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The Thirty Seals.No fewer than seven works from Bruno’s facile pen were published in England; the first of these was the Thirty Seals, and the Seal of Seals (1583) Explicatio Triginta Sigillorum, quibus adjectus est Sigillus[64] Sigillorum. It was dedicated to Mauvissière, but the introductory epistle was addressed to the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford. Bound along with it, in front, was a Modern and Complete Art of Remembering which is merely a reprint of the last part of the Cantus Circæus. The work belongs to the mnemonic and psychological writings of Bruno; the thirty seals are hints “for the acquiring, arranging, and recollecting of all sciences and arts,” the Seal of Seals “for comparing and explaining all operations of the mind. And it may be called Art of Arts; for here you will easily find all that is theoretically enquired into by logic, metaphysics, the cabala, natural magic, arts great and small.” (The part called Sigillus Sigillorum was a volume of Bruno’s Clavis Magna, perhaps the only volume published.) Cena de le Ceneri.It was followed by an Italian dialogue, “the Ash Wednesday Supper,” La Cena de le Ceneri, also dedicated to Mauvissière. Written in praise of the Copernican theory, it goes beyond Copernicus himself in its intuition of the infinity of the universe, of the identity of matter in the earth with the matter of the planets and stars, and of the possibility that such living beings inhabit them as inhabit the earth: earth and stars themselves are also said to be living organisms: so there are not seven planets or wandering stars only, but innumerable such; for every world, whether of the sun-type or of the earth-type, is in motion, its motion proceeding from the spirit within it. Finally, this philosophy is shown to be in complete accord with all true religion, to conflict only with the false. De la causa, principio et Uno, 1584.After the “Ash-Wednesday Supper” came “Cause, Principle, and Unity” (De la causa, principio et Uno), 1584; again dedicated to Mauvissière.[65] The first of its dialogues is an apology for the Cena, which, as we have seen, had caused considerable feeling in Bruno’s circle of readers, for the severity and irony of its strictures upon Oxford, and England generally. In the others the immanence or spirituality of all causation; the eternity of matter; its divinity as the potentiality of all life; its realisation in the universe as a whole (as a “formed” thing); the infinite whole and the innumerable parts, as different aspects of the same: the origin of evil and of death: the coincidence of matter and form in the One: the source of all individual and finite forms in the one material substance: the coincidence in the One of the possible and the real, the century and the moment, the solid and the point: the universe all centre and all circumference: diversity and difference as nothing but diverse and different aspects of one and the same substance: the coincidence of contraries:—these are among the chief topics of this, the freshest and most brilliant of Bruno’s philosophical writings: “a dialogue worthy of Plato,” Moritz Carrière has said. De l’ infinito universo et Mondi.In the same year appeared The Infinite Universe and its worlds (De l’ infinito universo et Mondi), dedicated to Mauvissière.[66] It contained a masterly array of reasons, physical and metaphysical, for the belief that the universe is infinite, and is full of innumerable worlds of living creatures; sense and imagination are shown to be at once the source and the limit of human knowledge. Yet the argument is mainly a priori: the infinite power of the Efficient Cause cannot be ineffective, the divine goodness cannot withhold the good of life from any possible being; the divine will is one with the divine intelligence and with the divine action: all possible existence falls within the sphere of the divine intelligence, therefore is willed; but whatever is willed is realised, for the power is infinite; and whatever is is good, for it is willed by the infinitely good. Whatever really is, is a substance, and therefore immortal. The substance of us is immutable, only the outward face or form of it changes, passes away; in the whole all things are good; where things appear evil or defective, it is because we look at the part or the present, not at the whole or the eternal.

Spaccio de la bestia trionfante.“The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast,” Spaccio de la bestia trionfante, 1584,[67] was dedicated to Sir Philip Sidney. In form an allegorical, satirical prose poem, it is in fact an introduction to a new ethical system. A repentant Jupiter resolves to drive out the numerous beasts that occupy his heavenly firmament—the constellations—and to replace them by the virtues, with Truth as their crown. He calls a council of the gods to consider this plan, and in the discussion that follows numberless topics are touched upon—the history of religions, the contrast between natural and positive religion, and the fundamental forms of morality. The Spaccio is, however, preparatory to a future work, in which moral philosophy shall be treated “by the inner light which the divine intellectual sun has irradiated into my soul,” says Bruno;[68] in it, and other dialogues, the whole structure of the philosophy is to be completed, of which the Bestia is merely a tentative sketch.[69] Jupiter represents the human spirit; and the constellations, the Bear, the Scorpion, etc., are the vices of the age, which are to be driven out by Bruno’s hierarchy of virtues. The work, which is rich in both moral and religious suggestion, was early regarded as an attack on the Pope or the Church, the supposed “Triumphant Beast.” Gaspar Schopp, for example, writes to that effect after witnessing Bruno’s death. It is really an attack upon all religions of mere credulity as opposed to religions of truth and of deeds. The Cabala, 1585.The “Cabal” (Cabala del Cavallo Pegaseo, con l’ Aggiunta dell’ Asino Cillenico) was published in 1585.[70] It is dedicated to an imaginary Bishop of Casamarciano, who represents the spirit of backwardness, ignorant simplicity, and was not a real person, as some biographers supposed. It is a still more biting, a merciless satire on Asinity (i.e. ignorance, credulity, and unenquiring faith in religion). In a later work[71] there is a remark on the Asinus Cillenicus, “the image and figure of the animal are well known, many have written on it, we among the rest, in a particular fashion; but as it displeased the vulgar, and failed to please the wise, for its sinister meaning, the work was suppressed.” Whether this refers to the whole Cabala, or to the last part of it, is not known.

Heroici Furori, 1585.The “Enthusiasms of the Noble” (De gl’ heroici furori), 1585,[72] dedicated to Sir Philip Sidney, consists of sonnets, with prose illustrations, after the model of Dante’s Vita Nuova. Its theme is that of the Phædrus and Symposium, the rising of the love for spiritual beauty out of that for sensible beauty, reaching its height in the divine furor—an ecstatic unity with the divine life, in which all the miseries and misfortunes of the merely earthly life disappear. Many of the sonnets are of extreme beauty, although Brunnhofer goes too far when he speaks of them as surpassing Petrarca’s, except in smoothness of form, and as equalling Shakespeare’s.