The Master Game

by Graham Hancock

  It seems that several times during the hours of unremitting suffering that he endured – his diligent inquisitors taking notes all the while – Campanella cried out incoherently and uttered strange, usually meaningless phrases as though delirious: ‘ten white horses’; ‘I am slaughtered’; ‘Enthrone and shut up’. In the midst of all this, pointing out that his body was plainly ruined and likely to die, his torturers suggested he should give thought to the salvation of his soul. He somehow found the energy and will to yell hoarsely back a four-word statement of his core belief:

  The soul is immortal!20

  This was a belief that he shared with the Hermetic and Gnostic sages of ancient Alexandria, and with the Cathars. The same belief would also later be taken up and trumpeted by the French Revolution as we saw in Chapter One.

  Ten hours passed, then 20, then 30. Finally, writes Professor Headley: After 40 hours, near death, yet spiritually unbroken, his simulation of madness undiscovered, our prisoner was cut down. According to canon law his insanity had been established; therefore he could not be executed.21

  Campanella's jailer, who became his personal friend, records that as he lifted the broken body from the embrace of ‘the awakener’ to carry him back to his cell the supposed madman whispered the following question hoarsely in his ear: Did they really think that I would be enough of a blockhead to speak?22

  The first European celebrity

  He had escaped the fire, but he still remained very much in the frying pan. Legally mad or not, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in the dungeons of Naples without any hope of parole.

  After everything he had already been through, such a grim prospect would have killed a lesser man but somehow the indomitable Campanella refused to abandon optimism and fade away. Instead, though he was kept for many years in a damp, dark, subterranean cell, he constantly made use of his brilliant mind. He composed poetry – some of which he managed to write down himself, some of which he dictated – and wrote countless letters to influential figures around Europe who he hoped might have the power to set him free. Most extraordinary of all, he somehow also managed to produce his great philosophical work Civitas Solis (‘The City of the Sun’), with its magical ‘natural religion’ and its scientist-priests ruled by one of their number called ‘Sun’. Not only that but Campanella successfully arranged to have the completed manuscript smuggled out of prison by one of his loyal disciples – a certain Tobias Adami, who we will meet again in Chapter Thirteen. Though it stirred great interest, and is widely recognised by historians of ideas as the inspiration for many of the great utopian schemes of the 17th and 18th centuries, no scholar seems yet to have seriously considered the possibility that Campanella's Civitas Solis could ever have been much more than just an idea – let alone that someone might actually have attempted to build it. Yet it is precisely this possibility that we intend to pursue.

  Civitas Solis was by no means Campanella's only full-length work during his imprisonment. It is the most important, but much of his other output also proved to be exciting and provocative intellectual fare. All things considered his achievements were prodigious and after a little more than quarter of a century had passed, aged over 60 – and despite his sentence to perpetual imprisonment without parole – Campanella did win back his liberty. The final decade of his confinement until his release, first into house-arrest in 1627 and then at last to freedom in 1629, was spent in increasing comfort as mysterious friends in high places lobbied on his behalf.23 Even before graduating to house-arrest he was already being allowed to hold tutorials, give full-scale lectures, and receive visiting VIPs in his cell – many of whom arrived with copies of his books which he would graciously autograph for them. He managed to transform himself, in a sense, into the Nelson Mandela of the Renaissance, ‘one of the sights to see if visiting Naples’, as John Headley puts it: Campanella had not only survived; he had become possibly the first European celebrity.24

  After gaining his freedom in 1629, Campanella stayed for some years in Italy, much of the time in Rome. There he was drawn into the circle of the French ambassador, François de Noailles. In 1634 came reports of another uprising in the Naples area led by a certain Tommaso Pignatelli, once a disciple of Campanella. When captured Pignatelli wrongfully accused his former master of involvement in the conspiracy, placing him in immediate jeopardy of arrest. Now 66 years old, and understandably phobic about any idea of a return to prison, Campanella sought refuge in the French embassy. Soon afterwards, disguised and using the ambassador's personal carriage, he was smuggled out of Italy into France.25

