Bruno has the concept of "mind-universe", so he thinks that the universe should be infinite, because our human imagination is infinite. It is in this sense that he criticized the "geocentric" worldview based on Aristotle. This is because "geocentric theory" has such a philosophical premise: the universe is a huge self-running organism, and its outermost periphery should be the orbit of the "supreme sun", while the rest of the stars will not exceed this range, or just near it-which means that the universe is a "limited existence". Copernicus's theory breaks the traditional "geocentric" picture of the universe: the sun is the center and the other planets surround it, which may mean that there may be more planets and "stars" besides the orbits of these planets!

March 12, 2000 is the "pardon day" of the Catholic church, which is used to remind people to reflect. In Vatican City, Pope John Paul II did an unprecedented thing-Bruno delivered a speech entitled "My Mistake", asking God to forgive the mistakes made by the church in the past two thousand years. Special mention is made of the "violent means" used by the church, such as the Crusades and the Inquisition.

It is worth mentioning that a statue of giordano bruno stands in Fiori Square, just a stone's throw from Vatican City. He died in the Inquisition and was burned here.

However, as far as the reason for his punishment is concerned, most people's views on this are probably still stuck in the impression that Bruno, like Copernicus and Galileo, is the defender of Heliocentrism. Or further, Bruno was a martyr of science, and his death meant "religion suppressed and persecuted science".

It should be noted that the formation of this historical view has objective limitations: on the one hand, the previous research on Bruno has been limited by the lack of historical materials-Napoleon sent a large number of Vatican documents to Paris to make cartons, including the trial of Bruno. Later, researchers rediscovered these materials from the archives of the Venetian Inquisition and the private collection of Pope pius ix. On the one hand, since the Rational Enlightenment in17th century, people have always regarded Bruno as the forerunner of Galileo. Another great astronomer, johannes kepler, criticized Galileo's "weakness" and created Bruno's "hero" image.

In fact, in the19th century, Bruno was regarded as a civilian pioneer with freedom of thought, not a scientist, to oppose the aristocratic political and religious authority at that time.

But as Frances A. Yeci, a famous contemporary Renaissance researcher, proved, with the rediscovery of historical materials, Bruno's inherent image in people's minds should change.

For example, in andrew dickson white's History of Science-Theological Debate, there is such a passage:

This new truth (author's note: Copernicus' theory) cannot be concealed; For it, whether it is smiling or frowning, it is impossible to play any role. Many people accepted it, but within the hearing range of the Pope, it seems that only one voice dares to express this truth clearly. The new soldier is the eccentric Giordano Bruno. He was chased from one place to another, and finally he had a terrible quarrel with his pursuers. For this reason, he was trapped in Venice, imprisoned in the dungeon of Roman heresy court for six years, and finally burned alive, and his ashes were scattered with the wind.

This passage looks really thrilling, as if the Gestapo of the church is all over Europe. Wherever he goes, Bruno is in danger of being arrested at any time. However, such a passage ignored the complicated situation in Europe at that time.

At that time, during the "Reformation Movement", the religious map of Europe had already been torn apart, and the struggle between Protestantism and Catholicism was in full swing: in Germany, the birthplace of this movement, Martin Luther and his followers became the "Lutheran" church; In France, the contradiction between Huguenots and Catholicism became more and more serious, and even triggered a "religious war". In Britain, under the leadership of Elizabeth I, the Anglican Church also broke away from Catholicism. In addition, in Prague, the "capital" of Habsburg's holy Roman Empire at that time, as a famous religious tolerance ninja, Emperor Rudolf II II gathered a group of religious reformers, Catholics and Jews.

Although he knows something about astronomy, it is more due to his educational experience in Dominican society. Among his education, one subject was "astronomy". In addition, there is indeed evidence that Bruno has Copernicus's astronomical manuscript! Yes, it was written by Copernicus.

However, when he read the manuscript, he didn't know whether it was because of handwriting or Latin. In short, he misread a word, which led him to misunderstand Copernicus' theory of "Earth-Moon System". Copernicus believed that the moon revolves around the earth and the earth revolves around the sun; Bruno believes that Copernicus' theory is that the earth and the moon are in the same orbit and revolve around the sun!

Although it doesn't matter to his philosophical theory as a whole, it is hard to say that he seriously verified Copernicus's "Heliocentrism", otherwise such a low-level mistake would not have occurred.

Of course, among the eight charges brought against him by the Inquisition in the future, one is indeed related to "Heliocentrism", but it is hard to say that it is a charge specifically against "Heliocentrism" ... So what is this charge?

There is a saying in the Bible Ecclesiastes: "The sun rises, the sun sets, and returns to the place where it rose in a hurry." At that time, the church thought it was evidence to support the geocentric theory. Bruno disagreed with this statement. However, he didn't think it had anything to do with Heliocentrism. He may even think that this sentence is not about "astronomy"! He thinks this is a poetic expression, which is intended to tell people that "the world is always changing."