ch he published in
Toulouse, "De Anima" and "De Clavis Magis," were lost.

The title of Doctor, or as he said himself, "Maestro delle Arti," which
Bruno had obtained at Toulouse, gave him the faculty of teaching
publicly in Paris, and he says: "I went to Paris, where I set myself to
read a most unusual lecture, in order to make myself known and to
attract attention." He gave thirty lectures on the thirty Divine
attributes, dividing and distributing them according to the method of
St. Thomas Aquinas: these lectures excited much attention amongst the
scholars of the Sorbonne, who went in crowds to hear him; and he
introduced, as usual, his own ideas while apparently teaching the
doctrines of St. Thomas. His extraordinary memory and his eloquence
caused great astonishment; and the fame of Bruno reached the ears of
King Henry III., who sent for him to the Court, and being filled with
admiration of his learning, he offered him a substantial subsidy.

During his stay at Paris, although he was much at Court, he spent many
hours in his study, writing the works that he afterwards published.

Philosophical questions were discussed at the Sorbonne with much
freedom: Bruno showed himself no partisan of either the Platonic or the
Peripatetic school; he was not exclusive either in philosophy or in
religion; he did not favour the Huguenot faction more than the Catholic
league; and precisely by reason of this independent attitude, which kept
him free of the shackles of the sects, did he obtain the faculty of
lecturing at the Sorbonne. Nor can we ascribe this aloofness to
religious indifference, but to the fact that he sought for higher things
and longed for nobler ones. The humiliating spectacle which the positive
religions, both Catholic and Reformed, presented at that time--the
hatreds, the civil wars, the assassinations which they instigated--had
disgusted men of noble mould, and had turned them against these
so-called religions; so that in Naples, in Tuscany, in Venice, in
Switzerland, France, and England, there were to be found societies of
philosophers, of free-thinkers, and politicians, who repudiated every
positive religion and professed a pure Theism.

In the "Spaccio della Bestia Trionfante" he declares that he cannot ally
himself either to the Catholic or the Lutheran Church, because he
professes a more pure and complete faith than these--to wit, the love of
humanity and the love of wisdom; and Mocenigo, the disciple who