Tommaso Campanella

Tommaso Campanella (born Sept. 5, 1568, Stilo, Kingdom of Naples [Italy]—died May 21, 1639, Paris, France) was an Italian philosopher and writer who sought to reconcile Renaissance humanism with Roman Catholic theology. He is best remembered for his socialistic work La città del sole (1602; “The City of the Sun”), written while he was a prisoner of the Spanish crown (1599–1626).

Entering the Dominican order in 1583, at which time he adopted the name Tommaso, he was influenced by the work of Italian philosopher Bernardino Telesio, an opponent of Scholastic Aristotelianism. Without permission from his order, Campanella went in 1589 to Naples, where his Philosophia sensibus demonstrata (1591; “Philosophy Demonstrated by the Senses”) was published. Reflecting Telesio’s concern for an empirical approach to philosophy, it stressed the necessity for human experience as a basis for philosophy. The work resulted in his arrest, trial, and brief imprisonment for heresy. On his release, he went to Padua, where he was arrested, charged with sodomy (1593), acquitted, and then charged with having engaged a Jew in a debate over matters of Christian faith. Sent to Rome for trial, he renounced in 1596 the heresy of which he had been accused.

Campanella’s interest in pragmatism and in political reform were already evident in such early writings as De monarchia Christianorum (1593; “On Christian Monarchy”) and Dialogo politico contra Luterani, Calvinisti ed altri eretici (1595; “Political Dialogue Against Lutherans, Calvinists, and Other Heretics”), in which he asserted that sinful humanity can be regenerated through a religious reformation founded on establishment of a universal ecclesiastical empire. These abstractions yielded to a more limited, though still utopian, plan of reform after his return to Stilo in 1598, where the misery of the people moved him deeply. In accordance with this plan, Campanella became in 1599 the spiritual leader of a plot to overthrow Spanish rule in Calabria. The plot was discovered, and he was arrested and taken to Naples. Forced under torture to confess his leadership in the plot, he feigned madness to escape death and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

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Philosophy 101

In prison Campanella reverted to Roman Catholic orthodoxy and wrote his celebrated utopian work, La città del sole. His ideal commonwealth was to be governed by men enlightened by reason, with every man’s work designed to contribute to the good of the community. Private property, undue wealth, and poverty would be nonexistent, for no man would be permitted more than he needed.

During Campanella’s prison term of 27 years, he also wrote lyric poems, of which only a few survive—in Scelta (1622; “Selections”). Considered by some critics to be the most original poetry in Italian literature of the period, the collection includes madrigals, sonnets, conventional love poems, and metaphysical hymns. His Metafisica (1638) expounds his theory of metaphysics based on a trinitarian structure of power, wisdom, and love. In the 30 books of the Theologia (1613–14), he reconsidered Roman Catholic doctrines in the light of his metaphysical theory.

One month after his release in 1626, Campanella was imprisoned in Rome on charges of heresy. He used flattery and his reputation as an astrologer to gain the favour of Pope Urban VIII, and he was freed in 1629. He tried in vain to get his new ideas accepted by Rome, but discovery of his complicity in an anti-Spanish plot in Naples in 1634 caused him to flee to France, where he was welcomed by King Louis XIII and Cardinal de Richelieu.