ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the events in the trial at the fundamental moment of its final phase: the summer of 1599, when Celestino da Verona reappeared on the scene, once again ending up in the Inquisition’s prisons together with Bruno, this time in Rome. Why did this happen? Why at that particular moment? What can the available documents really tell us, and how can newly available documentation illuminate the strange coincidence of the Capuchin’s return into Bruno’s life at precisely the moment in which Bruno was deploying his trial strategy, which was at the same time a political project? Who was Celestino da Verona really? What appears with disturbing clarity is that the outside intervention of someone who, as a good deal of evidence leads us to believe, was actually a spy for the Holy Office, did not achieve the result hoped for by some. The role played by Pope Clement VIII in the entire affair remains enigmatic.
