Thomas Campanella
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Tommaso Campanella (; 5 September 1568 – 21 May 1639), baptized Giovanni Domenico Campanella, was an Italian Dominican friar,
philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
, theologian,
astrologer Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. Dif ...
, and poet. He was prosecuted by the Roman Inquisition for heresy in 1594 and was confined to house arrest for two years. Accused of conspiring against the Spanish rulers of
Calabria , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...
in 1599, he was tortured and sent to prison, where he spent 27 years. He wrote his most significant works during this time, including '' The City of the Sun'', a utopia describing an egalitarian theocratic society where property is held in common.


Biography

Born into poverty in Stilo, in the province of Reggio di Calabria in
Calabria , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...
, southern Italy, Campanella was a
child prodigy A child prodigy is defined in psychology research literature as a person under the age of ten who produces meaningful output in some domain at the level of an adult expert. The term is also applied more broadly to young people who are extraor ...
. Son of an illiterate cobbler, he entered the Dominican Order before the age of fourteen,Ernst, Germana, "Tommaso Campanella", ''The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy''
(Fall 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
taking the name of fra' Tommaso in honour of Thomas Aquinas. He studied theology and philosophy with several masters. Early on, he became disenchanted with the Aristotelian orthodoxy and attracted by the
empiricism In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological theory that holds that knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience. It is one of several views within epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empir ...
of Bernardino Telesio (1509–1588), who taught that knowledge is sensation and that all things in nature possess sensation. Campanella wrote his first work, ''Philosophia sensibus demonstrata'' ("Philosophy demonstrated by the senses"), published in 1592, in defence of Telesio. In 1590 he was in Naples where he was initiated in astrology; astrological speculations would become a constant feature in his writings. Campanella's heterodox views, especially his opposition to the authority of Aristotle, brought him into conflict with the ecclesiastical authorities. Denounced to the Roman Inquisition, he was arrested in Padua in 1594 and cited before the Holy Office in Rome, he was confined in a convent until 1597."Tommaso Campanella (1568-1639)", The Galileo Project, Rice University
/ref> After his liberation, Campanella returned to Calabria, where he was accused of leading a conspiracy against the Spanish rule in his hometown of Stilo. Campanella's aim was to establish a society based on the community of goods and wives, for on the basis of the prophecies of Joachim of Fiore and his own astrological observations, he foresaw the advent of the Age of the Spirit in the year 1600. Betrayed by two of his fellow conspirators, he was captured in 1599 and incarcerated in Naples, where he was tortured on the rack. Even from the confinement of the jail, Campanella managed to influence the intellectual history of the early seventeenth century, by maintaining epistolary contacts with European philosophers and scientists, Neapolitan cultural circles, and Caravaggio's commissioners. Finally, Campanella made a full confession and would have been put to death had he not feigned madness and set his cell on fire. He was tortured further, a total of seven times. Crippled and ill, Campanella was sentenced to life imprisonment. Campanella spent twenty-seven years imprisoned in Naples, in various fortresses. During his detention, he wrote his most important works: ''The Monarchy of Spain'' (1600), ''Political Aphorisms'' (1601), ''Atheismus triumphatus'' (''
Atheism Conquered ''Atheism Conquered'' ( la, Atheismus Triumphatus) is a philosophical work by the Italian Dominican philosopher Tommaso Campanella. Campanella wrote ''Atheism Conquered'' in 1606–1607 in Italian, under the title of ''Recognoscimento della vera ...
'', 1605–1607), ''Quod reminiscetur'' (1606?), ''Metafisica'' (1609–1623), ''Theologia'' (1613–1624), and his most famous work, '' The City of the Sun'' (originally written in Italian in 1602; published in Latin in Frankfurt (1623) and later in Paris (1638). He defended Galileo Galilei in Galileo's first trial with his work ''The Defense of Galileo'' (written in 1616, published in 1622). In 1632, before Galileo's second trial, Campanella wrote to Galileo:
To my great disgust I have heard that wrathful theologians of the Congregation aim to prohibit the Dialogues of Your Excellency, and hatno one will be present who understands mathematics or recondite things. Be aware that while Your Excellency does state that it was appropriate to prohibit the theory of the earth's motion, you are not obliged to believe that the reasons of those who contradicted you are good. This is a theological rule, and is proved by the second Council of Nicaea which decreed that ''Angelorum imagines depingi debent, quam‘am vere corporei sunt'' (Images of angels must be depicted as they are in the flesh): while the decree is valid, the reasoning behind it is not, since all scholars today say angels are incorporeal. There are many other fundamental reasons. I fear violence from people who do not understand this. Our Pope makes a lot of noise against this and speaks as the Pope, but you haven't heard about that, nor can think about it. In my opinion Your Excellency should write to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, that since they are putting Dominicans, Jesuits, Theatines, and secular priests who are against your books in this council, they should also admit Father Castelli and me.
Campanella was finally released from prison in 1626, through
Pope Urban VIII Pope Urban VIII ( la, Urbanus VIII; it, Urbano VIII; baptised 5 April 1568 – 29 July 1644), born Maffeo Vincenzo Barberini, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 6 August 1623 to his death in July 1644. As po ...
, who personally interceded on his behalf with Philip IV of Spain. Taken to Rome and held for a time by the Holy Office, Campanella was restored to full liberty in 1629 as Urban badly needed Campanella's magical skills to protect him from the dangers of two upcoming eclipses. The Pope's enemies thought they could take advantage of his credulity, and they confidently predicted that the eclipses in 1628 and 1630 surely heralded the Pope's demise. Campanella put into effect the natural magic practices described in his short treatise ''De siderali fato vitando'' (How To Avoid the Fate Dictated by the Stars). Campanella's magic worked and the Pope survived. In return the latter allowed the magician to set up a school in Rome to preach his ideas, while ignoring his blatant heresies.He lived for five years in Rome, where he was Urban's advisor in astrological matters. In 1634, a new conspiracy in Calabria, led by one of his followers, threatened fresh troubles. With the aid of
Cardinal Barberini The House of Barberini are a family of the Italian nobility that rose to prominence in 17th century Rome. Their influence peaked with the election of Cardinal Maffeo Barberini to the papal throne in 1623, as Pope Urban VIII. Their urban palac ...
and the French Ambassador de Noailles, he fled to France, where he was received at the court of Louis XIII with marked favour. Protected by
Cardinal Richelieu Armand Jean du Plessis, Duke of Richelieu (; 9 September 1585 – 4 December 1642), known as Cardinal Richelieu, was a French clergyman and statesman. He was also known as ''l'Éminence rouge'', or "the Red Eminence", a term derived from the ...
and granted a pension by the king, he spent the rest of his days in the convent of Saint-Honoré in Paris. His last work was a poem celebrating the birth of the future Louis XIV (''Ecloga in portentosam Delphini nativitatem''). Campanella's ''De sensu rerum et magia'' (1620) partly inspired the first fully-fledged
it-narrative The novel of circulation, otherwise known as the it-narrative, or object narrative, is a genre of novel common at one time in British literature, and follows the fortunes of an object, for example a coin, that is passed around between different ow ...
in English, Charles Gildon's ''The Golden Spy'' (1709).J. Wu, " 'Nobilitas sola est atq; unica Virtus': Spying and the Politics of Virtue in ''The Golden Spy; or, A Political Journal of the British Nights Entertainments'' (1709)", ''Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies'' 40:2 (2017), 237-253 doi: 10.1111/1754-0208.12412


