The Latin Works of Giordano Bruno

...but a deceptive sense suggests that it moves. This sun rises for that part of the rotating earth rotating earth: "terræ girantis." Bruno was a passionate early supporter of the idea that the Earth moves, which was a radical and dangerous idea in the late 16th century. exposed to it: yet at the same time, it sets for the part situated otherwise. The same sun apparently circles the horizons which they call arctic through the differences of right and left; yet to no others does it seem to traverse the upper and lower arc.

This sun appears larger to one occupying the high point of the earth's circuit: but to one holding the lowest point (as being further distant from it), it appears smaller. In some portions of the semicircuit it withdraws slowly; but in others, it is absent swiftly. To one on the earth leaning toward the South, the sun becomes more Northern: but to one hurrying toward the North, it is made to appear more Southern. To those having a straight horizon original: "Rectum... Orizonta." Referring to those at the equator where the sun's path is perpendicular to the horizon., it receives its width into equal scales on either side; but to those holding an oblique one, it falls into unequal ones.

The same sun grants darkness perpetually measured against the light to those inhabiting the space between the two middle parallels of this mass The region between the Tropics.: but to others, it does so only for a defined time. If the divine earth, nourishing us on her back, should cast our face toward it, she will obtain for us its oblique rays: but for those whose crown of the head she has placed directly beneath it, she obtains straight rays.

Certain bodies of the world moved near to it—which many understand to be living beings and gods original: "animalia deòsque." Bruno believed the planets and stars were giant living animals or "star-gods" swimming through an infinite ether. second only to the one prince—receive light from its peak or apogee (as they call it); while others have it in the opposite position, or in the middle latitudes and intervals. Of this same whole, the moon (which many philosophers understand to be another earth) receives free light in its hemisphere turned toward the sun: but this [our earth], by the interposition of its globe, shows to that same sun a saddened, shadowed face on the moon's opposite hemisphere.

Therefore, the Sun remains and persists as one and the same perpetually; yet to different people, and to those situated in different ways...