Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Rīga : Zvaigzne ABC, [2007].
Description
Classic Literature. Fiction. HTML: The City of the Sun is an important early utopian work by Italian philosopher Tommaso Campanella, written after his imprisonment for sedition and heresy. Given as the dialog between "a Grandmaster of the Knights Hospitaller and a Genoese Sea-Captain", The City of the Sun outlines Campanella's vision for a unified world, where property is held in common - Campanella including women and children in this definition - and peacefully governed by a theocratic monarchy..
User reviews
LibraryThing member baswood
[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
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
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
Show More
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
Show Less
LibraryThing member ForeverMasterless
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
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.
Show More
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.
Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original language
Italian
Original publication date
1623
Physical description
87 p.; 21 cm
Pages
87
ISBN
9789984379869