Twenty-Two

TOMMASO CAMPANELLA

1. Campanella’s Personality. His Life. Themes from Telesio and Plato. Astrology. Needs of Reformation. First Writings and Trials When considering Tommaso Campanella and his firm faith on the triumph of “Eternal Reason,” we must remember the warm words of Giovanni Gentile:

We know that his Christ was not the crucified, but the resurrected, the triumphant. He remains in the history, not only of Italy, but of civiliza- tion, like a tower raised to the sky. He had an iron character ruled by one thought that in many of its particulars will wane but in its sub- stance will live, triumph, and animate the modern world (É noto che il suo Cristo non era il crocifisso, ma il risorto, il trionfatore. Perciò ri- mane nella storia, non pure d’Italia, ma della civiltà, a mo’ di torre che leva alta la cima verso il cielo. Carattere di ferro, retto da un pen- siero, che in molti particolari tramonterà, ma nella sostanza vivrà, trionferà, animerà il mondo moderno).

When we examine his position and political dreams, the doubts return whether instead of a man who was rigidly walking on the straight path with his assurance and convictions, we may have “a persistent simulator,” as Luigi Amabile said, or a character “circumvoluted, untrustworthy, and tortuous,” as Guido De Ruggiero sustained. The truth could also be that he was a man who, perhaps, throughout the storms of life, at a certain time found again the most orthodox Catholic faith and became in this way a sincere supporter of the Counter Reformation, the paladin of its final triumph, abandoning the dream of a solar society where reason could have shined in a triumph of harmony and unity. That dream did not abandon him even through the tortures in the bitterest of prisons, and inspired the known verses:

I sing with an occult rhythm, which makes my small bell resound in the secret ears of the people. Let us pray that now the Eternal Reason would bring all human kingdoms 562 HISTORY OF ITALIAN PHILOSOPHY

into the unity that will efface chaos and make all things one (Canto un occulto metro, che nel secreto orecchio alle persone la campanella mia fa che risone: Ch’or l’Eterna Ragione pria tutti i regni uman componga in uno che renda il caos tutte cose all’uno).

In the last analysis, Croce once observed that Campanella’s problem is a psy- chological, not a logical one. It is the problem of the man Campanella who had the firmest faith, comforted by prophets, saints, celestial signs, and great conjunctions in the advent of a kingdom greatly cherished. With that vein of Machiavellianism repeatingly returning in him, who was so ferociously against Machiavelli, all means had to be good for the triumph of truth, “The world became a mad world because of sin, and … the wise, thinking they could cure the world, were forced to speak, act, and live like mad people, though in their heart they secretly held a different opinion” (il mondo diventò pazzo per il peccato, e … gli savi, pensando sanarlo, furon forzati a dire e fare e vivere come gli pazzi, se ben nel lor segreto hanno altro avviso). He sang:

The wise were forced to live like the fools were in order to escape death, because the greatest fool was carrying the weight of ruling. Behind closed doors they lived by wisdom, but in public they applauded in acts and words the mad and wrong wishes of others (Tal che sforzati i savi a viver come gli stolti usavan, per schifar la morte, ché ’l piú gran pazzo avea le regie some, vissero sol col senno a chiuse porte, in pubblico applaudendo in fatti e nome all’altrui voglie forsennate e torte).

Which one was the secret of Campanella? He was born in Stilo of Calabria in 1568 and entered the Dominican Order at the age of fourteen, fascinated by the eloquence of a preacher and by the reading of the lives of Albert Magnus and Thomas Aquinas. In the monastery of St. George, during his novitiate, he continued to write lyrics and compose essays “on logic, physics, and on the soul in brief and compendious form,” probably in an anti-Aristotelian tone. Early in time, the Peripatetic philosophy ceased to satisfy him and he began to search elsewhere for a new direction:

I began to be annoyed when I realized that in Peripateticism I was