[Occult Sciences - Astrology and Magic - Renaissance]
Printed by Jacques, André & Mathieu Prost, Lyon, 1630. 1st edition/2nd issue.
(Francesco Grillo in Questione Campanelliane suggests that the imprint is fictitious and the work was actually published clandestinely in Rome by Andrea Brugiotti.)
Text in Latin. Illustrated with woodcut diagrams.
RARE Second Issue of the First Edition (first issue with the same collation was printed the previous year by same publisher) of Campanella\'s chief work on astrology, including the controversial Book VII De siderali fato vitando, REVEALING THE MAGICAL RITUALS PERFORMED BY CAMPANELLA FOR POPE URBAN VIII during the summer of 1628 in a special room in the Castel Gandolfo near Rome.
In this 1630 issue the first quire was reset to account for the 7th book De siderali fato vitando both in the title and in the table of contents: the title-page now stating \"Astrologicorum libri VII, etc\", while the title of the 1629 issue mentions six books only: \"Astrologicorum libri VI, etc.\" Otherwise, it is identical to the 1629 first issue, and the 7th book still has a separate pagination and collation. (In the second edition, printed the same year in Frankfurt, the pagination and signatures are already continuous throughout all the seven books.)
The text of the 7th Book, De siderali fato vitando, is preceded by publisher\'s letter stating that it \"came into his hands after the first six Books had already been printed. According to Campanella, and there is no reason to doubt him, he did not intend to publish this treatise. It was sent to the printer by two highly placed Dominicans who wished to prevent Campanella gaining the post of \"Consultor\" in the Holy Office. This post would have enabled him to exercise considerable control over the censorship of theological publications. This act of malice was successful; for Urban was extremely angry at the publication and Campanella never obtained his post, though he managed quite soon to regain the Pope\'s favour and to have an official examination of the treatise, which cleared it of heresy and superstition. He was freed from his imprisonment in April 1629.\" (Daniel P. Walker, Spiritual and Demonic Magic: From Ficino to Campanella, p.208)
Although the 1586 papal Bull Coeli et Terrae of Sixtus V condemned the judiciary astrology, Pope Urban VIII was a believer in astrology and was seriously worried when in 1626 \"astrologers began to predict his own imminent death, and by 1628 rumours of it became loud and widespread. There seems little doubt that these rumours and predictions were actively encouraged by the Spanish, who [...] hoped to frighten the pope to death; and but for Campanella\'s magic they might have succeeded. [...] The two dangerous years were 1628, when there was an eclipse of the moon in January and of the sun in December, and 1630, with a solar eclipse in June. In diplomatic reports from Rome of 1628 there are several mentions of the Pope and Campanella being frequently closeted together. They [were] said to be engaged in some astrological activity connected with the prediction of the pope\'s death, [and] to be doing \'necromancy\'...\" (Walker, op. cit., p.205-6)
The mysterious procedures the publication of which in Book VII of Campanella\'s Astrologicorum so annoyed Urban VIII were, in fact, an application of a kind of Ficinian astral magic intended to protect the pope \"against the disease-bearing eclipses and the evil influences of Mars and Saturn. First they sealed the room against the outside air, sprinkled it with rose-vinegar and other aromatic substances, and burnt laurel, myrtle, rosemary and cypress. They hung the room with white silken cloths and decorated it with branches. Then two candles and five torches were lit, representing the seven planets; since the heavens, owing to the eclipse, were defective, these were to provide an undefective substitute, as one lights a lamp when the sun sets. The signs of the Zodiac were perhaps also represented in the same way [...] The other persons present had horoscopes immune to the evil eclipse. There was Jovial and Venereal music, which was to disperse the pernicious qualities of the eclipse-infected air and, by symbolizing good planets, to expel the influences of bad ones. For the same purpose they used stones, plants, colours and odours belonging to good planets (that is Jupiter and Venus). They drank astrologically distilled liquors.\" (Walker, op. cit., p.207)
In this influential work Tommaso Campanella (1568 - 1639), a prominent Italian Renaissance philosopher, theologian, astrologer, poet and political thinker professes to \"eliminate all superstition of the Arabs and Jews, to treat the subject naturally and according to holy Scripture and the doctrine of Aquinas, Albertus and the leading theologians.\"
Denounced to the Inquisition for heresy, Campanella spent almost half of his life in Neapolitan prisons where he dedicated himself to the huge task of providing a new foundation for the entire edifice of human knowledge, and a total transformation of society and morals.
