Everything about Tommaso Campanella totally explained
Tommaso Campanella (
September 5,
1568 –
May 21,
1639), baptized
Giovanni Domenico Campanella, was an
Italian philosopher, theologian,
astrologer, and poet.
Biography
Born in
Stignano (in the county of
Stilo) in the province of Reggio di Calabria in southern
Italy, Campanella was a
child prodigy. Son of a poor and illiterate
cobbler, he entered the
Dominican Order before age fifteen, 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 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
Naples he was also 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
Inquisition and cited before the
Holy Office in
Rome, he was confined in a
convent until 1597.
After his liberation, Campanella returned to Calabria, where he became the leader of a conspiracy against the
Spanish rule. 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 and incarcerated in Naples. Feigning insanity, he managed to escape the death penalty and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Campanella spent twenty-seven years imprisoned. During his detention, he wrote his most important works:
The Monarchy in Spain (1600),
Political Aforisms (1601),
Atheismus triumphatus (
Triumph over Atheism, 1605-1607),
Quod reminiscetur (1606?),
Metaphysica (1609-1623),
Theologia (1613-1624), and his most famous work,
The City of the Sun (1602/1623). He even intervened in the first trial against
Galileo Galilei with his courageous
The Defense of Galileo (written in 1616, published in 1622). Ironically, Galileo himself probably wouldn't have wanted Campanella's assistance because of Campanella's sometimes outlandish ideas and prior conviction of heresy.
Campanella was finally released from his prison in 1626, through
Pope Urban VIII, 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. He lived for five years in Rome, where he was Urban's advisor in astrological matters.
In 1634, however, a new conspiracy in Calabria, led by one of his followers, threatened fresh troubles. With the aid of
Cardinal Barberini 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 and granted a liberal 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).
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