GIORDANO BRUNO burned at the stake 1600

Giordano Bruno, born Filippo Bruno (1548 – February 17, 1600) was an Italian philosopher best-known as a proponent of heliocentrism and the infinity of the universe. In addition to his cosmological writings, he also wrote extensive works on the art of memory, a loosely-organized group of mnemonic techniques and principles. He is often considered an early martyr for modern scientific ideas, in part because he was burned at the stake as a heretic by the Roman Inquisition (in the Campo de'Fiori just a few blocks from the convent where Dennis and I stayed several times near Piazza Navona in Rome --- the statue above is at the center of the campo surrounded by fruit stands and flower stalls).

Morris West (26 April 1916 - 9 October 1999) Australian novelist and playwright, best known for his novels The Devil's Advocate (1959) The Shoes of the Fisherman, (1963), & The Clowns of God (1981) died while working at his desk on the final chapters of his novel The Last Confession, about the trials and imprisonment of Giorano Bruno, who was burned at the stake for heresy in 1600.

Bruno was a figure with whom West had long sympathized and even identified. In 1969 he had published a blank-verse play The Heretic on the same subject. This was staged in London in 1970. Of all his writings, he said this play had "the most of me in it." In 1998 he converted it into a libretto for an opera, which was set to music by Colin Brumby, but it has not been staged. In early 1999 he also contemplated a film script based on the play.

He wrote The Last Confession in the form of the diary that Bruno might have written knowing that execution was approaching. The diary was intended to cover the period 21 December 1599 to 17 February 1600, however it covers just 14 days; the entry West was writing when he died was dated 4 January 1600, and he had written only about half as much as he had intended.

Nevertheless, the last paragraph he ever wrote was poignant: I can write no more today … who knows to what nightmares I might wake. West himself had had several severe heart attacks, and had undergone double-bypass surgery. Murray Waldren writes: "This is a book written by a man aware death is imminent about a man aware execution is near" (Courtesy Wikipedia.com)