It is of some importance to dwell on this topic; for Bruno’s character and temper, so markedly different from that of Sarpi, for example, affected in no small measure the form and quality of his philosophy.  He was a poet, gifted with keen and lively sensibilities, open at all pores to the delightfulness of nature, recoiling from nothing that is human.  At no period of his life was he merely a solitary thinker or a student of books.  When he came to philosophize, when the spiritual mistress, Sophia, absorbed all other passions in his breast, his method of exposition retained a tincture of that earlier phase of his experience.

It must not be thought, however, that Bruno prosecuted no serious studies during this period.  On the contrary, he seems to have amassed considerable erudition in various departments of learning:  a fact which should make us cautious against condemning conventual education as of necessity narrow and pedantic.  When he left Naples, he had acquired sufficient knowledge of Aristotle and the Schoolmen, among whom he paid particular attention to S. Thomas and to Raymond Lully.  Plato, as expounded by Plotinus, had taken firm hold on his imagination.  He was versed in the dialectics of the previous age, had mastered mediaeval cosmography and mathematics, and was probably already acquainted with Copernicus.  The fragments of the Greek philosophers, especially of Pythagoras and Parmenides, whose metaphysics powerfully influenced his mind, had been assimilated.  Perhaps the writings of Cardinal Cusa, the theologian who applied mathematics to philosophy, were also in his hands at the same period.  Beside Italian, he possessed the Spanish language, could write and speak Latin with fluency, and knew something of Greek.  It is clear that he had practiced poetry in the vernacular under the immediate influence of Tansillo.  Theological studies had not been wholly neglected; for he left behind him at Naples editions of Jerome and Chrysostom with commentaries of Erasmus.  These were books which exposed their possessors to the interdiction of the Index.

It seems strange that a Dominican, escaping from his convent to avoid a trial for heresy, should have sought refuge at S. Maria Sopra Minerva, then the headquarters of the Roman Inquisition.  We must, however, remember that much freedom of movement was allowed to monks, who found a temporary home in any monastery of their order.  Without money, Bruno had no roof but that of a religious house to shelter him; and he probably reckoned on evading pursuit till the fatigues of his journey from Naples had been forgotten.  At any rate, he made no lengthy stay in Rome.  News soon reached him that the prosecution begun at Naples was being transferred to the metropolis.  This implied so serious a danger that he determined to quit Rome in secret.  Having flung his frock to the nettles, he journeyed—­how, we do not know—­to Genoa, and thence to Noli on the Riviera.  The next time Bruno entered the Dominican convent of S. Maria sopra Minerva, it was as a culprit condemned to death by the Inquisition.