ABSTRACT
On two occasions – in the introductory letter to Sir Philip Sidney in Spaccio de la bestia trionfante,1 and in front of the Venetian inquisitors – Bruno distanced himself from the doctrine of metempsychosis,2
declaring that he personally did not hold transmigration to be true, but only possible and worthy of consideration exclusively from a philosophical point of view. Nonetheless, some of the most authoritative Bruno scholars consider metempsychosis an essential part of the philosophy of the Nolan and, accordingly, dismiss Bruno’s denial of his belief in transmigration as opportunistic dissimulation.3
