ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights a fundamental moment for the historical understanding of the motives behind the arrest of Giordano Bruno, and the subsequent launch of the proceeding against him: his return to Italy, his settlement in Venice, and his zeal to realize the political objectives which he had formulated during his long experience as an intellectual, courtier, and instructor in the Europe of the 1570s and 1580s. Bruno’s return to Italy is placed in the context of not only the religious, but also the political and intellectual dynamics on the peninsula in those years. To this end this chapter examines parallels between Bruno and other figures of the era (e.g., Francesco Pucci), which are useful in understanding why Giordano Bruno would have been viewed with suspicion by the Roman Curia and the Holy Office, in particular in the context of the complex dynamics that divided these bodies from the crown of France at that moment.
