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    The City of the Sun
    The City of the Sun
    The City of the Sun
    Ebook79 pages1 hour

    The City of the Sun

    By Tommaso Campanella

    3.5/5

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateJan 1, 1981
    Author

    Tommaso Campanella

    Tommaso Campanella (1568-1639) was an Italian philosopher, poet, astrologer, and Dominican friar. Born Giovanni Domenico Campanella in Calabria, he was the son of a cobbler. At fourteen, he entered the Dominican Order and took the name Tommaso after Thomas Aquinas. His early studies in theology and philosophy led him to the empiricism of Bernardino Telesio, a prominent Italian scientist of the sixteenth century. By 1590, Campanella was studying astrology in Naples, where he gained a reputation for heterodoxy and faced persecution during the Roman Inquisition. Arrested in Padua in 1594, he spent several years in confinement at a Roman convent before earning his freedom and returning to his native Calabria. In 1599, he was imprisoned and tortured for his role in a conspiracy against Spanish rule in the town of Stilo. Campanella eventually confessed and was incarcerated in Naples for twenty-seven years, during which time he composed such works as The Monarchy in Spain (1600), Political Aphorisms (1601), and The City of the Sun (1602). This last title, originally written in Italian and later translated into Latin by the author, is considered an important example of utopian fiction in which Campanella describes the traditions and organization of an egalitarian society. Released from prison in 1626, he fled to France in 1634 when one of his followers was implicated in a new Calabrian conspiracy. His final years were spent in Paris, where he earned the support of King Louis XIII and was protected by Cardinal Richelieu.

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    Reviews for The City of the Sun

    3.5/5

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    • 2/5
      This book is a curious time capsule. A look at what somebody at the turn of the 17th century might think of as the perfect society, although I'm nowhere near knowledgeable enough to say how common these views really were. Skimming Campanella's wikipedia page tells me he was imprisoned by the Catholic church, but he did have some co-conspirators, so I guess fringe but still around?

      Campanella's communist, theocratic, sexist, eugenicist, "utopian" society of philosopher-warrior-artists strikes a modern reader as naive and infantile at best, deeply disgusting at worst, but the depth to which he describes every aspect of this society offers some interest. Unfortunately the material is drier than it needs to be. There are no characters to latch onto, no narrative, nothing about how the narrator felt upon discovering this society, just a long description of how every aspect of it is organized as if a teacher were giving a lecture.

      The grand-master he's having a conversation with is completely unnecessary and adds nothing to the conversation except a "do please go on, tell me how they do X," every time the story shifts to a new topic. The book would be better without him, because having him there but doing nothing makes the missed opportunity for real argument and conflict (and thus some actual narrative tension) all the more apparent. It's far too obvious that Campanella is simply preaching his personal philosophy to the reader and the grand-master character could've been an excuse to play devil's advocate with a conflicting viewpoint.

      For a fun drinking game, take a shot anytime the narrator says, "and so on." If anyone survives the resultant alcohol poisoning and stomach pumping I'd love to hear about it.
    • 4/5
      [The City of the Sun, Tommaso Campanella]Published in 1623 over one hundred years later than Thomas More's Utopia this tract gets right down to the business of outlining the social, cultural and political conditions that would be inherent in Campanella's Sun City. It is described as a poetical dialogue between a grandmaster of the knights Hospitallers and a Genoese Sea Captain and is basically a method for allowing Campanella to produce a blue print for his Utopia. There is no story line it is just reportage by the Sea Captain who has visited the land of The City of the Sun. It follows some similar lines to More's Utopia and was plundered unmercifully by John Cleves Symmes in his [Symzonia: A voyage of discovery]The City of the Sun like many Utopias seems to be a communist state, there is no private ownership and the system aims to provide for everyone according to his/her needs. There is no cult of individualism as everyone subsumes their individuality for the good of the state. There is a system of birth control that ensures healthy, intelligent, astrologically favoured offspring. The people are ruled and judged by those considered the most able to do so and there is no slave labour.Education is considered of prime importance and the concentric walls that surround the city are painted with murals so that the young can be educated, All knowledge gained is depicted on the walls with explanations and diagrams where necessary, there are also examples of metals, textiles, plants and herbs etc : all that would be required to provide a complete education. Everybody is trained in the martial arts, women as well as men and they are all so proficient that the never lose a war. They have infiltrated the rest of the known world in order to gain knowledge.This is an extreme Utopia and one where human nature is hardly considered at all and so the surprising thing is Campanella believed it could work. He was a Dominican and known for his prodigious learning, he was also drawn towards astrology and magic. He put himself at the head of a popular uprising and was imprisoned and tortured by the Inquisition. He spent 27 years in prison chained hand and foot for the most part and on his release he went to Paris where he made the same proposals for his City of the Sun to Richelieu. He of course never got to put his proposals into practice, but the document that has come down to us today provides us with an entertaining read. I read the version that is free at Project Gutenberg, which is presented in modernised English. Difficult to rate, but because of its readability and historicity; I would rate it at 3.5 stars

