The City of the Sun | Page 3

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The City of the Sun
by Tommaso Campanells

A Poetical Dialogue between a Grandmaster of the Knights
Hospitallers and a Genoese Sea-Captain, his guest.
G.M. Prithee, now, tell me what happened to you during that voyage?
Capt. I have already told you how I wandered over the whole earth. In
the course of my journeying I came to Taprobane, and was compelled
to go ashore at a place, where through fear of the inhabitants I remained
in a wood. When I stepped out of this I found myself on a large plain
immediately under the equator.
G.M. And what befell you here?
Capt. I came upon a large crowd of men and armed women, many of
whom did not understand our language, and they con- ducted me
forthwith to the City of the Sun.
G.M. Tell me after what plan this city is built and how it is governed.
Capt. The greater part of the city is built upon a high hill, which rises
from an extensive plain, but several of its circles extend for some

distance beyond the base of the hill, which is of such a size that the
diameter of the city is upward of two miles, so that its circumference
becomes about seven. On ac- count of the humped shape of the
mountain, however, the diam- eter of the city is really more than if it
were built on a plain.
It is divided into seven rings or huge circles named from the seven
planets, and the way from one to the other of these is by four streets
and through four gates, that look toward the four points of the compass.
Furthermore, it is so built that if the first circle were stormed, it would
of necessity entail a double amount of energy to storm the second; still
more to storm the third; and in each succeeding case the strength and
energy would have to be doubled; so that he who wishes to capture that
city must, as it were, storm it seven times. For my own part, however, I
think that not even the first wall could be occupied, so thick are the
earthworks and so well fortified is it with breastworks, towers, guns,
and ditches.
When I had been taken through the northern gate (which is shut with an
iron door so wrought that it can be raised and let down, and locked in
easily and strongly, its projections run- ning into the grooves of the
thick posts by a marvellous device), I saw a level space seventy paces[1]
wide between the first and