Valentina Zaffino - Giordano Bruno and the Poetry of the Cosmos

A webinar lecture with Valentina Zaffino (Pontifical Lateran University; Rome Global Gateway, University of Notre Dame). Part of our summer webinar series on "Reason and Beauty in Renaissance Christian Thought and Culture," presented in collaboration with the American Cusanus Society Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician, and cosmologist. Bruno’s notoriety is due both to his adventurous life and to his original reinterpretation of ancient thought in light of the new philosophical scenario. Valentina Zaffino will analyze Bruno’s image of the cosmos, focusing on his remodeled Neoplatonic background. In this context, as will be shown, the notions of harmony and beauty are closely related with Bruno’s fascinating claim of the infinity of the cosmos.