Editing The City of the Sun

{{Short description|1623 philosophical work by the philosopher Tommaso Campanella}}
{{About||the 2005 film|The City of the Sun (film)|other uses|City of the Sun (disambiguation){{!}}City of the Sun}}

{{Infobox book
| name             = The City of the Sun
| title_orig       = La città del sole
| translator       = 
| image            = Civitas Soli.jpg
| image_size       = 200px
| caption          = 
| author           = [[Tommaso Campanella]]
| illustrator      = 
| cover_artist     = 
| country          = 
| language         = [[Italian language|Italian]]
| subject          = 
| genre            = [[Utopian fiction]]
| publisher        =
| pub_date         = 1602
| english_pub_date = 
| media_type       = 
| pages            = 
| oclc             = 
| dewey            = 
| congress         = 
}}

'''''The City of the Sun''''' ({{langx|it|La città del sole}}; {{langx|la|Civitas solis}}) is a philosophical work by the [[Italians|Italian]] [[Dominican Order|Dominican]] philosopher [[Tommaso Campanella]]. It is an important early [[utopia]]n work. The work was written in Italian in 1602, shortly after Campanella's imprisonment for [[heresy]] and [[sedition]]. A [[Latin]] version was written in 1613–14 and published in [[Frankfurt]] in 1623.{{Citation needed |date=August 2022}}

== Synopsis ==

The book is presented as a [[dialogue]] between "a Grandmaster of the [[Knights Hospitaller]] and a [[Republic of Genoa|Genoese]] Sea-Captain". Inspired by [[Plato's Republic|Plato's ''Republic'']] and the description of [[Atlantis]] in ''[[Timaeus (dialogue)|Timaeus]]'', it describes a [[theocracy|theocratic]] society where goods, women and children are held in common. It also resembles the City of Adocentyn in the ''[[Picatrix]]'', an Arabic [[grimoire]] of astrological magic. In the final part of the work, Campanella prophesies—in the veiled language of [[astrology]]—that the [[List of Spanish monarchs|Spanish kings]], in alliance with the [[Pope]], are destined to be the instruments of a Divine Plan: the final victory of the True Faith and its diffusion in the whole world. While one could argue that Campanella was simply thinking of the conquest of the [[New World]], it seems that this prophecy should be interpreted in the light of a work written shortly before ''The City of the Sun'', ''The Monarchy in Spain'', in which Campanella exposes his vision of a unified, peaceful world governed by a [[theocracy|theocratic]] monarchy.

== 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.

== Trento 1602 manuscript ==
[[File:Pagina di manoscritto 1602.jpg|thumb|Manuscript page (Trento) 1602]]
In [[Trento]]'s Civic Library, there is kept a 1602 manuscript of ''The City of the Sun'' (shelf mark BCT1-1538), discovered in 1943 by Italian historian [[Luigi Firpo]]. It is considered the most ancient manuscript copy that has survived to the present time. The text arrived at the Library through the bequest of Baron {{ill|Antonio Mazzetti|it|vertical-align=sup}} (1781–1841). He was a book collector and bibliophile and, as written in his will, he donated his book heritage to the Civic Library.

The manuscript was restored in 1980. It is made of parchment tied on paperboard. It consists of two [[codicological]] unities joined years after their writing: the first is a Venetian historical chronicle from 1297 to 1582, followed by a list of "Hospedali di Venezia" ("Hospitals in Venice"). At the bottom, it is sewn to a small-sized booklet independently enumerated: it is a copy by an anonymous hand of ''The City of the Sun''. The transcription is meticulous, and there only are a few insignificant mistakes.

== See also ==
{{portal|Novels}}
*''[[New Atlantis]]''
*[[Communism]]
*[[Ideal city]]
*[[Iambulus]]

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== Sources ==
*''Le poesie'', ed. F. Giancotti (Turin: Einaudi, 1998; new ed. Milan: Bompiani, 2013; English translation by Sherry Roush in two parts: Selected Philosophical Poems, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2011; Pisa and Rome: Fabrizio Serra, 2011).

== External links ==
{{Wikisourcelang|it|Indice:Campanella - La Città del Sole, manoscritto, 1602.djvu|La Città del Sole}}
* {{Gutenberg|no=2816|name=The City of the Sun}}
* {{librivox book|title=The City of the Sun|author=Tommaso Campanella}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070928022139/http://www.ilnarratore.com/show.php?type=author&language=en&aid=14&tpl=%2Feng%2Fautore.tpl.html from ''"La città del sole"'': ''"Tutte le cose son communi"''] on audio MP3
* Ernst, Germana, and De Lucca, Jean-Paul "[http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2010/entries/campanella Tommaso Campanella]", ''[[The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]'' (Summer 2021 Edition), [[Edward N. Zalta]] (ed.).

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:City of the Sun}}
[[Category:1602 books]]
[[Category:1600s science fiction novels]]
[[Category:Utopian theory]]
[[Category:Utopian novels]]
[[Category:Political philosophy literature]]
[[Category:Theocracy]]
[[Category:Astrological texts]]
[[Category:Fiction about monarchy]]