d histories of the time.

CAMPANELLA, TOMMASO (1568-1639), Italian Renaissance philosopher, was
born at Stilo in Calabria. Before he was thirteen years of age he had
mastered nearly all the Latin authors presented to him. In his fifteenth
year he entered the order of the Dominicans, attracted partly by reading
the lives of Albertus Magnus and Aquinas, partly by his love of
learning. He took a course in philosophy in the convent at Morgentia in
Abruzzo, and in theology at Cosenza. Discontented with this narrow
course of study, he happened to read the _De Rerum Natura_ of Bernardino
Telesio, and was delighted with its freedom of speech and its appeal to
nature rather than to authority. His first work in philosophy (he was
already the author of numerous poems) was a defence of Telesio,
_Philosophia sensibus demonstrata_ (1591). His attacks upon established
authority having brought him into disfavour with the clergy, he left
Naples, where he had been residing, and proceeded to Rome. For seven
years he led an unsettled life, attracting attention everywhere by his
talents and the boldness of his teaching. Yet he was strictly orthodox,
and was an uncompromising advocate of the pope's temporal power. He
returned to Stilo in 1598. In the following year he was committed to
prison because he had joined those who desired to free Naples from
Spanish tyranny. His friend Naudee, however, declares that the
expressions used by Campanella were wrongly interpreted as
revolutionary. He remained for twenty-seven years in prison. Yet his
spirit was unbroken; he composed sonnets, and prepared a series of
works, forming a complete system of philosophy. During the latter years
of his confinement he was kept in the castle of Sant' Elmo, and allowed
considerable liberty. Though, even then, his guilt seems to have been
regarded as doubtful, he was looked upon as dangerous, and it was
thought better to restrain him. At last, in 1626, he was nominally set
at liberty; for some three years he was detained in the chambers of the
Inquisition, but in 1629 he was free. He was well treated at Rome by the
pope, but on the outbreak of a new conspiracy headed by his pupil,
Tommaso Pignatelli, he was persuaded to go to Paris (1634), where he was
received with marked favour by Cardinal Richelieu. The last few years of
his life he spent in preparing a complete edition of his works; but only
the first volume appears to have been published. He died on the 21s