The Ash Wednesday Supper

by Giordano Bruno

The book grew out of Bruno's debate with leading scholars in Oxford in early 1584. They immediately realized that Copernicus' theory was for for Bruno merely a means to propagate his own world view and to further the cause of Hermetic reform of which he believed to be the chief Prophet and Magus.

Bruno's acrimonious description of life in the London of the day shows him at his best as a writer and makes his book a valuable source for social history as well. The  translation, which makes available for the first time Bruno's little classic in English, aims at utmost faithfulness to the original texture of Bruno's often hasty prose.

The introduction and Notes will greatly help toward a more realistic appraisal of Bruno's place in the history of science.