A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern, Volume 2 of 2 by J. M. Robertson

ambassadors' letters is so far void. No pretence is made of tracing Bruno anywhere after February, 1600. Since the foregoing note appeared in the first edition I have met with the essay of Mr. R. Copley Christie, "Was Giordano Bruno Really Burned?" (Macmillan's Magazine, October, 1885; rep. in Mr. Christie's Selected Essays and Papers, 1902). This is a crushing answer to the thesis of M. Desdouits, showing as it does clear grounds not only for affirming the genuineness of the letter of Scioppius, but for doubting the diligence of M. Desdouits. Mr. Christie points out (1) that in his book Ecclesiasticus, printed in 1612, Scioppius refers to the burning of Bruno almost in the words of his letter of 1600; (2) that in 1607 Kepler wrote to a correspondent of the burning of Bruno, giving as his authority J. M. Wacker, who in 1600 was living at Rome as the imperial ambassador; and (3) that the tract Machiavellizatio, 1621, in which the letter of Scioppius was first printed, was well known in its day, being placed on the Index, and answered by two writers without eliciting any repudiation from Scioppius, who lived till