A Dominican head in layman's garb : A correction to the scientific iconography of Giordano Bruno

The scientific iconography of Giordano Bruno shows him with a Dominican cowl but not tonsured. This article argues that Bruno is likely to have continued to use a tonsure from the time he left his monastery in Naples in 1576 at least to the time he arrived in Geneva in 1579.There is reason to believe that he may have continued to wear a tonsure even after that time. His use of the tonsure indicates his continued religious attachment. This argument portrays Bruno as a Catholic dissenter, quite the contrary to what his eighteenth- and nineteenth-century scientific portraiture would lead one to believe.