Bruno therefore did not stay long in Geneva, which was the headquarters of the Calvinists. Even in Wittenberg, where he was very well received, while admiring the attitude of the great Reformer Luther, who a few years before had been the foremost figure in the great struggle with the Roman Catholic Church, known as the Reformation, he by no means sympathized with the teaching of Protestantism. On the contrary, he referred to the German Reformers, when he was before the Inquisition in Venice, in the following way: "I regard them as more ignorant than I am; I despise them and their doctrine. They do not deserve the name of theologians but of pedants."
Before we follow the wandering philosopher on his travels, let us try to understand a little of what he thought himself. He was not, as he was accused of being, just a blasphemous atheist who went about offending the religious feelings of all with whom he came in contact. He was not a rude, untutored sceptic or disbeliever who shocked people by laughing at their beliefs. He did not merely indulge in abuse and spiteful criticism. Though this is the view which was spread about him by many of his contemporaries and taught about him for many years after his death, nothing could be further from the truth. Giordano Bruno was extremely spiritual-minded. So far was he from being an atheist (which would have been just as narrow and dogmatic a point of view as that of any of the other extremes), he saw God everywhere
