 The Congregation made a final attempt the same day, sending the Dominican General and the Procurator, two of the most distinguished members of the order that he had deserted almost twenty four years previously, to plead with him, in vain. On 20 January 1600, the Congregation, with Pope Clement VIII presiding, ordered that all of Bruno’s works be placed on the Index of Prohibited Books and that he should be consigned to the secular authorities of Rome for punishment as an impenitent, pertinacious and obstinate heretic. Bruno’s final written deposition, addressed to the pope, “was opened but not read” (Firpo 2000: 471, 475, doc. 65a-b). At dawn on 17 February 1600, he was led out onto the Campo de’ Fiori. With a metal plate clamped over his tongue, Bruno was stripped, tied to a stake and, accompanied by the chants of the Confraternity of the Beheading of St John, burned alive.