  France update: murders and plots

  Things had changed in France since Giordano Bruno had enjoyed protection there. Henry III had died in 1589 a year after his domineering mother, Catherine de’Medici, and the throne had passed to Henry of Navarre, now crowned Henry IV of France. As we saw in Chapter Ten, Henry of Navarre, who belonged to the powerful Bourbon family, was a Protestant and had converted to Catholicism in 1593 in order to neutralise those who opposed his coronation as king of France. But not everyone was convinced of Henry's sincerity in this all-too-convenient ‘conversion’. Certainly Bruno had not been – although his own theory, stated during his trial, was that Henry of Navarre was from the outset a Catholic at heart: When I praised the King of Navarre, I did not praise him because he was an adherent of the heretics [Protestants], but for the reason that… he was not otherwise a heretic, but that he lived as a heretic from desire of ruling.26

  Among those who most doubted Henry IV’s ‘conversion’ were the Jesuits – the ‘Society of Jesus’, founded by Saint Ignatius of Loyola a century or so previously – whom the king had, in fact, distrusted all his life. ‘They will kill me one day’, he is reported to have confided in his close friends, ‘I can see that they are putting all their resources into my death.’27

  Sure enough, on 14 May 1610, Henry IV was assassinated by a religious fanatic, François Ravaillac. The official story told by the Church was that even under the most persuasive torture, Ravaillac had insisted that there were no accomplices to the crime and that he had acted entirely on his own initiative. But many, especially the Protestant Huguenots, believed that he had been put up to the murder by the Jesuits.

  Others went so far as to suspect the involvement of Henry IV’s Catholic queen, Marie de’Medici. Their marriage had been famously unhappy. It was also well known, and obviously suspicious, that barely two months before the assassination Marie had persuaded her husband to make her regent of France should he suffer an untimely death. Her official coronation as regent occurred on 13 May and Henry was murdered less than 24 hours later.28 The coincidence was alarming, to say the least. But nothing could be proved against Marie and the blame, rightly or wrongly, fell entirely on the wretched Ravaillac. He suffered the ultimately penalty for regicide: first to be tortured with red-hot pincers, then seethed in hot oil, and finally, still alive, to be ripped apart by four farm horses tethered to his arms and legs.

  The low libido of Louis XIII

  Henry IV’s eldest son Louis – the future Louis XIII – was only nine years old when his father was assassinated and Marie de’Medici's position as his regent was legally unassailable. He was crowned king in 1614 when he reached the required minimum age of 13 but was at first entirely dominated by his ambitious mother. He gradually began to assert his authority and in 1631, at the age of 30, he at last took full control of his throne and had Marie de’Medici banished forever from France.

  Louis XIII had been married to the Spanish Infanta Anne of Austria, daughter of Philip III of Spain, when they were both only 14 years old, and the marriage remained unconsummated for many years. Of a very curious nature and disposition, Louis was more interested in his hobbies of repairing locks and making jams than in having sex with his wife. It was clear that the young man was very much unlike his father, Henry IV, who had seduced so many women during his short reign that it had earned him the nickname of Le Vert Galant (‘the Green Gallant’), 17th cen
tury French slang for ‘sexy’.

  Louis’ low libido wasn't the only problem. It was also obvious that he just plainly disliked his Spanish wife, even though she was openly affectionate to him, and perhaps even loved him. According to French historian Jean Duché, things had deteriorated so much that on a cold night in January 1619 Louis practically had to be dragged out of his own bed by leading courtiers and taken forcibly to the queen's chamber in order finally to consummate his marriage.29 Two years later the queen – almost miraculously one could say in such circumstances – was found to be pregnant. Unfortunately she suffered an accident in the Louvre Palace and miscarried. The king's peculiar response to this was not sympathy but fury and he seems to have became even more reluctant to perform his marital duties after this tragedy.

