On the Infinite Universe and Worlds

About this book

"How is it possible for the universe to be infinite?" "How is it possible for the universe to be finite?" So the First Dialogue begins. In five lively conversations Bruno's spokesman Philotheo takes apart the closed cosmos of Aristotle, with its crystal spheres and nothing beyond them. He argues with a thoughtful questioner, a wise ally, Burchio, a stubborn and comic Aristotelian whose head "cannot take in" infinity, and finally Albertino, a learned doctor who comes to refute him and ends by changing sides.

Bruno wrote the book in London, in the house of the French ambassador, and the title page says "Printed in Venice" to hide where it really came from. In 1603 all of Bruno's works were placed on the Index of Forbidden Books. Today we know that the stars really are suns, and several thousand planets around other stars have been found.

Rendered into modern English by BlusaBooks with the help of AI tools, working from images of the pages of the Italian edition of 1584. Sentence by sentence, not a summary or a retelling. The Latin quotations are translated in the text, and the three sonnets are rendered as verse, line by line.

What is inside

• the dedicatory epistle with its summary of the book and three sonnets, and all five dialogues, complete
• the 1584 title page, the first page of the First Dialogue and Bruno's woodcut diagrams from the same edition
• colour illustrations: the edge of the sky, Aristotle's closed cosmos, innumerable suns (created with AI tools)
• 180 short footnotes on the same page: people, Aristotle's ideas in plain words, the sources of the quotations, and what we know today
• a foreword on Bruno's life, his years in London, the Inquisition and the year 1600; commentary at the end: in plain words, what Bruno argues against and what science says

Who it is for

Readers curious about the history of science and astronomy; lovers of Renaissance philosophy and forbidden books; anyone who has looked at the night sky and wondered who else might be out there. A thoughtful gift for a reader of strange old books.

A historical source: Bruno writes as a man of the sixteenth century; his theology, his sharp mockery of pedants and his errors are kept as in the original. The notes and commentary explain what we know today.