Turning Traditions Upside Down

Rethinking Giordano Bruno's Enlightenment
ISBN: 
978-615-5053-63-4
cloth
$79.00 / €69.00 / £63.00
Publication date: 
2013
274 pages

A non-conformist at the dawn of an epoch, a martyr of modernity, or just a polemic controvert? Giordano Bruno is known today as an exceptional, yet ambivalent figure within the history of ideas. As a great scholar, celebrated for his comprehensive erudition, famous for his emphatic defence of philosophical inquiry against religious doctrine and his rigid attacks against reputed authorities, he caused an intellectual sensation. He was burnt at the stake on the Campo dei Fiori in Rome, on February 17th, 1600.

Some of the world’s most eminent researchers on Bruno offer an exhaustive overview of the state-of-theart research on his work, discussing Bruno’s methodological procedures, his epistemic and literary practices, his natural philosophy, or his role as theologian and metaphysic at the cutting-edge of their disciplines. Short texts by Bruno illustrate the reasoning of the contributions. The book also reflects aspects of Bruno’s reception in the past and today, inside and outside academia.

Preface:
Yehuda Elkana and Jürgen Renn

Introduction:
Henning Hufnagel and Anne Eusterschulte

Part 1
Epistemic Practices of a Revolutionary. Bruno’s Methods and Thinking

Paul Richard Blum
Giordano Bruno’s Changing of Default Positions

Angelika Bönker-Vallon
The Measurement of the Immeasurable. Divine Mind and Mathematical Structures in Giordano Bruno’s De triplici minimo et mensura

Michele Ciliberto
“…per speculum et in aenigmitate …”

Anne Eusterschulte
Platonic Caverns and Epicurean Worlds

Part 2
Experience and Vision of a New Cosmic Order. Giordano Bruno’ Natural Philosophy

Miguel A. Granada
De immenso et innumerabilibus, I, 3, and the Concept of Planetary Systems in the Infinite Universe. A Commentary

Wolfgang Neuser
Atom, Matter and Monade

Enrico Giannetto
Giordano Bruno and the Relativity of Time

Arcangelo Rossi
Giordano Bruno and the New Order of Nature between Copernicus and Galilei

Part 3
Forms of Non-Conformity. Bruno’s Works as Literary Texts

Nuccio Ordine
The Comic and Philosophy. Plato’s Philebus and Bruno's Candelbearer

Sergius Kodera
The (In)discreet Presence of Machiavelli in Giordano Bruno’s Candelaio

Henning Hufnagel
Bruno’s Cabala: Satire of Knowledge and the Uses of the Dialogue Form

Part 4
Reflections of an Intellectual Burning. Bruno’s Reception and Literary Afterlife

Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann
The Dialectic of the Absolute Beginning. On a Copper Engraving in Heinrich Khunrath’s Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae

Ingrid Rowland
A Catholic Reader of Giordano Bruno in Counter-Reformation-Rome. Athanasius Kircher SJ and Panspermia Rerum

Francois Quiviger
From Paris to Rome, Hamburg and London. Aspects of the Afterlife of Giordano Bruno in the Twentieth Century

Part 5
Visibility of the Invisible. About the Sculpture Giordano Bruno by Alexander Polzin (2008)

Durs Grünbein
Flame and Wood. On Alexander Polzin’s Sculpture Giordano Bruno

Alexander Polzin
Giordano Bruno

Appendix
List of Contributors
Index