Ethics

The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast

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Giordano Bruno

1584

The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast is Bruno's most satirical and politically charged work: a dialogue in which Jove calls a council of the gods to expel the vices that have usurped the constellations of heaven and replace them with virtues. The allegory is a vehicle for Bruno's wide-ranging critique of contemporary religion, morality, and politics — attacking pedantry, hypocrisy, religious persecution, and the abuse of ecclesiastical authority. Bruno celebrates a natural religion grounded in reason, virtue, and the laws of nature rather than in revealed scripture or institutional Church authority. The work draws on Hermetic and magical traditions, on Cicero and classical moral philosophy, and on a deep hostility to Calvinist Geneva that Bruno had experienced directly during a disastrous visit in 1579. It is the most politically dangerous of his dialogues and the one that contributed most directly to his eventual condemnation.