At this epoch of his life, when he had attained his twenty-fourth year, he visited several Dominican convents of the Neapolitan province, and entered with the want of prudence which was habitual to him into disputations on theology.  Some remarks he let fall on transubstantiation and the Divinity of Christ, exposed him to a suspicion of Arianism, a heresy at that time rife in southern Italy.  Bruno afterwards confessed that from an early age he had entertained speculative doubts upon the metaphysics of the Trinity, though he was always prepared to accept that dogma in faith as a good Catholic.  The Inquisition took the matter up in earnest, and began to institute proceedings of so grave a nature that the young priest felt himself in danger.  He escaped in his monk’s dress, and traveled to Rome, where he obtained admittance for a short while to the convent of the Minerva.

[Footnote 84:  The final case drawn up against Bruno as heresiarch makes it appear that his record included even these boyish errors.  See the letter of Gaspar Schopp in Berti.]

We know very little what had been his occupations up to this date.  It is only certain that he had already composed a comedy, Il Candelajo:  which furnishes sufficient proof of his familiarity with mundane manners.  It is, in fact, one of the freest and most frankly satirical compositions for the stage produced at that epoch, and reveals a previous study of Aretino.  Nola, Bruno’s birthplace, was famous for the license of its country folk.  Since the day of its foundation by Chalkidian colonists, its inhabitants had preserved their Hellenic traditions intact.  The vintage, for example, was celebrated with an extravagance of obscene banter, which scandalized Philip II.’s viceroy in the sixteenth century.[85] During the period of Bruno’s novitiate, the ordinances of the Council of Trent for discipline in monasteries were not yet in operation; and it is probable that throughout the thirteen years of his conventual experience, he mixed freely with the people and shared the pleasures of youth in that voluptuous climate.  He was never delicate in his choice of phrase, and made no secret of the admiration which the beauty of women excited in his nature.  The accusations brought against him at Venice contained one article of indictment implying that he professed distinctly profligate opinions; and though there is nothing to prove that his private life was vicious, the tenor of his philosophy favors more liberty of manners than the Church allowed in theory to her ministers.[86]

[Footnote 85:  See ’Vita di Don Pietro di Toledo’_ (Arch.  Stov._ vol. ix. p. 23)]

[Footnote 86:  See the passage on polygamy in the Spaccio della Bestia.  I may here remark that Campanella, though more orthodox than Bruno, published opinions upon the relations of the sexes analogous to those of Plato’s Republic in his Citta del Sole.  He even recommended the institution of brothels as annexes to schools for boys, in order to avoid the worse evil of unnatural vice in youth.]