Tommaso Campanella
Tommaso Campanella, original name Giovanni Domenico
Campanella (b. Sept. 5, 1568, Stilo, Kingdom of Naples
[Italy]—d. May 21, 1639, Paris, France), Italian philosopher
and writer who sought to reconcile Renaissance humanism with
Roman Catholic theology. He is best remembered for his
socialistic work La cittą 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.
In prison Campanella
reverted to Roman Catholic orthodoxy and wrote his
celebrated utopian work, La cittą 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.