  As the years went by the desperation of the young and warm-blooded queen became so pronounced that she sought some affection by causally flirting with the dashing and very handsome Duke of Buckingham, the British ambassador in Paris. Rumours reached the ears of Louis XIII that his wife was having an affair with the duke, which in those days was an act of treason punishable by death. But being a very devoted and strict Catholic, it is unlikely that the queen would have taken such a risk. At any rate, and luckily for her, the king was persuaded of her innocence. And so, by the time Tommaso Campanella arrived in Paris 1634, a dark, cold and solemn mood had fallen over the royal couple, and everyone by then had given up on seeing them produce an heir for the Bourbon dynasty.

  But then, as if by magic, something rather wonderful and strange happened …

  Brief excursion to some buried Egyptian treasures

  Since time immemorial a certain glamour of magic and mystery always surrounded the kings of France – whose origins were steeped in fabulous legends and myths. At the root of these were three successive royal houses, some even say races, known as the Merovingians, the Carolingians and the Capetians. All were bound by a very ancient Teutonic law, the so-called Salic Law, introduced by the Salian Franks who had invaded Gaul in the fifth century AD.

  This Salic Law had been formalised by Clovis, the founder of the Merovingian dynasty, and was later repromulgated by the legendary Charlemagne, Carolus Magnus, founder of the Carolingian dynasty and first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. The Capetian dynasty was founded in AD 987 when Hugh Capet became king of France. And through some oblique and rather dubious historical logic, the Valois and the Bourbon families also regarded themselves as linked, if not by blood then ‘spiritually’, to these ancient roots and, more directly, to the Capetians. The Capetian bloodline ended in 1328 with the death of Charles the Fair. The latter had left no sons or even brothers to succeed him and thus the throne of France had gone to his cousin, Philip of Valois, known as Philip VI ‘the Fortunate’.30

  In 1653 a mysterious treasure-trove was unearthed at Tournai (today part of Belgium), where the ancient Merovigian kings had set their capital. The discovery caused quite a stir at the time because the artefacts, mostly small items of gold and bronze, were believed to be from the tomb of King Childeric (c. AD 460), the father of Clovis. We note with interest that amongst the artefacts recovered was a golden Apis bull, a small statue of Isis and, in another nearby find at Saint-Brice, dozens of golden bees. In ancient Egyptian myths bees were the tears of the sun-god Ra while the hieroglyphic symbol of the bee was part of the royal titulary of the pharaohs (as in ‘He of the Sedge and the Bee’).31 Interesting too is the fact that the Egyptian character of these artefacts was correctly identified by savants at this 17th century French court who went on to suggest a connection between the Merovingian dynasty and the Isis-Serapis solar cults of ancient Egypt.32

  Predicting a Capetian miracle

  Tommaso Campanella arrived at the French court in 1634. This was a full 20 years after the marriage of Louis XIII to the Spanish Infanta Anne of Austria and the royal couple remained without child. The prospects of a continuation of the Bourbon dynasty looked dim and it was the general view that there was not going to be a ‘Capetian miracle’ – the mocking term being used by this point to describe the likelihood of a royal successor.

  The big problem, and the source of all sorts of rumours and gossip at court, was that Louis XIII flatly refused to have any sexual contact with his wife. The king was thought (variously) to be impotent, simply not interested in women, or perhaps a homosexual.33 Reinforcing the latter speculation was the rather bizarre relationship, bordering on romantic love, which Louis was now publicly enjoying with his personal valet, the young Marquis of Cinq-Mars. Further complicating the matter, the king was unwell and suffered from tuberculosis. Last but not least, and notwithstanding the business with his (male) valet, he was also romantically in love with a young and very pious lady, Mlle Louise de la Fayette, who had entered a convent in Paris. Somewhat reminiscent of the pure Platonic love once promoted by the troubadours of Occitania, this affair of the king's had no sexual element to it whatsoever but was felt at court to be a distraction from any potential sexual encounters he might otherwise have had with the queen!

