On his way to be burned at the stake for heresy, at Campo de’ Fiori in Rome, the philosopher Giordano Bruno has a wooden vise put on his tongue to prevent him continuing to speak
Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician, and cosmologist known for his radical ideas that challenged the religious and scientific orthodoxy of his time. He is most famous for advocating an infinite universe filled with countless worlds, rejecting the geocentric and even the Copernican heliocentric models in favor of a boundless cosmos where stars were distant suns with their own planets. His views extended beyond astronomy, embracing pantheism, the idea that God and nature were one, which directly contradicted Catholic doctrine. Bruno’s bold philosophical stance, along with his criticism of established religious teachings, led to his arrest by the Roman Inquisition. After years of imprisonment and interrogation, he was declared a heretic and burned at the stake in 1600. His legacy, though largely overlooked for centuries, is now recognized as a crucial bridge between Renaissance thought and modern scientific inquiry, inspiring later developments in