It was not Christ but his own soul, wherein he believed the Diety resided, that sustained Bruno at the supreme moment.
[Footnote 119: We may remember that while a novice at Naples, he first got into trouble by keeping the crucifix as the only religious symbol which he respected, when he parted with images of saints.] No cry, no groan, escaped his lips.

Thus, as Scioppius affectedly remarked, 'he perished miserably in flames, and went to report in those other worlds of his imagination, how blasphemous and impious men are handled by the Romans.' Whatever we may think of the good taste of Bruno's sarcasms upon the faith in which he had been bred--and it is certain that he never rightly apprehended Christianity in its essence--there is no doubt he died a valiant martyr to the truth as he conceived it.

'His death like that of Paleario, Carnesecchi, and so many more, no less than countless exiles suffered for religious causes, are a proof that in Italy men had begun to recognize their obligation to a faith, the duty of obedience to a thought: an immense progress, not sufficiently appreciated even by modern historians.'[120] Bruno was a hero in the battle for the freedom of the conscience, for the right of man to think and speak in liberty.[121] [Footnote 120: These pregnant words are in Berti's _Vita di G.B._ p.
299.] [Footnote 121: He well deserves this name, in spite of his recantation at Venice; for it seems incredible that he could not by concessions have purchased his life.

As Breugger wrote with brutal crudity to Kepler: 'What profit did he gain by enduring such torments?
If there were no God to punish crimes, as he believed, could he not have pretended any thing to save his life ?' We may add that the alternative to death for a relapsed apostate was perpetual incarceration; and seven years of prison may well have made Bruno prefer death with honor.] Just five years before this memorable 17th of February, Tasso had passed quietly away in S.Onofrio.

'How dissimilar in genius and fortune,' exclaims Berti, 'were these men, though born under the same skies, though in childhood they breathed the same air! Tasso a Christian and poet of the cross; Bruno hostile to all religious symbols.