ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the final phase of the trial of Giordano Bruno during the year 1599, up to his decision to not abjure, thus allowing himself to be led to the stake. First, the role of Jesuit Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino is highlighted, and with him, another dynamic underlying the trial: that between the Company of Jesus and the Dominican Order to which Bruno himself belonged. This contextual element has been overlooked by the traditional interpretations of this story, which have almost exclusively focused on what happened within the trial itself, oriented in this way by the centrality the so-called Sommario – which is itself a fundamental document – has assumed in historiographical reconstructions. The chapter also considers another important aspect of the international context of the time: the long and troubled reintegration of the new king of France Henry IV of Bourbon to the Catholic faith, and its possible repercussions on the Bruno trial. Finally the chapter outlines a general scheme of the trial, which will be addressed with an attempt at an overall explanation in the last part of the book.