Works

* ''Philosophia sensibus demonstrata'', 1591 * ''Monarchia Messiae'', 1605 * ''Prodromus philosophiae instaurandae'', 1617 * * ''La città del sole'', 1602 (Latin ''Civitas solis'', 1623) * ''Atheismus triumphatus'', 1631, Paris 1636 * * * * * Campanella, Tommaso – Apologia pro Galileo, 1622 – BEIC 1235148.jpg, ''Apologia pro Galileo'', 1622


See also

* Utopian and dystopian fiction *
Millennialism Millennialism (from millennium, Latin for "a thousand years") or chiliasm (from the Greek equivalent) is a belief advanced by some religious denominations that a Golden Age or Paradise will occur on Earth prior to the final judgment and future ...


Notes


References

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External links

* * * *
Peter Forshaw (2010)
'Astrology, Ritual and Revolution in the Works of Tommaso Campanella (1568-1639)'. * Works in English translations *
''The City of the Sun''
A Poetical Dialogue between a Grandmaster of the Knights Hospitallers and a Genoese Sea-Captain, his guest. Translated to English by editor Henry Morley, Project Gutenberg. *
City of the Sun
(text derived from Ideal Commonwealths, P.F. Collier & Son, New York. 1901. Displayed by eBooks@Adelaide University of Adelaide Library, South Australia) *
''Ideal Commonwealths''
Contains excerpts from ''City of the Sun'' and short biography, by Editor: Henry Morley, Professor of English Literature at University College, London; Fifth Edition, 1890, Project Gutenberg. *
''Sonnets of Michelangelo Buonarrotti and Tommaso Campanella
1878; translated into Rhymed English, by
John Addington Symonds John Addington Symonds, Jr. (; 5 October 1840 – 19 April 1893) was an English poet and literary critic. A cultural historian, he was known for his work on the Renaissance, as well as numerous biographies of writers and artists. Although m ...
, author of ''Renaissance in Italy''. {{DEFAULTSORT:Campanella 1568 births 1639 deaths People from Stilo Italian philosophers 16th-century Italian Roman Catholic theologians Italian male writers Italian astrologers 16th-century astrologers 17th-century astrologers Italian Dominicans Authors of utopian literature 16th-century Italian writers 16th-century male writers 17th-century Italian writers 17th-century male writers 17th-century Italian philosophers Italian expatriates in France Critics of atheism Proto-socialists 17th-century Italian Roman Catholic theologians 16th-century socialists