ambassadors' letters is so far void. No pretence is made of
tracing Bruno anywhere after February, 1600.
Since the foregoing note appeared in the first edition I have
met with the essay of Mr. R. Copley Christie, "Was Giordano
Bruno Really Burned?" (Macmillan's Magazine, October, 1885;
rep. in Mr. Christie's Selected Essays and Papers, 1902). This
is a crushing answer to the thesis of M. Desdouits, showing as
it does clear grounds not only for affirming the genuineness
of the letter of Scioppius, but for doubting the diligence
of M. Desdouits. Mr. Christie points out (1) that in his book
Ecclesiasticus, printed in 1612, Scioppius refers to the burning of
Bruno almost in the words of his letter of 1600; (2) that in 1607
Kepler wrote to a correspondent of the burning of Bruno, giving as
his authority J. M. Wacker, who in 1600 was living at Rome as the
imperial ambassador; and (3) that the tract Machiavellizatio, 1621,
in which the letter of Scioppius was first printed, was well known
in its day, being placed on the Index, and answered by two writers
without eliciting any repudiation from Scioppius, who lived till