Tommaso Campanella - Biography
Tommaso Campanella was born Giovanni Domiencio on September 5, 1568 in the Calabrian town of Stilo, southern Italy. Tommaso Campanella was one of the most important philosophers of the late Renaissance. He concerned himself with political thought, religion and the establishment of a utopian society, which he wrote extensively on in his best-known work La cittá del Sole (The City of the Sun), (1602). He spent decades in detention for his controversial views and political involvement, yet was able to produce a large body of work. He passed away a free man in Paris, France in 1639.
Though he was the son of a cobbler who was illiterate and made little money, Tommaso Campanella’s almost photographic memory led him to books and intense study. Most notably, he read the works of Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus both of whose philosophy and scientific writings inspired him enough to join the Dominican Order in 1582. After Thomas Aquinas, he took the name Tommaso and, as part of his study and service, was sent to the San Giorgio Morgeto monastery where he became entrenched in philosophical study. Already at this early stage in his very young career, Tommaso Campanella was quite critical of Aristotle’s work and his friends and colleagues became concerned over his outspoken criticism. Rightly so, as by 1588 Tommaso Campanella was sent to Cosenza by his superiors where he was warned about his controversial theories and critiques.
While in Cosenza he was given two volumes of Bernardino Telesio’s treatise De rerum natura iuxta propriis principiis (On the Nature of Things According to Their Own Principles), (1586), considered ‘a Platonian call on the observation of nature’. This work so inspired the young twenty-one year old that he wrote his own treatise to promote this new philosophy of nature entitled, Philosophia sensibus demonstrata (Philosophy as Demonstrated by the Senses), (1591). He continued to theorize and critique to the point in which his superiors grew increasingly critical themselves, though of Tommaso Campanella’s Aristotelian critique and his growing interest in what they considered subversive and dangerous classical philosophers. Thus, he was sent to the remote monastery of Altamonte.
In Altamonte he met like-minded companions and was introduced to Ramón Lull. He was able to travel to Naples, Rome, and then Florence and Padua, where he met Galileo. Clearly influenced while in Padua, he wrote the New Physiology According to Its Own Principles, Apology for Telesio, New Rhetoric, Monarchy of Christianity, and books on ecclesiastical reform. His writings were of course controversial causing various charges to be levied against him and he was soon denounced to the Inquisition. In 1594 he was arrested by the Inquisition and imprisoned in Rome (and was twice tortured), where both Francesco Pucci and Giordano Bruno were as well. While in prison he continued to write works on nature, magic and poetry. Tommaso Campanella was finally released at the end of 1596 only to be imprisoned again from March to December of the following year. Yet his works were not as “fortunate” as they were placed on the Index Prohibitorium and remained there until 1900.
At the end of 1597, Tommaso Campanella returned to Stilo and in the summer of the new year he became involved in a political rebellion against the Spanish government in his hometown of Stilo. His political involvement was motivated by his belief that monumental upheaval was going to occur at the turn of the century. His convictions came from various sources: astrology, prophet texts, abnormal celestial signs, natural events and, most importantly, the intolerable and unethical conditions of the population inducing social and political disorder. For better or worse, the rebellion never came to fruition. Two of the conspirators turned against the movement and warned the Spanish viceroy of the impending plot and armed forces arrived to brutally repress the rebellion.
Despite Tommaso Campanella’s attempts to flee, he was imprisoned and brought to Naples where he was tried for treason. He claimed that the rebellion was not conceived out of personal ambition or malevolence toward the King but had been created out of divine prophecies, thereby placing it within a divine and prophetic context, absolving his person of the death penalty. Unfortunately this strategy was unsuccessful thus he attempted another tactic and feigned madness. Tommaso Campanella’s commitment to this “madness” for four months, even through extreme physical torture, proved successful and he avoided the death penalty. This incident caused him to believe in the freedom of the human will as his of his strong resolve was clear proof—he proved unbreakable even under extreme physical pressure.
