The sculptor,
Ettore Ferrari, would later become the
Grand master of the
Grande Oriente d'Italia, the
Masonic jurisdiction of Italy. Masons had strongly supported the removal of
Papal rule of Rome, and its incorporation into either a republic or the
unification of Italy under the Piedmontese Savoyard monarchy. His other sculptures include a monument in
Rovigo dedicated to
Giuseppe Garibaldi, who fought for Italian independence. On 20 April 1884,
Pope Leo XIII published the encyclical
Humanum genus. Soon after, the
Freemasons decided to create a statue of the
pantheist Giordano Bruno. The monument was funded with private donations, mainly a subscription started by students at the
University of Rome, and the national councils of state did not prevent its erection. The council of the commune of Rome approve on 10 December 1888, by vote of 36 to 13, the location of the monument to Campo di Fiori. There was strong opposition by the Catholic church against what was viewed as an
offense against religion. The statue was unveiled on 9 June 1889, at the site where Bruno was burnt at the stake for heresy on 17 February 1600, and the radical politician
Giovanni Bovio gave a speech surrounded by about 100 Masonic flags. Since thousands of individuals and students aligned with anticlerical movements had congregated in Rome for the unveiling, the Vatican had closed the museum and warned local churches and parishes to shutter their doors to avoid confrontations or incidents from what they considered an atheistic mob. In October 1890, Pope Leo XIII issued a further warning to Italy in his encyclical
Ab Apostolici against Freemasonry; he commented on the monument in the following passage: that eminently sectarian work, the erection of the monument to the renowned apostate of Nola, which, with the aid and favour of the government, was promoted, determined, and carried out by means of Freemasonry, whose most authorised spokesmen were not ashamed to acknowledge its purpose and to declare its meaning. Its purpose was to insult the Papacy; its meaning that, instead of the Catholic Faith, must now be substituted the most absolute freedom of examination, of criticism, of thought, and of conscience: and what is meant by such language in the mouth of the sects is well known. ==Present day==