The Man in Flames

The subject of this sprawling picaresque novel is the multivalenced notion of heresy, and the ancient Greek definition of the concept ha resin did nai, meaning freedom of choice. This new translation of Filippini's 1990 European success, L'homme encendie, follows the turbulent life of Renaissance poet-philosopher Giordano Bruno. First glimpsed languishing in a dungeon cell seven days before his execution in 1600, Bruno is writing the story of his life. Born in Nola in the Kingdom of Naples in January 1548, Bruno is from the beginning a ""smooth little talker,"" educated by the Church as a thinker rather than a practicing priest. Controversial for his homosexuality and his rethinking of the rules of the universe during the revolutionary ferment provoked by Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler, Bruno quickly provokes the Church's ire for his insistence on freedom of choice in intellectual and religious matters. Though excommunicated and branded a heretic, he is still at liberty to travel, teach and write in secular Europe, and he moves about Italy, France (championed by Montaigne and King Henri III), England (embraced by Sir Philip Sidney, younger brother of Bruno's longtime love, Cecil) and Germany. Aware of the dangers of challenging the Church, Bruno is still surprised when he is arrested in Venice and brought to Rome for trial, perhaps because he believes the power of reason to be stronger than dogma. Intellectually challenging and passionately written, the novel's raw depiction of the battleground of ideas before the dawning of the Enlightenment is rousing, and provides a rich, stimulating drama that will be irresistible to readers of historical, religious or philosophical literature. (Nov.)