ON THE EXISTENCE OF THE MINIMUM, BOOK I

This section is written in Latin hexameter, a style of epic poetry. Bruno uses verse to elevate his philosophical arguments to the level of a cosmic epic.

To raise up through the ages one who has professed such better things,
And from whatever vein God has ordered to arise;
Now I shall begin to sing. The MINIMUM is the substance—
And you will find that very same thing, in the end, to be great above all else.
From this comes the monad monas; the fundamental unit of being, representing both the number one and the metaphysical unity of God, from this the atom, and from this the Spirit
poured out everywhere, consisting in no bulk or mass, but
constituting all things by its own signs; it is the whole essence,
if you look closely at things, this is what it is at last, and the matter itself.
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Since the minimum integrates all things in such a way that
if it is not laid as a foundation, not a shred of anything else will exist.
Let there be no monad, and there will be no numbers:
For it constitutes the species, establishing every genus.
Therefore, in all things, it is the first foundation, from which
God, and Nature the mother, and Art original: "ars"; here meaning human skill or science that imitates nature highly unfold
that which persists above every genus, and that which is in every genus.
Therefore it is celebrated as constant in all things, and upon this foundation
it encloses the finite, and permeates the wide infinite,
effecting, binding, integrating, and propagating
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whatever is composite, and whatever simple thing is created,
hanging from an immense age: because all the greatest things
are from the minimum, in the minimum, toward the minimum, and through the minimum.
This, Nature the mother, and the handmaid-order of Art,
set down when composing, and into this they resolve when observing:

The point is given first; wherefore the whole substance is here in those letters.
Not otherwise is the first simple substance of things,
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the smallest body for all bodies, which all things eventually
reach when dissolved. Nothing disagrees in this one point.