Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 44. Chapters: Giordano Bruno, Ramon Llull, Paracelsus, Athanasius Kircher, Robert Fludd, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Thomas Browne, John Dee, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Johann Reuchlin, Antonia of Württemberg, Heinrich Khunrath, Christian Rosenkreuz, Aegidius of Viterbo, Henry Julius, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Johannes Valentinus Andreae, Balthasar Walther, Pietro Colonna Galatino, Christopher Besoldus, Johan Kemper, Victorinus Strigel, Francesco Giorgi, Christian Knorr von Rosenroth, Johannes Pharamund Rhumelius. Excerpt: Giordano Bruno (1548 - February 17, 1600), born Filippo Bruno, was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician and astronomer. His cosmological theories went beyond the Copernican model in proposing that the Sun was essentially a star, and moreover, that the universe contained an infinite number of inhabited worlds populated by other intelligent beings. He was burned at the stake by civil authorities in 1600 after the Roman Inquisition found him guilty of heresy for his pantheism and turned him over to the state, which at that time considered heresy illegal. After his death he gained considerable fame; in the 19th and early 20th centuries, commentators focusing on his astronomical beliefs regarded him as a martyr for free thought and modern scientific ideas. Recent assessments suggest that Bruno's ideas about the universe played a smaller role in his trial than his pantheist beliefs, which differed from the interpretations and scope of God held by the Catholic Church. In addition to his cosmological writings, Bruno also wrote extensive works on the art of memory, a loosely organized group of mnemonic techniques and principles. More recent assessments, beginning with the pioneering work of Frances Yates, suggest that Bruno was deeply influenced by the astronomical facts of the universe inherited from Arab astrology, Neoplatonism and Renaissance Hermeticism. Other recent studies of Bruno have focused on his qualitative approach to mathematics and his application of the spatial paradigms of geometry to language. Filippo Bruno was born in Nola (in Campania, then part of the Kingdom of Naples) in 1548, the son of Giovanni Bruno, a soldier, and Fraulissa Savolino. In his youth he was sent to Naples for education. He was tutored privately at the Augustinian monastery there, and attended public lectures at the Studium Generale. At the age of 17, he entered the Dominican Order at the monastery of San Domenico Maggiore in Naples, taking the name Giordano, after Gio