  The queen herself, of course, was the one who felt most strongly about the matter. Hearing that the famous prophet and magus Tommaso Campanalla had recently arrived in France, she summoned him to her side. He had been highly recommended to her by Cardinal Richelieu, and she wanted to have his prophetic opinion on the matter of the succession.

  There was nothing unusual about this. The queen and Richelieu, like most intelligent and highly-placed people of their epoch, were much influenced by prophetic and astrological predictions. Many European monarchs of the 16th and 17th centuries are known to have had their personal astrologers who were consulted regularly on matters of state, of marriage and even of war. Indeed, through intermediaries, Richelieu had already consulted Campanella on many occasions and, no doubt, the nerve-racking question of the succession must have been often raised and discussed.34 The two men were to become close confidantes with Campanella dedicating a number of his new works to Richelieu and calling for the cardinal's assistance to ‘build the City of the Sun’ as expounded in the Civitas Solis which had just been reissued in Paris.35

  Brokered by Richelieu, Campanella's meeting with the queen came quickly and, to the court's amazement, the magus boldly predicted that soon the French monarchy would be blessed with an heir.36 The heir, moreover, would be a male child who, like the very Sun itself, would illumine the whole world and usher in a glorious and golden era for humanity: Everyone will acknowledge a single Father and a single God and love will unite them all … Kings and nations … will gather in a city which will be named Heliaca, The City of the Sun, which will be built by this illustrious hero [the future ‘solar’ king of France] … 37

  As Jean Meyer delicately puts it, Campanella had taken a very dangerous, high-stakes gamble by proclaiming the imminent birth of a male heir to the French throne. If he were proved right he stood to gain much, if wrong his reputation would be ruined.

  God sent

  A flash thunderstorm over the city of Paris on a cold winter's day was to play in Campanella's favour, and his prophetic gamble would pay off. For early one afternoon in December 1637, Louis XIII left his small weekend residence at Versailles and made his way to the Château de Saint-Maur, where he intended to spend the night. En route he decided to make a stop in Paris at the convent of St. Marie on the Rue Saint-Antoine, where Louise de la Fayette, his platonic and very pious lady friend, lived.

  With his bodyguards waiting outside, and an old nun serving as chaperone, the king and Sister Louise de la Fayette sat in a secluded part of the convent talking in whispers. When finally night fell, the king decided it was time to go, but he was informed by the captain of the guards, a man called Guitaut, who was deeply devoted to the queen, that there was a violent storm outside, making the trip to Saint-Maur imprudent. Guitaut strongly advised the king that it would be safer for him to spend the night at the Louvre Palace which was much closer.38

  There was one small problem. The queen
had her private apartments at the Louvre, and the king did not relish the prospect of spending the night in her company. But as the storm grew more violent, and with Guitaut constantly reminding the king that the queen would most certainly be overjoyed to receive him at the Louvre, Louis had not much choice by to agree. A guard was sent ahead to warn Anne of this wonderful opportunity that was presenting itself. A candlelit supper was quickly arranged, and a spare bed brought to the queen's chambers. The loyal Captain Guitaut had made sure that the news was sent to all the convents and churches in Paris to pray in unison for the long awaited event …

  Sure enough, exactly nine months later, on 5 September 1638, Anne of Austria gave birth to a male child who was christened Louis – the future Louis XIV. As though as a reminder that this great miracle had been prophesied by Tommaso Campanella, it so happened that 5 September was also Campanella's 70th birthday. Now amidst great jubilations and prayers of thanks, the rapturous and very grateful queen summoned the magus and asked him to cast the natal horoscope for her son – who was already spoken of as the Dieudonné, the ‘God-sent’. We know that Campanella paid at least two visits to the queen's private chamber, was present when she breastfed the infant, and was even given the immense honour of holding the future king in his arms.39 Finally, after thoroughly examining the child, he announced, somewhat underwhelmingly, that the reign of Louis XIV would be long happy, and glorious.40