SOURCE: "Giordano Bruno," in The Fortnightly Review, Vol. XLVI No. CCLXXII, August 1, 1889, pp. 234-44.

A nineteenth-century essayist, novelist, and critic, Pater is regarded as one of the most famous proponents of aestheticism in English literature. Distinguished as the first major English writer to formulate an explicitly aesthetic philosophy of life, he advocated the "love of art for art's sake" as life's greatest offering, a belief which he exemplified in his influential Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873) and elucidated in his novel Marius the Epicurean (1885) and other works. In this essay, Pater discusses the monastic background and pantheistic philosophy of Bruno in an examination of the philosopher's 1586 speech delivered in Paris.

It was on the afternoon of the Feast of Pentecost that news of the death of Charles the Ninth went abroad promptly. To his successor the day became a sweet one, to be noted unmistakably by...