    Book preview

    The City of the Sun - Tommaso Campanella

    The Project Gutenberg EBook of The City of the Sun, by Tommaso Campanella

    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

    almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or

    re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

    with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

    Title: The City of the Sun

    Author: Tommaso Campanella

    Release Date: January 4, 2009 [EBook #2816]

    Last Updated: January 26, 2013

    Language: English

    *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CITY OF THE SUN ***

    Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer, and David Widger

    THE CITY OF THE SUN

    By Tommaso Campanells

    A Poetical Dialogue between a Grandmaster of the Knights Hospitallers and a Genoese Sea-Captain, his guest.

    G.M. Prithee, now, tell me what happened to you during that voyage?

    Capt. I have already told you how I wandered over the whole earth. In the course of my journeying I came to Taprobane, and was compelled to go ashore at a place, where through fear of the inhabitants I remained in a wood. When I stepped out of this I found myself on a large plain immediately under the equator.

    G.M. And what befell you here?

    Capt. I came upon a large crowd of men and armed women, many of whom did not understand our language, and they conducted me forthwith to the City of the Sun.

    G.M. Tell me after what plan this city is built and how it is governed.

    Capt. The greater part of the city is built upon a high hill, which rises from an extensive plain, but several of its circles extend for some distance beyond the base of the hill, which is of such a size that the diameter of the city is upward of two miles, so that its circumference becomes about seven. On account of the humped shape of the mountain, however, the diameter of the city is really more than if it were built on a plain.

    It is divided into seven rings or huge circles named from the seven planets, and the way from one to the other of these is by four streets and through four gates, that look toward the four points of the compass. Furthermore, it is so built that if the first circle were stormed, it would of necessity entail a double amount of energy to storm the second; still more to storm the third; and in each succeeding case the strength and energy would have to be doubled; so that he who wishes to capture that city must, as it were, storm it seven times. For my own part, however, I think that not even the first wall could be occupied, so thick are the earthworks and so well fortified is it with breastworks, towers, guns, and ditches.

    When I had been taken through the northern gate (which is shut with an iron door so wrought that it can be raised and let down, and locked in easily and strongly, its projections running into the grooves of the thick posts by a marvellous device), I saw a level space seventy paces (1) wide between the first and second walls. From hence can be seen large palaces, all joined to the wall of the second circuit in such a manner as to appear all one palace. Arches run on a level with the middle height of the palaces, and are continued round the whole ring. There are galleries for promenading upon these arches, which are supported from beneath by thick and well-shaped columns, enclosing arcades like peristyles, or cloisters of an abbey.

    But the palaces have no entrances from below, except on the inner or concave partition, from which one enters directly to the lower parts of the building. The higher parts, however, are reached by flights of marble steps, which lead to galleries for promenading on the inside similar to those on the outside. From these one enters the higher rooms, which are very beautiful, and have windows on the concave and convex partitions. These rooms are divided from one another by richly decorated walls. The convex or outer wall of the ring is about eight spans thick; the concave, three; the intermediate walls are one, or perhaps one and a half. Leaving this circle one gets to the second plain, which is nearly three paces narrower than the first. Then the first wall of the second ring is seen adorned above and below with similar galleries for walking, and there is on the inside of it another interior wall enclosing palaces. It has also similar peristyles supported by columns in the lower part, but above are excellent pictures, round the ways into the upper houses. And so on afterward through similar spaces and double walls, enclosing palaces, and adorned with galleries for walking, extending along their outer side, and supported by columns, till the last circuit is reached, the way being still over a level plain.

    But when the two gates, that is to say, those of the outmost and the inmost walls, have been passed, one mounts by means of steps so formed that an ascent is scarcely discernible, since it proceeds in a slanting direction, and the steps succeed one another at almost imperceptible heights. On the top of the hill is a rather spacious plain, and in the midst of this there rises a temple built with wondrous art.

    G.M. Tell on, I pray you! Tell on! I am dying to hear more.

    Capt. The temple is built in the form of a circle; it is not girt with walls, but stands upon thick columns, beautifully grouped. A very large dome, built with great care in the centre or pole, contains another small vault as it were rising out of it, and in this is a spiracle, which is right over the altar. There is

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