[Serious] Giordano Bruno

[Belacqua]

Should they have burned him?

No.

Should we lie about it? 

No.

I don't think it's a lie so much as an error (not all untrue statements qualify as lies).  It isn't as if there's some vast, nefarious conspiracy to paint Bruno as something other than what he was. People are simply lazy in general, and regarding historical accuracy in particular.  It's never a bad idea to set the record straight (tip o' the hat to you for doing it), but this is really a tempest in a tea pot, like George Washington's wooden teeth or Dick Whittington's cat.

Bruno may not have been a martyr to science, but he was certainly a martyr to freethought.

Boru

he was certainly a martyr to freethought.

Was he? 

If he had stayed in any part of Europe other than Italy, he'd have been fine. He was under no threat at Oxford, for example, though they were annoyed with him for plagiarizing people. 

If he'd expressed all his ideas in such a way that didn't call for the overthrow of the existing church, he'd have been fine. 

If he'd expressed ideas about a non-geocentric infinite universe with people on other planets without calling for the overthrow of the church, he'd have been fine. Nicholas of Cusa did all of these things a century before Bruno, and was made a Cardinal. 

Free thought is a lot more likely to be tolerated if you don't go to the center of power and poke your thumb in their eye. Was it the thought that got him in trouble, or was it the deliberate challenge to power?

Again, in my personal opinion burning is not appropriate for expressing a desire to overthrow the institutions of power. But autres temps, autres moeurs.