SOURCE: "Bruno," in Eight Philosophers of the Italian Renaissance, Stanford University Press, 1964, pp. 124–44.

A German-born scholar, Kristeller is an acclaimed author of Italian, German, and English articles and books on Renaissance philosophy. In this excerpt, Kristeller describes Bruno's background and highlights the philosopher's beliefs as revealed in several works.

[Giordano Bruno's] fame is partly due to the tragedy of his life and death, but no less deserved by his brilliant gifts as a thinker and writer. His vision of the world has a distinctly modern quality, and has impressed and influenced scientists and philosophers throughout the subsequent centuries. At the same time, his work is still entirely a part of the Renaissance, not merely in its date and style but in its premises and problems, whereas such younger contemporaries or successors as Bacon, Galileo, and Descartes belong to the Renaissance with only a part, and perhaps not the...