Death of Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), Italian philosopher and Dominican priest. Bruno was a supporter of the Copernican view that the Earth revolved around the Sun. He also went beyond this to propose the infinity of space and the multiplicity of worlds. He was a member of the Dominican Order but left in 1576 to travel widely in Europe and air his radical views. He was arrested by the Inquisition in 1592 and, on refusing to recant his unorthodox theories, was burned alive at the stake on 17 February 1600 (Ash Wednesday) in the Campo de' Fiori in Rome, Italy. This illustration by Motty was published in 1884.