Giordano Bruno and Renaissance Science (review)

Abstract

Reviews 205 relationship between this text and the pictorial narrative, concluding with a discussion of its value as a historical document. The essays, with the exception of the translations, are reproduced with little editing. At times this is problematic, particularly w h e n footnotes refer to illustrations in other works, as in H. E. J. Cowdrey's article on the interpretation of gesture in the embroidery. The illustrations here are merely functional, comprising black and white photographs of about half of the embroidery, and the editor suggests using this book in conjunction with better illustrations from other sources. A heavier editorial hand might also have m a d e this collection more useful to a wider audience. Although the translated articles will provide n e w access to readers without modern French, it is unlikely that these same readers will be able to read the sometimes lengthy passages of untranslated Old French and Latin, without which some significant points will be lost. Although some of these essays have stood the test of time, at least in part, much of their content, particularly ofthe earlier works, has been refuted or superseded by being incorporated into later works. Yet as a collection it has considerable value as an indication of the concerns and methods which have been applied to the embroidery. This book is not, as its title might suggest, a historiography of the Bayeux Tapestry, but nonetheless it would serve as a good starting point for such a historiography. Sarah Randies School of English University College, ADFA University ofNew South Wales Gatti, Hilary, Giordano Bruno and Renaissance Science, Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press, rpt. 1999; cloth; pp. x, 257; R.R.P. US$45.00,£33.50. Giordano Bruno and Renaissance Science is a work for the Bruno speciali containing a great deal of detailed analysis of Bruno's primary writings. Hilary Gatti speculates on a wide range of issues, from the identity of the real-life participants of The Ash Wednesday Supper, to the relevance of Bruno's works to modern quantum scientific philosophy. 206 Reviews Gatti's major aim is to revive the scientific reputation of Bruno, which is a difficult task considering the beating Bruno's standing in the history of science has taken in the last few decades. Gatti is no Yatesian, as she quickly makes clear, and herfirststep is to show that Bruno's major influences are rarely Hermetic; rather they are more often Copernican and Euclidean. Gatti provides some intense and detailed analysis of Bruno's writings to this end, particularly The Ash Wednesday Supper ('an anomalous and complicated text', p. 48) and the De immenso. She offers interesting interpretations of the symbolic aspects of Bruno's writing, and reveals connections to scientific and mathematical works that have been overlooked or dismissed by others. Gatti moves beyond the Yates thesis debate to tackle issues raised by the next generation of Bruno scholars, particularly those whose repudiation of Yates has resulted in a treatment of Bruno's writings as non-scientific or backward-looking. Bruno's lack of mathematical writing is explained as an intellectual choice, not a failing in Bruno's ability, who 'may have been better read in the mathematics of his time than is usually supposed' (p. 166). For Bruno, mathematics 'held a purely abstract truth status and was considered as a departure from the physical realities of being rather than a true description of being itself (p. 53), so he preferred other methodologies to express his ideas. Gatti states that Bruno saw Copernicus as 'too m u c h of a mathematician and too little of a natural philosopher' (pp. 52-53), and as 'confusing mathematical concepts and physical realities' (p. 83). This makes The Ash Wednesday Supper, 'an original, philosophical reading and critique' (p. 75) of Copernicus, not a slavish copy, or Hermetic deviation. Bruno always relied on others for raw data, something that other writers have used to classify Bruno as an old-style natural philosopher rather than a new science thinker. However, Gatti argues that he should be seen in a more modern sense, as 'one of the earliest philosophers of the new science' (p. 8). Bruno...