Law and religion in Bruno’s Spaccio de la bestia trionfante and Campanella’s L’Ateismo trionfato

Abstract

The historiography of early modern philosophy has often placed Giordano Bruno and Tommaso Campanella alongside each other on account of their both being Dominican natural philosophers from southern Italy who suffered at the hands of the Roman Inquisition. Despite similarities in their backgrounds, sources and ideas, and some parallels in their life stories, such simplifications invariably tend to overlook significant differences between the two with respect to the aim and scope of their respective philosophical endeavours. Ideologically-driven historiography and critique have all too often further obfuscated the complex nature of the connection between the two philosophers, which goes beyond the couple of explicit, daring references to Bruno in Campanella’s works, the influence of the former over the latter, or even the debate over whether the two ever met in the prisons of Rome. The relatively recent and gradual development of a more ideologically-detached body of scholarship on both thinkers has opened the way for more sober explorations on various aspects of this intricate connection. [Excerpt]