Elements of Life: Campanella’s Living World Between Discord and Harmony

Abstract

In Campanella’s magic universe, starting from the space that the first material substrate occupies, every- thing is alive with sense perception and a will of its own. The pre-condition of universal life is every creature’s structural similitude to its trinitarian creator, whose Pow- er, Wisdom, and Love are reflected in each individual as its power, knowledge, and will of existence. Since the ac- tive principle of life and sensation is fire – one of the two opposed physical elements Campanella assumes – the sensitive soul is material (animal spirits). In order to avoid both pantheism and dualism Campanella employs the inner dynamic of the trinitarian God for his cosmogony and cosmology.