Campanella, Tomasso | Jackson Spielvogel (essay date 1987)
Jackson Spielvogel (essay date 1987)
SOURCE: "Reflections on Renaissance Hermeticism and Seventeenth-Century Utopias," in Utopian Studies, Vol. I, 1987, pp. 188-97.
[In the following excerpt, Spielvogel traces the influence of Hermeticism on Campanella 's philosophy in relation to the combination of science and magic that characterizes his ideal society.]
Although modern historians rarely agree on any significant issue, there is a fair degree of unanimity on viewing the seventeenth century as the turning point in the emergence of modern Western history. It was a century full of plagues, constitutional crises, famines, population declines, economic depression, almost constant warfare, and widespread persecution of witches. But it also marked the emergence of the modern nation-state, a secular society and most important of all, a new view of reality, the universe and humankind that was embodied in the Scientific Revolution. The belief that...
[The entire page is 1822 words long]
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