While it may have proved the resolve of will, it did not prove much for the Church as on the Church sentenced him to prison, with “no hope for liberation,” on November 13, 1603. He remained imprisoned for twenty-seven years, usually under very dire conditions. Although these were dark years for Tommaso Campanella he continued to write extensively and composed his most known and respected works, which aimed to produce a new foundation for the entirety of encyclopedic knowledge. Perhaps, if it weren’t for Tobias Adami, a German intellectual, his works may never have come to the fore. The German visited Campanella in prison and made possible the publication of these important works, which were published in Frankfurt from 1617to 1623.
In 1626 Campanella was actually released and went to Rome where he remained until October 1634. He then had to take exile in France due to growing suspicions of his intentions spawned by the Spanish authorities based on interrogations of one of his former students who had been arrested. The Pope personally advised him to leave and thus he was well received in France through the support of King Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu. He was quite prolific during this time writing primarily on politics as well as preparing previous works for proper publication. He remained in France until his death on May 21, 1639 in Paris.
The Philosophia sensibus demonstrata was Tommaso Campanella’s first printed work, published in Naples in 1591, and functioned as a defense of Telesio’s ‘neo-platonic’ philosophy of nature. In this work he carried on and promoted the commitment for a renewed connection to nature through direct study, which was in opposition to the contemporary practice of learned study through the canon of texts. He strongly believed that one must investigate through sense experience, which only comes from direct contact and observation of the natural world. He argued that such direct study results in a more true and proper connection between words and things, which had become obscured by the Aristotelian tradition. Certainly though, Tommaso Campanella was not naïve; he believed in an ongoing comparison between canonical books and the infinite book of nature.
In Philosophia sensibus demonstrata, Tommaso Campanella critiques the accepted principles of Aristotle’s philosophy and re-visits the Pre-Socratic philosophers Aristotle had critiqued. At the center of his treatise was an attempt to readdress cosmology, in reference both to the nature of the heavens and to the movement and workings of celestial bodies. Originating from Telesio, Tommaso Campanella additionally proposed that all being was derived from the effect of the interaction between hot and cold on matter. He believed that solar heat was of central importance and connected all beings, eventually assimilating as the World Soul. In this he very much references Marsilio Ficino who wrote of a World Soul and its breath, which nurtured all things.
Tommaso Campanella’s philosophy of nature was further developed in successive treaties becoming part of the “Physiologia”, the first of the four sections of his Philosophia realis published in Frankfurt in 1623. The other three sections were “Ethica,” “Politica” and “Oeconomica”. In the “Physiologia” Tommaso Campanella writes of the creation of the world and of the first Being who he sees as creating the world to resemble itself, infinite and good. He views space as a primary substance that desires fullness and is able to receive any body. Without the world, space would be imagined as empty. Bodies desire contact and abhor separation caused by void. Matter is considered a physical entity and is wholly malleable, capable of taking any form. It can be divided, separated, or extended, which directly opposes the Aristotelian model that regards matter as privation. From here Tommaso Campanella develops his ideas on hotness and coldness and the results from their drive and interaction. For him, the heavens are considered hot and the earth cold, creating a dialectic. Using this principle idea he goes on to elucidate all aspects of the natural world.
Related to Tommaso Campanella’s passionate interest in the natural world and philosophy was his interest in natural magic which he wrote about in his Del senso delle cose e della magia naturale (On the Sense of Things and On Natural Magic) published in 1620 in Frankfurt. He began the work in 1590 when he became acquainted with Giambattista della Porta, a highly esteemed supporter of natural magic, yet this first Latin version of his book is now lost. It was rewritten in Italian in 1604 and after revisions published in 1620 as a second Latin version. In the text, Tommaso Campanella puts forth his concept of the natural world as a living organism. This organism has individual parts and these parts share in life and sensibility. He discusses the notion of “sense” and its varying degrees found within all living and even non-living things (such as minerals and metals). He provocatively understood sense as a perceived change from one state to another. These changes of states organized themselves in opposition: motion and stasis, subtlety and crassness, and expanding heat and contracting cold. His most famous work, La cittá del Sole (The City of the Sun), was first published as the appendix to his Politica in Frankfurt in 1623. The City of the Sun depicted a utopian society that was in harmony with nature understanding nature as an expression of God. He saw this utopian world in direct opposition to the “real” world of injustice and violence, which he believed to be a consequence of the deviation from the natural model.
