Tamburlaine and the mad priest of the sun

Abstract

The possible influence of Giordano Bruno on Christopher Marlowe has for long been a subject of speculation. In Marlowe, Tamburlaine, and Magic J.R. Howe argued that Marlowe had been influenced by Bruno in depicting Tamburlaine as a 'magus' figure, while more recently Hilary Gatti has argued for signs of Bruno's influence in Faustus. The most recent suggestions come from Charles Nicholl's account of Marlowe's murder, where new evidence is presented linking the Italian and the Englishman. Quoting this well-known passage from Robert Greene's Perimedes the Blacksmith, where Green refers to 'that atheist Tamburlan', Nicholl argues that, in addition to references to Marlowe, the passage contains a reference to Bruno: I . . . had it in derision, for that I could not make my verses jet upon the stage in tragicall buskins, everie worde filling the mouth like the farburden of Bo-Bell, daring God out of heaven with that Atheist Tamburlan, or blaspheming with the mad preest of the sonne: but let me rather openly pocket up the Asse at Diogenes hand: then wantonlye set out such impious instances of intolerable poetrie: such mad and scoffing poets, that have propheticall spirits, as bred of Merlin's race; if there be anye in England that set the end of scollarisme in an English blanck verse, I thinke either it is the humor of a novice that tickles them with selfe-love, or to much frequenting the hot house ... hath swet out all the greatest part of their wits ...