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>Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno argued that the Earth moves around the Sun. Bruno believed that the Earth is a living being, with a soul. These were unusual beliefs for a Christian. In 1592, Bruno was captured by the Inquisition in Venice and imprisoned.
Death
Immediately after the death sentence was handed down, Giordano Bruno was further tortured. On February 19, 1600, he was driven through the streets of Rome, stripped of his clothes and burned at the stake. Today, a statue of Bruno stands in the Campo de Fiori square in Rome.
Legacy
Bruno’s legacy of freedom of thought and his cosmological ideas had a significant impact on 17th and 18th century philosophical and scientific thought. On the other hand, while some of his ideas had merit and could be considered forward-thinking, others were based largely on magic and the occult. In addition, Bruno's disregard for the politics of the day was the direct cause of his death.
According to the Galileo Project, "It is often maintained that Bruno was executed because of his Copernicanism and his belief in the infinity of inhabited worlds. In fact, we do not know the exact grounds on which he was declared a heretic because his file is missing from the records. Scientists such as Galileo and Johannes Kepler were not sympathetic to Bruno in their writings."