reat languages of Europe. The fate of
Campanella's philosophical poems has been very different. It was owing
to a fortunate chance that they survived their author; and until the
year 1834 they were wholly and entirely unknown in Italy. The history
of their preservation is so curious that I cannot refrain from giving
some account of it, before proceeding to sketch so much of Campanella's
life and doctrine as may be necessary for the understanding of his
sonnets.

The poems were composed during Campanella's imprisonment at Naples; and
from internal evidence there is good reason to suppose that the greater
part of them were written at intervals in the first fourteen years of
the twenty-five he passed in confinement.[9] In the descriptive
catalogue of his own works, the philosopher mentions seven books of
sonnets and canzoni, which he called 'Le Cantiche.'[10] Whether any of
these would have been printed but for a mere accident is doubtful. A
German gentleman, named Tobia Adami, who is supposed to have been a
Court-Counsellor at Weimar, after travelling through Greece, Syria, and
Palestine, in company with a young friend called Rodolph von Bunau,
visited Campanella in his dungeon. A close intimacy sprang up between
them, and Adami undertook to publish several works of the philosopher
in testimony of his admiration. Among these were 'Le Cantiche.'
Instead, however, of printing the poems _in extenso_, he made a
selection, choosing those apparently which took his fancy, and which,
in his opinion, threw most light on Campanella's philosophical
theories. It is clear that he neglected the author's own arrangement,
since there is no trace of the division into seven books. What
proportion the selection bore to the whole bulk of the MS. seems to me
uncertain, though the latest editor asserts that it formed only a
seventh part.[11] The manuscript itself is lost, and Adami's edition of
the specimens is all that now remains as basis for the text of
Campanella's poems.

This first edition was badly printed in Germany on very bad paper,
without the name of press or place. Besides the poems, it contained a
brief prose commentary by the editor, the value of which is still very
great, since we have the right to suppose that Adami's explanations
embodied what he had received by word of mouth from Campanella. The
little book bore this title:--'Scelta d' alcune poesie filosofiche di
Settimontano Squilla cavate da' suo' libri detti La Cantica