Tommaso Campanella's "The city of the sun"

a criticism of the Jesuit power in the New World

Abstract

In 1602, when Campanella’s “The city of the sun” was written, there were three completely Catholic countries:
Spain, Portugal and Italy. The wealthiest states in Europe were the Italian states, Mediterrean commercial poles, and the Iberian Peninsula, mastering the New World. Three hundred years later, these countries ranked among the poorest in Europe. All of them remained totally Catholic, and all of them would someday be fascists. Campanella perceived essential elements of this problem. To understand “The city of the sun”, one must relate it to that historical period – the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, the Iberian colonial system, absolutism, manufacture – in a word: the scientific revolution. And, at last, we may consider how “The city of the sun” is all in all the mirroring opposite of the Iberian colonies in the New World.