Renaissance: Follow the Magic to Modernity: Follow the Science

The Renaissance Believed in Magic Like Moderns Believe in ScienceIn 1598, a huge renegade friar organized a revolt to liberate Calabria from Spain.Tommaso Campanella started the revolt with astrology: he announced to his followers that the stars portended great changes and revolution. He then added numerology, noting that the numbers agreed with the stars: the year 1600 was approaching and 16 is numerologically significant.[i]The new century, Campanella preached, would mark the dawn of a new age—an age with a better religious cult, better moral laws, and an excellent ruler (to wit, Campanella, who thought he was astrologically destined to bring the world into the new age).In order to prepare for the new age, Campanella taught it was first necessary to overthrow Spanish rule, but he believed so strongly in his personal magical powers and the magical signs that he scarcely prepared for Spain’s inevitable response. His “revolution” was quickly crushed and Campanella was imprisoned for 27 years.During his imprisonment, he channeled his Utopian-magical desires into writing. In Citta del Sole (The City of the Sun), he drafted a blueprint for his ideal city, a mountain city ruled by a priest named Hoh. Hoh and his bureaucratic aides would rule over sex relations, which would be organized to bring about the best humans. There would be no mental or physical disabilities. All things would be held in common, including the women, and children would be raised by the community. Both sexes would be trained to fight. Everyone would work, but only four hours per day. Everyone would practice perfect virtue, and there would be no crime.[ii]The City's structure would be dictated by astrology. It would be divided into seven divisions named after the seven planets (Neptune and Pluto hadn’t been discovered yet). The walls which divided each division would be covered with astrological depictions. In the middle of the City, there would be a vast temple with an altar containing a great "mappamondo" on which all the heavens would be depicted. The dome would contain the greatest stars with a listing of the powers each has over the earth. In short, Campanella's City was "a complete reflection of the world as governed by the laws of natural magic in dependence on the stars” and was "saturated through and through with astrology."[iii]The Magical RenaissanceShow notes here