🔥 February 17, The Unyielding Flame of Truth: The Execution of Giordano Bruno

     🌍 "I abjure, curse, and detest the aforesaid errors and heresies..." By signing this statement before eight inquisitors and Cardinal Bellarmine, Galileo Galilei barely escaped the wrath of the Inquisition. Cardinal Bellarmine had persuaded Galileo to abandon Copernicus's heliocentric theory and his own brilliant hypotheses; when Galileo initially refused, he was judged a heretic. While the elderly Galileo compromised with power to save his life, Giordano Bruno, a philosopher and theologian of the same era, chose a different path.

Bruno went far beyond Copernicus's heliocentrism. He shook the religious worldview of his time to its core by asserting what we now call a 'multiverse theory.' He argued that the universe is infinite and has no center, that the stars in the night sky are other suns just like ours, and that numerous planets with life exist around them. Furthermore, he even denied core Catholic dogmas such as the Trinity and the Virgin Birth.

Threatened by the doctrine that Earth and humanity were no longer the center of the universe, the Roman Catholic Church could not tolerate him. Arrested by the Inquisition in Venice in 1592, Bruno was transferred to Rome, where he was imprisoned and subjected to harsh interrogation for seven long years. The Vatican relentlessly demanded that he recant his claims in exchange for his life. Even when granted a final 40-day grace period, during which his friends desperately tried to save him, Bruno refused to bend his philosophical convictions and scientific reasoning.

     🔥 On this day, February 17, 1600, a pyre was built in the center of Rome's Campo de' Fiori (Field of Flowers). To prevent Bruno from making a final speech to the crowd or uttering heretical words as he was dragged to the execution ground, the Church cruelly pierced and bound his tongue with an iron spike. Tied naked to the stake, he turned his head away in defiance when the executioner thrust a crucifix in front of his face at the very last moment. Ultimately, he was burned alive, and his ashes were thrown into the Tiber River.

Legend says that Galileo muttered, "Eppur si muove" (And yet it moves) behind Cardinal Bellarmine's back. In stark contrast, Bruno stood before the very same Cardinal Bellarmine who sentenced him to burn, and boldly declared: "Perhaps you, my judges, pronounce this sentence against me with greater fear than I receive it."

Even as his body was engulfed in flames, his final testament was: "My soul will ascend to heaven as a flame."

(Source: World History of Progress and Resistance, by Kim Sam-ung)

The Monument of Campo de' Fiori In 1889, a movement sought to unveil a monument honoring Bruno on the anniversary of his death (February 17). However, due to fierce opposition from the Vatican and various political conflicts, the schedule was delayed. The statue of the defiant thinker was finally unveiled in Campo de' Fiori on June 9 of that year, where he still stands today, facing the Vatican.