of men,
and these are so rarely found in sceptred families that a republic is
the safest form of government. See Sonnets XXXI., XXXVII.

XVII. As men mistake their kings, so they mistake the saints. The true
spirit of Christ is ignored, and if Christ were to return to earth,
they would persecute him, even as they persecute those who follow him
most closely in their lives and doctrines.

XVIII. Christ symbolises and includes all saintly truth-seeking souls.
Compare the three last lines of this sonnet with the three last lines
of No. XV. and No. XX.

XIX., XX., XXI. Expanding the same themes, Campanella contrasts the
ignorance of self-love with the divine illumination of the true
philosopher, and insists that, in spite of persecution and martyrdom,
saintly and truth-seeking souls will triumph.

XXII. Resumes the thought of No. X. If only the soul of man, infinite
in its capacity, could be enamoured of God, it would at once work
miracles and attain to Deity.

XXIII. A bitter satire on love in the seventeenth century. Lines 9-11:
as Adami sometimes says, _qui legit intelligat_. Line 12: _la squilla
mia_ is a pun on Campanella's name. He means that he has shown the
world a more excellent way of love. Cp. No. XXII.

XXIV. The essence of nobility is subjected to the same critique as
kinghood in No. XVI. Line 11: the Turk is Europe's foe. Campanella
praises the Turks because they had no hereditary nobility, and
conferred honours on men according to their actions.

XXV. That this sonnet should have been written by a Dominican monk in a
Neapolitan prison in the first half of the seventeenth century, is
truly note-worthy. It expresses the essence of democracy in a critique
of the then existing social order.

XXVI. A very obscure piece of writing. The first quatrain lays down the
principle that ill-doing brings its own inevitable punishment. The
second distinguishes between the unblessed suffering which plagues the
soul, and that which we welcome as a process of purgation. The first
terzet makes heaven and hell respectively consist of a clean and a
burdened conscience. The second, referring to a legend of S. Peter's
controversy with Simon Magus, finds a proof of immortality in this
condition of conscience.

XXVII. A bold and perilous image of the Machiavellian Prince, who
drains the commonwealth for his own selfish pleasures. The play upon
the words _mentola_ and _mente_ in the first line is hardly capable of
reproducti