Giordano Bruno

Giordano Bruno was an Italian philosopher, Dominican friar and cosmological thinker executed for heresy in Rome in 1600. His ideas about an infinite universe and his conflicts with church authority made him a powerful symbol of intellectual danger and dissent.

For Historical Bookshelf, this entry is best treated as a historical or literary figure rather than a fictional character. It can support pages where novels refer to writers, playwrights, philosophers or scholars as part of a period’s intellectual background.

In S. J. Parris’s Prophecy, Francis Walsingham asks Giordano Bruno to investigate while infiltrating supporters of Mary, Queen of Scots, who hope to replace Elizabeth I. Working among courtiers, foreign agents and practitioners of astrology, Bruno must separate political theatre from genuine belief and murder from treason. In S. J. Parris’s The Secret Dead, Eighteen-year-old Giordano Bruno is still a novice in the Dominican order when he witnesses an illicit examination of a young woman’s body. Other novels featuring Giordano Bruno include S. J. Parris’s Treachery, S. J. Parris’s Conspiracy, S. J. Parris’s A Christmas Requiem, S. J. Parris’s Execution, and S. J. Parris’s The Academy of Secrets.