SOURCE: An introduction to The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast by Giordano Bruno, translated by Arthur D. Imerti, Rutgers University Press, 1964, pp. 3-68.

Imerti is an Italian-American educator, scholar, and author. In this excerpt, Imerti discusses Lo spaccio de la bestia trionfante, focussing on aspects of the work that were viewed as heretical by the Roman Catholic Church, and on portions of the work in which Bruno criticizes his society.

Bruno's opening words to Sidney in the "Epistola explicatoria" of Lo spaccio exhort his readers to be guided by the "intellectual sun," symbolic of reason, "the teacher of the senses, the father of substances, the author of life." The philosopher admonishes: "Cieco chi non vede il sole, stolto chi nol conosce, ingrato chi nol ringrazia…." ("He is blind who does not see the sun, foolish who does not recognize it, ungrateful who is not thankful unto it….")

He...