The Utopian City of the Sun

Campanela can be seen as anticipating and answering a complaint about utopian treatises. The authors of such works seem to be offering happiness in a perfect city on this earth, rather than in the city of God in heaven. For Campanela, the rational or natural religion observed by the people of his city would already be remarkably like a Christian community. Their customs even involve the confession and absolution of sins,. A detail that may have been inspired by the rise of confessional culture as part of the counter-reformation.