His city was written very creatively and in detail, in it Tommaso Campanella describes seven circles of walls of defense with painted city walls like the illustrated pages of an encyclopedia so to promote knowledge for everyone in an ideal climate located on a hillside to benefit from optimal air conditions. Work in the utopian city was to be equally divided among the people; idleness was seen as negative. There were to be no possessions, and “officials” were employed to oversee as such, ensuring equality and justice. Sex and love are considered two separate affairs; sex was carefully regulated and not an expression of love. In fact, Tommaso Campanella described sex in his “utopian city” as a social responsibility to generate the future--procreation. The society’s religion was to be of a “natural” religion that would include principles of Christianity as well as a communion with the stars.
Though Tommaso Campanella is most known for The City of the Sun, his engagement with political thought spanned his entire life. Shaping a more general philosophical structure, his political writings are on the edge of theology, ethics and natural philosophy, creating a vast array of treatise and ideas as well as ambiguities and inconsistencies. Because of this they are highly debated by scholars, yet one can clearly state that Tommaso Campanella’s political writings, and also his contemplations on Machiavelli, comprise one of the most assertive aspects of his thought. In the Monarchia di Spagna (Monarchy of Spain) he emphasizes that religion is the most effective bond of political unity as it rules over souls and draws them together. He also cautions such effects calling for prudence and expediency.
Tommaso Campanella supported a universal monarchy and believed it to be tied to the prophetic ideal of re-uniting humanity. He discusses this in Monarchia del Messia (Monarchy of the Messiah) in which he explains the original union of king and priest, bringing humanity back in a single priestly law resulting in unity and the resolution. Following this thread, Tommaso Campanella asserted that people are more likely to accept rule and obey law from those who have their authority ushered from God. He saw this model as the way to end war and all the injustices of the world.
Another of Tommaso Campanella’s most important works is Atheismus triumphatus (Atheism Conquered), written from 1606 to 1607. In it he demonstrates that religion is natural and inherent to being. He was also inspired to prove that Christian law and natural law were in harmony with one another and use the book as a platform for protest against Machiavellians and their concomitant politicians. The first chapter presents two types of figures, philosophers and politicians. Theoretically for his text, and his protest, the philosophers believe in one certain and natural truth and they live in harmony with nature. The politicians, in contrast, deny God and believe all religions are political in origin. The second chapter is the most famous in which he argues against religion and Christianity setting up a rhetorical situation which he then responds to in the rest of the book. While the ultimate outcome was to refute stated objections against religion, the initial arguments he proposed were so harsh and unrelenting that it caused confusion and distress for both Catholics and Protestants. Due to its controversial approach to politics and specifically religion, it was nearly thirty years before it was published. Dedicated to Louis XIII, Tommaso Campanella finally published the volume in 1636.
Tommaso Campanella was marked by the political and religious turmoil of his time, and through thoroughly engaging with its complexities and persevering through all that he encountered, Campanella produced a very important and multi-faceted body of work. His deep dedication to understanding the imminent forces at work in the universe and the world show him to be a true leader of thought of the Renaissance era. Despite difficulties he was not one to withhold his opinions or beliefs. From defending fellow philosophers, such as when he wrote the Apologia in defense of Galileo (in 1616, published in 1622) while he himself was also in prison, and continuing to produce highly controversial work regardless of circumstances and threat, Tommaso Campanella is clearly seen as a dedicated and forthright thinker never fearful to speak his mind.