As a part of this grand endeavor, Campanella wanted to \"interpret the general patterns of the most significant events in the history of humanity in the light of precise astral facts. Events such as the migration of peoples, changes in the climate, the rise and fall of empires and religions do not take place by accident, but can be associated with particular astral conditions. From this point of view, astrology becomes a necessary compass to find one\'s way through the forest of universal history.\" (Paola Zambelli, ed.: \"Astrologi Hallucinati\": Stars and the End of the World in Luther\'s Time, p.268)
The Book II of this work is titled De magnis rerum humanarum mutationibus, initiis & causis and deals with the astral causes of major events and upheavals both in human history and an individual life.
\"As Campanella believes that Ptolemy\'s doctrine on the subject is insufficient and incapable of explaining great historical changes, because it takes into consideration only phenomena of brief duration such as eclipses and comets, [...] he includes new elements in his study: first the passing of the great conjunctions from triplicity to triplicity, as already seen, but also data which he draws from the new astronomy [...] It is above all because of his prophetic interests that Campanella is so avidly fascinated by the discoveries of Copernicus, Tycho Brahe and Galileo. By comparing the new observations with the ancient, he strives to decipher the divine messages written in the skies and to interpret the hidden meaning of the displacement of the poles of the \'machina mundi\'.
Campanella uses astrology as an instrument to register the developments of civilizations and the internal pulsations of history. However he avoids fatalistic points of view which would deprive man and his existence of any meaning. Although the physical constitution and the passions of the individual are undoubtedly influenced by stars, this does not deprive man of his freedom of asserting himself against any antagonistic external influence...\" (Zambelli, Op. cit., p.268-9)
In the sixth book of the Astrologicorum libri Campanella recommends \"the founders of new cities to consult the stars in order to ascertain with precision the most propitious moment to begin their construction, when the heavens reveal the most benevolent astral conjunction which would thereafter exert its positive influence over the cities (and over the life of their inhabitants). This process is similar to the one applied by astrologers to determine a human being\'s astral horoscope (singling out the celestial bodies\' positions in conjunction with the zodiacal houses at the moment of conception or birth) in order to foretell the subject\'s temperament, talents, natural inclinations and destiny. [...] In addition to setting the propitious point in time, the city builder or Aedificator can also plan the urban map of the city in such a way so that, like a talisman in its shape, it would be capable of attracting the beneficial influence exerted by Jupiter and so neutralize the nefarious influence brought on by the \'cold\' Saturn. With this as its celestial map, the city would enjoy long life, wealth, honours and whatever might be needed for the well-being of its inhabitants.\" (M. Cambi, Tommaso Campanella, The City of the Sun and the Protective Celestial Bodies, in \"Utopian Moments: Reading Utopian texts\", ed. by J. C. Davis, and M. Ramiro Avilés, p.34-5)
He advises, in particular, that the most favorable astral conditions for founding a city are when the Sun is rising in Leo (its own sign), in a positive aspect to the beneficial planet Jupiter, and when all the other planets are in the best possible locations corresponding to their natures: Moon in Taurus, Mars in its natural sign of Aries, etc.
These ideas had already been expressed by Campanella in his immensely influential utopian work, \"The City of the Sun\" (La città del Sole), written in Italian in 1602 and first published in Latin in 1623, i.e. considerably earlier than the Astrologicorum libri), where astrology plays a vastly important role in most aspects of life of the ideal city: from the reproductive act between its citizens to the construction of the city itself. Campanella\'s ideal republic is \"saturated through and through with astrology; its whole way of life is directed towards achieving a beneficial relationship with the stars.\" (Frances A. Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, p.369).
