Editing The City of the Sun (section)

== The city ==
Protected and defended by seven circles of walls, the city is built on a hill, with a temple at the top. The walls of the city are painted with images representing different important fields of knowledge. These include illustrations of the heavens and the stars, of mathematical figures, of every country on earth and of all the marvels and secrets of the mineral, vegetable and animal worlds, until we arrive at mankind: on the internal wall of the sixth circle the mechanical arts and their inventors are represented. On the external wall legislators are depicted; and it is here, in "a place of great honor" — alongside [[Moses]], [[Osiris]], [[Jupiter (god)|Jove]], [[Mercury (mythology)|Mercury]] and [[Muhammad]]— that the Genoese sailor recognizes [[Jesus|Christ]] and the [[Apostles in the New Testament|twelve apostles]]. 

Everyone must be acquainted with all lines of work, and then each person practices the one for which he shows the greatest aptitude. They have no servants, and no service is regarded as unworthy. The only thing that they consider to be despicable is idleness, and in this way they come to privilege the [[decent work|dignity of work]] and to overturn an absurd conception of nobility, linked to inactivity and vice.

As work is divided among all citizens, each spends only four [[working time|hours a day working]]. The citizens possess nothing; instead, everything is held in [[common ownership|common]]. The society uses many inventions, such as vessels able to navigate without wind and without sails, and stirrups that make it possible to guide a horse using only one's feet, leaving one's hands free. 

A feature of the society that Campanella himself describes as "hard and arduous" is the community of wives. This is the solution adopted by the citizens to the problem of procreation. Sexual generation must obey strict rules regarding the physical and moral qualities of the parents and the choice of a propitious time for conception, determined by an astrologer. Such a union is not the expression of a personal, emotional or passionate relationship, but rather is connected to the social responsibility of generation and to love for the collective community.

The religious beliefs of the citizenry, even though they include fundamental principles of Christianity (such as the [[immortality of the soul]] and divine providence), form a [[natural religion]] that establishes a sort of [[osmosis]] between the city and the stars. The temple is open and not surrounded by walls. The altar, on which are placed a celestial and a terrestrial globe, is in the form of the sun. Prayers are directed toward the heavens. The task of the twenty-four priests, who live in cells located in the highest part of the temple, is to observe the stars and, using [[astronomical instruments]], to take account of all their movements. It is their job to indicate the times most favorable for generation and for agricultural labors, acting in this way as intermediaries between God and human beings.