Tommaso Campanella e l'eternità del mondo

This study examines Tommaso Campanella’s discussion of the eternity of the world, as presented in texts ranging from Philosophia sensibus demonstrate – published to defend Telesio from Giacomo Antonio Marta’s criticism, in 1591 – to Metaphysica, which Campanella drafted in a number of different versions and finally published in Paris in 1638. Campanella’s stance is marked by some striking recurrent features: most notably, his criticism of Aristotelian eternalism and a connection withthe Platonic-Ficinian tradition of prisca theologia. This framework, stemming from the ancient tradition of debates on Plato and Aristotle that extended well into the 15th century, is combined in Campanella’s later works with a reference to the new astronomy, which —as the philosopher himself stresses— delivered a final blow to Aristotelian cosmology. The Apologia pro Galileo (1616) further shows that Campanella sought to incorporate Galileo’s astronomy into the framework of prisca theologia.