A utopia, I believe, one I don't recall in any detail. ( )

Utopian Socialism circa 1600 would be Dystopia today
Review of the Loomingu Raamatukogu Kuldsari nr. 3 (May, 2020) reissue of Loomingu Raamatukogu 2005 nr. 15 "Päikeselinn" translated from the Italian original "La città del sole" (The City of the Sun) (1602/2003 Editori Laterza)

The philosopher, theologian and poet Tommaso Campanella (1568–1639) was undoubtedly one of the most prominent utopians of the Renaissance. The clergyman was accused of heresy and of incitement to rebellion against the authorities and was repeatedly punished with both imprisonment and torture. In prison, he pretended to be insane, and thanks to a convincing performance, he escaped execution. The manuscript of the "City of the Sun" was written while in captivity in 1602. It was smuggled out of prison, page by page, under great secrecy.

In his best-known work, Campanella lays out an ideal state whose citizens live in a kind of commune: private property is not known there, all of the work is done together and everyone can hold a profession "in which they have the most talent and inclination". Of course, there has also been criticism of the author's then contemporary view of life and the ways of thinking that prevailed at the time. Campanella hoped that an ideal state like the City of the Sun could be brought to life in practice, and with the help of various efforts, he repeatedly attempted to do so. Although his attempts were doomed to failure, many of his ideas were later developed, setting an example for French revolutionaries as well as the 19th-century positivists and socialists.

This reprint of "Päikeselinn" appears in a newly edited translation and is supplemented with footnotes and an Afterword. - a translation of the Estonian language synopsis.

Campanella’s The City of the Sun is structured as an interview by a member of the Order of the Knights Hospitaller and a sea captain who relates his observations from his visit to the fictitious titular Utopian city which is described as existing in Taprobane (the Greek 4th Century BC name for the island of Sri Lanka).

From reading the biographical synopsis about Tommaso Campanella or a more extensive one such as at Wikipedia, one is primed to be hopeful that some sort of future seeing vision will be on display in The City of the Sun. Someone who was imprisoned by the Inquisition for decades of their life and who still defiantly persisted in writings such as "A Defense of Galileo" (1616), would surely be an early advocate for human equality and the opposition to dogma and institutions.

Instead, The City of the Sun is a extended projection of Campanella’s own monastic / church views, which include the common property ownership of all women and children, the execution of homosexuals, an element of human sacrifice (a penitence torture ritual that did not necessarily lead to death), human slavery (it is mentioned briefly as the selling of prisoners of war), a eugenical approach to procreation, etc. So, it reads like more of a dystopia to modern readers instead of the supposed utopian vision that was intended.

It was still an interesting historical view to read. The Estonian translation is based on a 2003 Italian edition so it may not be equivalent to other existing translations such as those based on Campanella’s own later Latin versions. I took a quick look at the free version on Project Gutenberg for instance, and the ending is completely different. Loomingu Raamatukogu’s high editorial standards with footnotes and an extensive Afterword were excellent as always.

Trivia and Links
The "LR Golden Series" presents readers with a selection of works published in the Loomingu Raamatukogu (The Creation Library) throughout the ages. These are favorites from over the past six decades which confirm that the classics never get old! Six books will be published annually, one every two months. - translated from the publisher's website.

The Loomingu Raamatukogu (The Creation Library) is a modestly priced Estonian literary journal which initially published weekly (from 1957 to 1994) and which now publishes 40 issues a year as of 1995. It is a great source for discovery as its relatively cheap prices (currently 3 to 5€ per issue) allow for access to a multitude of international writers in Estonian translation and of shorter works by Estonian authors themselves. These include poetry, theatre, essays, short stories, novellas and novels (the lengthier works are usually parcelled out over several issues).

For a complete listing of all works issued to date by Loomingu Raamatukogu including those in the Golden Series (at the bottom) see Estonian Wikipedia at: https://et.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loomingu_Raamatukogus_ilmunud_teoste_loend_aastak%... ( )

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 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. ( )

Sort of socialist idealism that long ago is cute. ( )

[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 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 ( )