Tommaso Campanella, his life and work

Tommaso Campanella is an Italian poet, thinker and politician, who spent almost half his life in prison for his freedom of thought and insurrection. He was very educated and for all the time allotted to him, he created many works on philosophy, astronomy, politics and medicine. In addition, he was the author of numerous madrigals, sonnets and other poetic works. It was like an awakened volcano, who lived in constant search and waiting for change. Confident in his mission, Campanella constantly wrote and rewrote his works, leading them to perfection, and some of them have reached our time as examples of his political philosophy.

Born Tommaso Campanella in 1568 in the family of a poor shoemaker in southern Italy. His first education he received from a Dominican monk, and at 15 he decides to enter the Dominican order to continue his studies. Especially interesting are the young Tommaso philosophical treatises of Plato, Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle, he also studied astrology and Kabbalah. Great influence on his further worldview was the works of Freethinking thinker Telezia, - he saw in the study of nature the primary source of knowledge. And already in 1591 he wrote his first treatise "Philosophy, proven by sensations," in which he opposed Aristotle's principles and demanded the rights to freedom of thought.

The Inquisition did not like it, and Tommaso Campanella was arrested for heresy. After his release, he no longer returned to the monastery. The desire for a new dream of Political and religious changes made him go on a long journey through Italy, in which he was continually accused of freethinking and imprisoned. In 1598, he returned to his native places and, together with like-minded people, began to prepare an uprising in order to establish a republic in which the social justice reigned . But the plot failed (it was betrayed by the accomplices) and the Italian philosopher was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Thus, Campanella was in prison for 27 years, during which he wrote his main works: "Protection of Galileo", "Defeated Atheism", "Metaphysics", "Theology", as well as many other poems. Among them, it is especially worth mentioning the work "The City of the Sun", which has retained its appeal to this day. The Italian writer portrayed in his work a fictitious state (an ideal society) in which the inhabitants decided wisely (philosophically) to rule the entire community. This And the utopian idea reflected the author's dream of creating a Catholic world state under the leadership of the pope.

In 1629, Tommaso Campanella was acquitted and transferred to Rome. Pope Urban VIII, who loved astrology, wanted such a great connoisseur of this science to be always at hand. And Campanella, in turn, tried to share his ideas with the pope. Later, in 1634, he was again accused of conspiracy, and he, fleeing persecution, found refuge in friendly France, where he was honored and glorified by all learned men. The Italian philosopher also enjoyed the location of the king, who even appointed him cash payments. And in 1639 he died.