The new version of Cosmos featuring Neil de Grasse Tyson debuted Sunday night. I did not watch it, but apparently it repeated the claim that Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for defending the Copernican view of the cosmos. There is still a debate about whether or not this is accurate, but in general it seems that Bruno’s theological views played the major role in his murder by the Inquisition.
Anyway, this morning folks like NBC’s Ann Curry were tweeting quotes from Bruno like this one,
The only problem here is that this isn’t a direct quote from Bruno. Rather it is from a biography of Bruno by Coulson Turnbull published in 1913. Turnbull mentions a debate that Bruno had after he had written a thesis containing 120 articles disputing Aristotle. According to Turnbull in Life and teachings of Giordano Bruno, Philosopher, Martyr, Mystic, 1548-1600 (pp.41-42),
The debate took place during Pentecost, May 25, 1588, not at Sorbonne, but in the College of Cambray. In an inspired speech Bruno, through the interpreter, Jean Hennequin, of Paris, declared the discovery of numberless worlds in the One Infinite Universe. Nothing was more deplorable, declared he, than the habit of blind belief, for of all other things it hinders the mind from recognizing such matters as are in themselves clear and open. It was proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority were the majority. Truth does not change because it is or is not believed by a majority of people. However, he cautioned that they should not be influenced by the fervor of his speech, but by the weight of his argument and the majesty of truth.
Turnbull does not give a citation for his summary of the 1588 debate, so it is difficult to know what he is this on. It is clear, however, that here Turnbull is summarizing Bruno’s arguments that day, not quoting him directly.