, 2017
Within just over 100 pages, Powers gives us a look into the moments that lead up to the Nolan's execution, while also giving us a glimpse into his beautiful mind. Reading the heresies regarding the Virgin and Transubstantiation is thrilling in an age when heresy shouldn't be thrilling, but I suppose that may be Powers' writing. There is a sense of the now throughout this small, but dense volume, which always makes antiquity more accessible. I wasn't sure if I'd make it through, knowing Alan has an intellect and wit that far surpasses mine, but he wrote this to the layman, and shows the average reader a bit of history they may not have known otherwise. A true tribute to a man who must be recognized for the humanist that he was. As well as the most faithful Catholic. But that's neither here nor there.
February 29, 2020
I had to go to some effort to find this book, but it was worth it. Giordano Bruno was the focus of much of my graduate work, but even if I had no background in Bruno's eccentric mix of cosmology, hermetic mysticism and neo-Platonist thinking, I would have found this book intriguing.
In fact, it served me as a guide to retracing Bruno's wanderings through Europe. Even if you're not obsessed by Bruno's thinking, as I am, you'll have great fun reading Professor Powers' theories about the relationship between the thinking of Galileo and Giordano Bruno. The book was a fascinating adventure!
In fact, it served me as a guide to retracing Bruno's wanderings through Europe. Even if you're not obsessed by Bruno's thinking, as I am, you'll have great fun reading Professor Powers' theories about the relationship between the thinking of Galileo and Giordano Bruno. The book was a fascinating adventure!
December 28, 2022
I had never heard of Giordano Bruno before reading this book. Needless to say I learned so much from the well-researched writing by Professor Powers. In today’s lingo, we could say Bruno had a lack of “emotional intelligence,” as he didn’t realize that without power, money, or such a patron backing up your ideas, you would be an easy and expendable target for the Catholic Inquisition and city bureaucrats.
Bruno cut through the gobbledy-gook of Catholicism and was pitifully tortured and burned at the stake for it. He dared to question transubstantiation (which is still around today), the virgin birth, and thought there must be other worlds in an infinite universe. To think about other worlds made him a “modern” man. He eschewed eating meat as he recognized the souls of animals.
Bruno must have really entertained the various Cardinals and city bureaucrats of Venice and Rome, as they kept him imprisoned and on trial for eight years!
As Kepler,Galileo et al began documenting the craters and imperfection of the moon, this too would have been unacceptable to the Catholic philosophy of the moon being a perfect orb. Interestingly, the moon mappers named the imperfections after famous and powerful people, so the Church gradually accepted these scientific conclusions and came up with some gobbledygook to explain why they weren’t heretical!
The research and language translations by Professor Powers are truly magnificent!
Bruno cut through the gobbledy-gook of Catholicism and was pitifully tortured and burned at the stake for it. He dared to question transubstantiation (which is still around today), the virgin birth, and thought there must be other worlds in an infinite universe. To think about other worlds made him a “modern” man. He eschewed eating meat as he recognized the souls of animals.
Bruno must have really entertained the various Cardinals and city bureaucrats of Venice and Rome, as they kept him imprisoned and on trial for eight years!
As Kepler,Galileo et al began documenting the craters and imperfection of the moon, this too would have been unacceptable to the Catholic philosophy of the moon being a perfect orb. Interestingly, the moon mappers named the imperfections after famous and powerful people, so the Church gradually accepted these scientific conclusions and came up with some gobbledygook to explain why they weren’t heretical!
The research and language translations by Professor Powers are truly magnificent!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews