Tommaso Campanella (1568–1639)

Outstanding thinker of the Italian Renaissance; one of the founders of utopian socialism in modern times.

Campanella was born on September 5, 1568, in southern Italy, into a poor peasant family. As a boy he showed great talent, writing poetry at the age of 13. In 1582, he entered a monastery as a monk and used the monastery’s collection of books to read a large number of works by ancient Greek, Roman and medieval thinkers. In 1585, Campanella stood in temporarily for others in a debate on religious doctrines provoked by the Franciscan monks of Cosenza. In the debate he cited a number of quotations and vigorously refuted the view that the writings of the Fathers were absolutely correct and infallible, and were the standard of truth.

Campanella’s main work, The City of the Sun, which he completed in secret in 1622 in prison with the help of a nun, was an influential work of utopian socialism. In the book, Campanella used the genre of dialogue to introduce the illusory island country City of the Sun in the Indian Ocean, a new-type society fundamentally different from the Western European society at that time. In this society, there is no class distinction, no exploitation, no oppression, no private property, no social evils arising from the antagonism between the rich and the poor; egalitarian communism, shared labor for all, and distribution of goods according to needs are introduced; in the City of the Sun, “philosopher politics” is practiced, with the wise and intelligent “sage” (“Sun”) serves as the supreme administrator; education is linked to productive labor, and there is no difference between mental and physical labor.

Campanella’s theory of utopian communism inherited and developed the theory of utopian socialism founded by More. He advocated the abolition of the state system based on private property and the establishment of a state system based on public property, which reflected the desire of the proletarians and the poor working people for a happy life in early Italy and had a certain influence on the later utopian socialists. However, due to the limitation of historical conditions, Campanella could not find the power and the way to change the existing social system and realize the ideal society in the future. Campanella’s socialist thought had the tendency of medieval idealist egalitarianism of small producers, and advocated the community of women and retained feudal superstitions, which has great ideological limitations and is tinged with religious mysticism.