Tommaso Campanella's life reads like a novel: a Dominican friar who plans a revolt against Spanish rule, feigns madness to escape the death penalty, spends almost thirty years in prison writing works of philosophy, then becomes astrological adviser to a pope and dies an exile in Paris under the protection of Cardinal Richelieu. In this extraordinary life natural philosophy, prophecy, political utopia and Renaissance magic are intertwined.
The young rebel friar
Giovan Domenico Campanella was born at Stilo, in Calabria, in 1568, the son of a shoemaker. At fourteen he entered the Dominican order, taking the name Tommaso. He read avidly and became passionate about the philosophy of Bernardino Telesio, who explained nature through the principles of heat and cold, against the authority of Aristotle. In 1591 he published the Philosophia sensibus demonstrata, a defence of Telesio.
His ideas soon brought him before church tribunals: he was tried several times in Naples, Rome and Padua, accused of heterodoxy and suspect practices. In those years he also met Galileo.
The conspiracy of 1599
Back in Calabria, Campanella became convinced, on the basis of astrological signs and prophecies, that the year 1600 would bring great upheavals. He became the spiritual guide of a conspiracy aiming to free Calabria from the Spanish and found a theocratic republic. In 1599 the conspiracy was discovered before it could be carried out and Campanella was arrested.
Accused of rebellion and heresy, he risked the death penalty. To avoid it he feigned madness, because the law did not allow the execution of someone incapable of repentance. To test the pretence he was subjected to an extremely long torture, the so-called "vigil", which he endured without yielding. He escaped death but was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Twenty-seven years in prison
Campanella remained in the prisons of Naples, at times in very harsh conditions, until 1626. In prison he wrote most of his works, including:
- The City of the Sun (written in 1602, published in Latin in 1623);
- On the Sense of Things and on Magic, on the sensitivity spread throughout nature;
- the Apologia pro Galileo (written in 1616, published in 1622), a defence of freedom of scientific inquiry;
- the Metaphysica and numerous philosophical poems.
The City of the Sun
The City of the Sun is a dialogue between a Hospitaller and a Genoese sea captain who had sailed with Columbus, describing an ideal city on an island. The city is built on a hill, with seven circles of walls painted with all the sciences, so that the inhabitants learn by looking at the walls.
Its main features are:
- at the top is a priest-prince called Sun or Metaphysician, assisted by three ministers: Power, Wisdom and Love;
- private property is abolished, as it is considered the source of selfishness;
- work is compulsory for everyone but limited to a few hours a day;
- life is regulated by astrology, which also decides the most favourable moments for important actions.
The work belongs to the utopian genre inaugurated by Thomas More, but it has a more markedly religious and cosmic character: the city mirrors the order of the heavens.
The rites with Urban VIII
Released in 1626 and transferred to Rome, Campanella came into contact with Pope Urban VIII, who feared the eclipses that astrologers announced as omens of his death. The historian D. P. Walker reconstructed how, around 1628, Campanella performed rites with the pope to neutralise the harmful influences: they shut themselves in a sealed room, sprinkled it with vinegars and perfumes, lit torches representing the planets and listened to Jovial and Venereal music.
The instructions are described in the booklet De siderali fato vitando, published in 1629 without the author's consent. The episode is a remarkable example of Ficinian natural and astral magic practised at the very top of the Church.
Exile and death
The accusations against him did not cease, and in 1634, fearing a new arrest, Campanella fled to France. In Paris he was received with honour and granted a pension by Louis XIII and Richelieu. In 1638 he greeted the birth of the future Louis XIV with an eclogue predicting a glorious reign. He died in Paris, in the Dominican convent on the rue Saint-Honoré, in 1639.
In short
- Tommaso Campanella (1568-1639) was a Calabrian Dominican friar and a follower of Telesio's natural philosophy.
- After the conspiracy of 1599 he feigned madness and spent about twenty-seven years in prison.
- In prison he wrote The City of the Sun, the utopia of a city governed by the order of the heavens.
- In Rome he performed astrological rites with Urban VIII, and he died an exile in Paris.
