Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair

Few English readers know who Giordano Bruno was. A learned philosopher, scientist and heretic,renegade friar, author of plays and dialogues, he was burnt at the stake by the Inquisition in 1600. His play "il Candelaio" is a classic studied by Italian university students. John Bossy added a new dimension to what we know about Bruno by arguing that he also acted as a spy. He found letters written from the French embassy in London to Sir Francis Walsingham, head of Queen Elizabeth's secret service, signed by the mysterious name "Fagot". The letters betrayed a Catholic plot to oust Queen Elizabeth and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots. The discovery of this plot led to the execution of Mary and quite possibly saved Protestant England from a return to Catholic rule. So whoever Fagot was, he did a significant job. John Bossy argues that this Fagot was none other than the writer and philosopher Bruno, who is known to have visited England at this time and stayed at the Embassy. I find the identification totally convincing and so, I think so most scholars of the period.A sceptical critic, quoted above, writes, "If this story is true, then Bruno was not just a spy but a fraud, impersonating a priest, and a traitor, betraying the French king and the ambassador, and all of this for rather vague reasons--neither for money nor power but to undermine the credibility of the papacy and because it appealed to his taste for practical jokes. " Far from it. If Bruno acted as a spy - and I think that he did - he did so from the most serious motives. He had seen the Inquisition operating all over Europe and the attempts of the Cathlic church to stamp out the Reformation, He knew about the Massacre of St Bartholemew's Day in France and had seen how the Huguenots were being persecuted.Plainly, his motive for acting as a spy would have been a belief that the Catholic Church was far too powerful and a desire to assist those in Europe who were resisting its supremacy. He cared enough about this to take considerable personal risks and was also prepared to be ruthless. He must have known that heads would roll when the plot was exposed. The Inquisition at Venice later questioned him very closely about his time in London and probably suspected that he had been up to something.There is nothing particularly fanciful about authors and intellectuals acting as spies - we know that Christopher Marlowe, the Elizabethan playwright who was a contemporary of Bruno and Shakespeare, did carry out various secret service missions, working for Walsingham's team.Espionage is always a fascinating subject, especially when set in Shakespeare's London. The Elizabethan world was one of political tension and ruthless struggle for power. While it is true that this book may not always be ideally readable, it is very much worth reading.

Although I have yet to finish the book many of my questions and previous suppositions about Bruno and the Elisabethan court have been illuminated. The book reads like a spy novel and I am enjoying it immensely.

Giordano Bruno was burned alive in Rome in 1600, after a seven year investigation into his beliefs by Venetian and Vatican authorities. His is a cause which has attracted a significant amount of attention in Italy over the years, however he is less well known in the rest of Europe. He was ordained a priest, though his travels in England France and Germany led him to practice his priesthood spasmodically and in a rather unorthodox manner. He has left behind writing of some significance. John Bossy has analysed his writings, and concentrates on Bruno's time in the residence of the French ambassador to Queen Elizabeth's court in the 1580s. It was a rather fraught time, France, a Catholic nation, favoured an alliance with Mary Queen of Scots, then a prisoner of Elizabeth's. Spain, the superpower of the era, favoured Elizabeths violent overthrow, and the Pope had authorised her assassination. You can imagine the levels of diplomacy required of the (moderately Catholic) French Ambassador. One small facet of this discretion was the fact that Bruno, the embassy's chaplain, was described as a man-servant. Bossy uses an acute knowledge of the era, as well as cross references from various English and Continental sources to identify Bruno, as the spy who signed himself Faggot. Elizabeth's spy-master, Walsingham, alive to the various threats to her Majesty, needed as much information on Catholic conspiracies as was possible, and Bruno, as confidant and confessor, was well positioned to supply him with it. Through the book, Bossy gives an overview of the intricacies of the international diplomacy, in particular the play for France, prior to the accession of Henry of Navarre, who in the 1580's was seen as a Protestant champion, but eventually converted to Catholicism to ascend the French throne (`Paris is worth a mass'). Bossy also makes a creditable, but speculative, description of Bruno's inner motivations, which, given the deception and dissimulation necessary in his role as spy, were not necessarily coincident with either his writings or his testimony to various authorities. In general the book demonstrates great learning, though is perhaps fixated by the English part of the tale. This is entirely understandable, as the historian in Bossy, concentrates on the era and references with which he is most at ease, and, it must be said the revelation of the Bruno/Faggot identity is quite a coup. I would have appreciated more information about the final years of Bruno's life, though Bossy refers us to otherauthorities for this.

The ordered book arrived promptly on the day it was promised - 21.12.23. It was well packed and in very good condition. I am looking forward to reading it.

Nessun problema: spedizione rapida in buon imballaggio, libro OK.

Mi è piaciuta la tempistica e la correttezza: oggetto rispondente a quanto richiesto a con ottimo prezzo. Altamente positivo. + + + + +

John Bossy's meticulously researched book creates a fascinating snapshot of a brief but important period in the Tudor period when all that protected England from the might of Catholic Europe was our spy network. The author convincingly argues the case that the Renaissance scholar Giordano Bruno spied for England. The only thing the book lacked was a convincing explanation as to why he did it. Perhaps we'll never know.

very specific topic, but for English Renaissance History devotee this is heaven.