Giordano Bruno and the eternity of the world

Abstract

In the everlasting universe of Giordano Bruno, the particular worlds and the Earth are also eternal. Bruno argues for the eternity a parte ante of the Earth —a doctrine which he shares with Aristotle, contrary to the Christian tradition— by way of a criticism of biblical chronology and Adamic monogenism, together with a natural and regionally limited explanation of floods. There remained, however, the issue of the limited historical memory of mankind. In the fifth dialogue of Ash Wednesday Supper, Bruno adduces the well-known Aristotelian passage (Meteorology, I,14) concerning the periodical changes occurring on the face of the Earth. We show that Bruno enlarges the Aristotelian explanation by assuming other causes for the loss of historical memory which were advanced by Averroës in his commentary on this Aristotelian passage: the natural cause of floods and the human cause of the «changes in languages and writings.» This Averroistic passage could also be the source of the «effetto della oblivione delle cose» which Machiavelli tries to explain in Discorsi, II,5.