Giordano Bruno died on 17 February 1600 in Rome, aged about 52. An Italian philosopher, mathematician and former Dominican friar, Bruno was born in Nola near Naples. He embraced Copernicus's idea that the Earth moves and went further, proposing that the universe is infinite, with innumerable stars like our sun, perhaps with their own inhabited worlds. He also wrote on memory techniques and magic, and travelled widely, teaching in France, England and Germany. His views and his doubts about doctrines such as the Trinity brought him before the Inquisition, first in Venice and then in Rome, which imprisoned him for years. He refused to recant, and he was burned at the stake in Rome in 1600. Historians debate how far he was a martyr for science or for religious dissent.
Before and after
- from 1600 to 1611Polish–Swedish War of 1600–11
- 1600Rise of Baroque music
- 16th centuryRise of baroque architecture
- 17 January 1600Birth of Pedro Calderón de la Barca
- 17 February 1600Death of Giordano Bruno
- 2 July 1600Battle of Nieuwpoort
- from 22 August 1600 to 5 November 1600Sekigahara Campaign
- 19 November 1600Birth of Charles I of England
- from 31 December 1600 to 1 June 1874Founding of East India Company
More in Science & technology
- 1543De revolutionibus orbium coelestium
- 27 December 1571Birth of Johannes Kepler
- 1637Descartes publishes La Geometrie: algebra meets geometry
- 21 June 1646Birth of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
- 15 April 1707Birth of Leonhard Euler
- 20 March 1727Death of Isaac Newton
The era
This moment belongs to the Early modern world (1500 CE to 1760 CE), voyages, printing and new ideas. You can also browse everything in the 16th century.