Religious Rebels 02 | Giordano Bruno: Imagined the Infinite, Burned at the Stake

A former Dominican friar who dared to say the universe had no centre — and paid with his life.

Born in 16th-century Italy, Giordano Bruno broke with Church teachings to imagine an infinite cosmos filled with countless worlds. To him, God was not confined to heaven or hierarchy but alive in every corner of creation. The Inquisition saw it differently. After years of imprisonment and interrogation, Bruno was burned alive in Rome in 1600. 

Was he a reckless heretic or a visionary thinker centuries ahead of his time — and what does his death say about the danger of new ideas?

GUESTS:

• Ingrid Rowland — Emeritus Professor of History at the US University of Notre Dame. 
• Dilwyn Knox — Emeritus Professor of Renaissance Studies at University College, London 
• Dr Shaun Blanchard — Lecturer in Theology at Notre Dame University Australia.

This is the second episode of God Forbid's Religious Rebels, a six-part special series exploring the lives of spiritual revolutionaries who defied empires, reshaped traditions — and sometimes paid with their lives.