Bibliographic references:
Caillet 1980; DSB XV, 68-70; Firpo 9; Headley, Tommaso Campanella and the Transformation of the World (1997), p. 109.
Physical description:
Quarto, leaves measure 223 mm x 151 mm. Bound in 17th-century speckled sheep, spine with five raised bands, decorated and lettered in gilt.
Pagination: [8], 232, [8], 24 pages.
Signatures: †4 A-Z4 Aa-Gg4 a-c4.
Collated and COMPLETE.
Title-page with woodcut printer\'s device; woodcut astrological/astronomical diagrams and tables in text. Woodcut initials, head- and tail-pieces.
Preliminaries contain \"Index eorum quae hoc volumine tractantur\" (which is, in fact, a table of Contents).
Book VII has a separate pagination and signature series (a-c4), and is preceded by a short publisher\'s address on Gg4r (Gg4v blank).
Condition:
Very Good antiquarian condition. Binding rubbed; top and bottom spine compartments repaired (with loss of gilt), a few scuffs and wormholes to covers. Interior somewhat browned (as usual with books of this period): most leaves with only light to moderate browning; only four quires (†, Ee, Ff and b) are more noticeably browned. Occasional minor light marginal staining; very minor marginal worming in (blank) lower inner corner of the preliminary leaves. A few leaves with minor marginal ink-markings or underlinings in an early hand, and a few with later marginal markings in red pencil. Free endpapers removed. Otherwise, a solid and generally clean example of this rare and important work.
Please click on thumbnails below to see larger images.
Biographical notes on Tommaso Campanella:
Tommaso Campanella was born Giovan Domenico Campanella, in 1568 in Stilo, Calabria (southern tip of the Italian peninsula). He was a child prodigy. At the age of fourteen, he entered the Dominican order and took the name Tommaso. His formal training in philosophy and theology was in Dominican houses. Early in his career he became disenchanted with Aristotelian philosophy and became a follower of Bernardino Telesio (1509-1588), whose famous work De Rerum Natura, thought to have pointed the way to empiricism. influenced Campanella greatly. In 1592 Campanella published Philosophia Sensibus Demonstrata, or \"Philosophy Demonstrated by the Senses,\" in defense of Telesio (whose books were placed on the Index of Forofferden Books after his death).
In Naples, in 1589, Campanella came into contact with Giambattista della Porta, a polymath who was the center of a diverse group of thinkers who dabbled in experiments, white magic, and astrology. Campanella here was exposed not only to primitive experiments, but also to astrology. His thoughts had now drifted so far from Dominican orthodoxy, that he was denounced to the Inquisition and, in 1592, he was for a time confined in a convent.
For the next seven years he led a peripatetic life, until in 1599 he was imprisoned in Naples for joining a movement to expel the Spanish from Naples and Sicily. He spent 27 years in prison in Naples. During these imprisonments he often lived under the worst conditions and was tortured several times. After living in Rome for five years, where he advised Pope Urban VIII on astrological matters, he fled to France in 1634, where he lived the his life out peacefully under the protection of Cardinal Richelieu, until his death in 1639.
Campanella wrote on a wide range of subjects, from Telesian philsophy to political philosophy and astrology. In 1622 he published his Apologia pro Galileo (\"Defense of Galileo\") in which he defended the Copernican system and the separate paths of Scripture and nature to knowledge of the Creator. He argued that truth about nature is not revealed in Scripture and claimed freedom of thought in philosophical speculation. His writings were influential not because of any scientific discoveries but because of animistic, empirical interpretation of nature. Campanella was a great admirer of Galileo and corresponded with him for many years. In his animistic, Neo-Platonic, astrological approach to nature he was, however, very different from the much more practical Florentine.(Dictionary of Scientific Biography XV:68-70)
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