From the Foreword by Thomas Keneally:

"Bruno was that perilous thing, a free spirit, and suffered death for his right to certain concepts. I knew from conversations with Morris that Giordano Bruno was a soul mate, someone with whose life history Morris identified, even though Morris possessed a somewhat less strident temperament than Brunos. "Failed priest," as Morris has Bruno declare in this tale, "fugitive monk, magus with a box of conjuring tricks, boaster, prevaricator, would-be torchbearer trudging through his own darkness, garrulous in dialogue, viperous in debate."