that the Earth moved around it. Copernicus – who also invoked Hermes Trismegistus – had restored the correct perception of the order of the cosmos. Bruno thought Copernicus had proved mathematically what Hermeticists already knew but had never been able to prove. At the very least, he reasoned, establishing that the Hermetic philosophy contained demonstrable truths about the cosmos would surely win it more converts.
But Bruno also believed that Copernicus’ work went way beyond vindicating the Hermetic treatises; he considered it as the key to the prophesied new Hermetic age. The fact that Copernicus had presented his proofs when he did was a portent of the coming changes. But not everybody had yet accepted the new system; it was still being hotly debated. If it could be established beyond doubt and enter into the canon of accepted fact, Bruno thought, then this would literally trigger the new age of Hermetic enlightenment. In turn, this would reveal a new way of comprehending the mysteries of creation, that is by using the intellect to obtain otherwise elusive proof of certain Hermetic magicaland philosophical concepts, as summarized by Frances Yates:
The marvellous magical religion of the Egyptians will return, their moral laws will replace the chaos of the present age, the prophecy of the Lament will be fulfilled, and the sign in heaven proclaiming the return of the Egyptian light to dispel the present darkness was … the Copernican sun. 6
Ironically events showed that Bruno was at least half right. Establishing heliocentricity did indeed lead to a revolution that would change academic attitudes to religion, but it was the scientific revolution. The crucial Hermetic philosophy was simply lost along the way. Another cause to Lament.
THE MISSION
It was no accident that Bruno decided to begin his mission in Paris. The city was the perfect place given that the centre of the Renaissance had shifted to France as the sixteenth century unfolded (neatly symbolized by Leonardo da Vinci’s own move to France at the invitation of the king in 1510).
This shift was a consequence of the Catholic Church’s attempts to reverse the damage of the Protestant Reformation , through their Counter-Reformation. This was kicked off by the Council of Trent, initiated by the Pope in 1545 – and which continued for eighteen years – to tighten up and rigidly define Catholic doctrine and practices. One result of the Council was that the Church came to assert greater control over the arts, which included, for example, the banning of non-Christian, and especially pagan, imagery in paintings and sculpture. (No more depictions of Isis and Hermes by popes. Amazingly those in the Appartamento Borgia were allowed to remain.) Theseprohibitions bit more deeply in Italy than in France, where the Church’s real power over French daily life might best be summed up by the timeless Gallic shrug. As the cultural centre of the Renaissance had relocated to Paris, it also became a great centre of Hermeticism, even among Catholic scholars and intellectuals. Both developments owed much to the sophisticated thirst for knowledge of the French court.
Although of course outwardly Catholic, King Henri III of France was a devotee of the occult philosophy. The celebrated poet and chronicler Agrippa d’Aubigné recorded how after swearing him to silence, Henri had revealed a collection of magical treatises he had had brought in from Spain. In this he was only maintaining the family tradition, since his mother was Catherine de’ Medici, the great-granddaughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent. Then in her sixties, she still exerted a powerful influence of her own in Paris. Very much a de’ Medici, like her ancestor the great Cosimo, Catherine was a renowned patron not just of the arts but also of astrologers and magicians. So it was hardly surprising that Henri III, the third of her sons to reign in France, shared her arcane interests.
But Henri was, from