Editing Giordano Bruno (section)

===A martyr of science===
{{See also|Conflict thesis}}
Some authors have characterized Bruno as a "martyr of science", suggesting parallels with the [[Galileo affair]] which began around 1610.<ref>[https://archive.org/stream/popularsciencemo0712newy#page/110/mode/2up ''"Giordano Bruno and Galileo Galilei,"''] The Popular Science Monthly, Supplement, 1878.</ref> "It should not be supposed," writes A. M. Paterson of Bruno and his "heliocentric solar system", that he "reached his conclusions via some mystical revelation&nbsp;... His work is an essential part of the scientific and philosophical developments that he initiated."<ref>Antoinette Mann Paterson (1970). ''The Infinite Worlds of Giordano Bruno''. Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, Illinois, 1970, p.&nbsp;16.</ref> Paterson echoes [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|Hegel]] in writing that Bruno "ushers in a modern theory of knowledge that understands all natural things in the universe to be known by the human mind through the mind's dialectical structure".<ref>Paterson, p.&nbsp;61.</ref>

Ingegno writes that Bruno embraced the philosophy of [[Lucretius]], "aimed at liberating man from the fear of death and the gods."{{sfn|Bruno|1998|loc="Introduction"}} Characters in Bruno's ''Cause, Principle and Unity'' desire "to improve speculative science and knowledge of natural things," and to achieve a philosophy "which brings about the perfection of the human intellect most easily and eminently, and most closely corresponds to the truth of nature."{{sfn|Bruno|1998|p=63}}

Other scholars oppose such views, and claim Bruno's martyrdom to science to be exaggerated, or outright false. For Yates, while "nineteenth century liberals" were thrown "into ecstasies" over Bruno's Copernicanism, "Bruno pushes Copernicus' scientific work back into a prescientific stage, back into Hermeticism, interpreting the Copernican diagram as a hieroglyph of divine mysteries."{{sfn|Yates|1964|p=225}}

According to historian Mordechai Feingold, "Both admirers and critics of Giordano Bruno basically agree that he was pompous and arrogant, highly valuing his opinions and showing little patience with anyone who even mildly disagreed with him." Discussing Bruno's experience of rejection when he visited Oxford University, Feingold suggests that "it might have been Bruno's manner, his language and his self-assertiveness, rather than his ideas" that caused offence.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Feingold|first1=Mordechai|title=Occult and scientific mentalities in the Renaissance|last2=Vickers|first2=Brian|year=1984|pages=73–94|doi=10.1017/CBO9780511572999.004|isbn=978-0511572999}}</ref>