Tuesday 9 August 2016

Giordano Bruno by Alois Riehl


Giordano Bruno: In Memoriam of the 17th February 1600 by Alois Riehl
First published by Leopold in 1905. Translated by Agnes Fry. ForgottenBooks edition published on the 5th July 2012.

One of my WorldReads from Austria

Where to buy this book:
Buy from independent booksellers via Abebooks
Buy the ebook from Amazon.comAmazon.co.uk
Buy the paperback from The Book Depository

How I got this book:
Free download when it was the ForgottenBooks book of the day

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This potted biography of the Italian Dominican friar and philosopher Giordano Bruno, written by Austrian philosopher Alois Adolf Riehl, is just 100 pages long. It is a swift read, giving an outline of Bruno's life together with an overview of his remarkably accurate insights into the make-up of the universe.

Bruno has turned up in two historical fiction novels - Name Of The Rose and Prophecy - I read last year so this short book helped to fill in factual details for me. I think I now understand the main gist of his discoveries too. The writing is quite formal and old-fashioned, but once I got into its flow, the book was an interesting read and I was amazed at the modernity of the ideas being discussed during the time of Elizabeth!

The great shame is the fear with which Bruno's ideas were widely greeted and the religious intolerance that killed him. What other ground breaking theories might he have developed if allowed to live his full lifetime?


Search Lit Flits for more:
Books by Alois Riehl / Biographies / Books from Austria

No comments:

Post a Comment