 The question of whether Bruno’s philosophy was pantheistic preoccupied nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholars. Most concluded, often ruefully, that his God remained theistic and retained, even if only minimally, an element of the transcendental. Regrettably, therefore, he could not be declared unequivocally the founder of modern philosophy, the precursor of Spinoza and Hegel. During his trial Bruno himself, hoping to reassure his inquisitors, emphasized the theistic features of his philosophy. Divine Providence was twofold. It was present in all things, animating them “in the manner that the soul was present in the body … and this I call Nature, the shadow and vestige of the Divinity”. It was also in essence, existence and power “in everything and above everything, not as a part, not as a soul, but in an inexplicable way” (Firpo 2000, 67, 303). In his works, too, he emphasized that God governed over all things providentially. Whether his philosophy is pantheistic depends, needless to say, on how we define the term. It shares with Stoicism, which is conventionally considered pantheist, the view that there was a providential principle, God, operating within the universe, that was more than just the sum of its parts. Nor does Bruno’s view differ radically from Spinoza’s distinction between God as natura naturans and the universe as natura naturata, a distinction, incidentally, that Bruno knew in its original medieval formulation but did not avail himself of (BOI I, 702). Indeed, it might be argued that Bruno’s philosophy is more authentically “pantheist” than Spinoza’s, given that the term implies that the cosmos or universe is divine. Bruno’s philosophy, unlike Spinoza’s (Nadler 2016, §2.1), makes this claim in no uncertain terms. The universe as the embodiment of God was an object of awe, veneration and aesthetic delight (BOI I, 453–456; BOL I.1, 203).