Bruno, Giordano, an Italian philosopher, one of the boldest and most original thinkers of his age, born in Nola, about 1550. He became a Dominican monk, but his religious doubts, and his censures of the monastic orders, compelled him to quit his monastery and Italy. He embraced the doctrines of Calvin at Geneva, but doubt and free discussion not being in favor there, he went, after two years' stay, to Paris. He gave lectures on philosophy there, and, by his avowed opposition to the scholastic system, made himself many bitter enemies. He next spent two years in England, and became the friend of Sir Philip Sydney. In 1585 he went again to Paris and renewed his public lectures. After visiting and teaching in various towns in Germany, he returned, in 1592, to Padua, and went afterward to Venice, where he was, in 1598, arrested by the Inquisition and sent to Rome. He lay in prison two years, and on Feb. 17, 1600, was burned as a heretic.
Entry from Everybody's Cyclopedia, 1912.