Overview

Renaissance philosopher Giordano Bruno was a notable supporter of the new science that arose during his lifetime; his role in its development has been debated ever since the early-17th century. In this work, Hilary Gatti re-evaluates Bruno's contribution to the scientific revolution, in the process challenging the view that now dominates Bruno criticism among English-language scholars. This argument, associated with the work of Frances Yates, holds that early modern science was impregnated with and shaped by Hermetic and occult traditions, and has led scholars to view Bruno primarily as a magus. Gatti attempts to reinstate Bruno as a scientific thinker and occasional investigator of considerable significance and power whose work participates in the excitement aroused by the new science and its methods at the end of the 16th century. Her research emphasizes the importance of Bruno's links to the magnetic philosophers, from Ficino to Gilbert; Bruno's reading and extension of Copernicus' work on the motions of the earth; the importance of Bruno's mathematics; and his work on the art of memory seen as a picture logic, which she examines in the light of the crises of visualization in present-day science. She concludes by emphasizing Bruno's ethics of scientific discovery.

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9780801435294

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Reviews

... Hilary Gatti has turned the spotlight back on Bruno, Bruno as a scientific thinker, Bruno as a man whose merits are to be judged by the 'new sicience' and its methods as they were recognized at the end of the sixteenth century and as they were aopted and adapted in the decades that follow....For all who wish to draw closer to an understanding of Bruno's thought processes, this book is essential reading. -- J.D. North * Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies *

... Hilary Gatti has turned the spotlight back on Bruno, Bruno as a scientific thinker, Bruno as a man whose merits are to be judged by the 'new sicience' and its methods as they were recognized at the end of the sixteenth century and as they were aopted and adapted in the decades that follow....For all who wish to draw closer to an understanding of Bruno's thought processes, this book is essential reading. --J.D. North Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies

Author Information

Hilary Gatti is Associate Professor at the Universit'di Roma'La Sapienza.'Her books include The Renaissance Drama of Knowledge: Giordano Bruno in England and The Natural Philosophy of Thomas Harriot.

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