Giordano Bruno

Bruno, Giordano (1548–1600), Italian philosopher. A Dominican who was expelled from the order for heresy, he held that the universe was infinite and that there is no absolute truth. He also defended the Copernican hypothesis. His major works were On the Infinite Universe and Worlds and The Infinite (both 1584). Brought to trial by the Inquisition, he refused to recant and was burned at the stake. His ideas later influenced Leibniz and Spinoza, making him an important philosophical influence on early modern science.

See also: Philosophy.