He added that when he had threatened Bruno with delation, Bruno replied, first, that he did not believe he would betray his confidence by making private conversation the groundwork of criminal charges; secondly, that the utmost the Inquisition could do, would be to inflict some penance and force him to resume the cowl.

These, which are important assertions, bearing the mark of truth, throw light on his want of caution in dealing with Mocenigo, and explain the attitude he afterwards assumed before the Holy Office.
Mocenigo's accusations in the main yield evidences of sincerity.

They are exactly what we should expect from the distortion of Bruno's doctrines by a mind incapable of comprehending them.

In short, they are as veracious as the image of a face reflected on a spoon.

Certain gross details (the charges, for example, of having called Christ a _tristo_ who was deservedly hung, and of having sneered at the virginity of Mary) may possibly have emanated from the delator's own imagination.[107] [Footnote 107: They remind us of the blasphemies imputed to Christopher Marlowe.] Bruno emphatically repudiated these; though some passages in his philosophical poems, published at Frankfort, contain the substance of their blasphemies.