Monumento al Filosofo Tommaso Campanella

A bronze monument to Tommaso Campanella stands in Piazza Carnovale in Stilo, before the church of San Francesco. Created by sculptor Ernesto Gazzeri, it was erected through the initiative of local resident Luigi Carnovale and inaugurated in 1923 by philosopher Giovanni Gentile.

Why it matters

Campanella was born in Stilo in 1568 and became a Dominican friar, philosopher and poet. His work includes The City of the Sun, written during his imprisonment in Naples. The monument, funded by local and institutional contributions, commemorates the town’s connection to one of the most widely known thinkers of early modern Calabria.

What to notice

The bronze figure stands in the square before the church of San Francesco. Its placement links the monument to the surrounding civic and religious setting. A municipal account identifies Gazzeri as its sculptor and records that the project was funded through public subscriptions and institutional contributions. The square bears the name of the Carnovale family, after Luigi Carnovale, who initiated the monument.

Context and history

Tommaso Campanella was born Giovan Domenico Campanella in Stilo and entered the Dominican order as a young man. He rejected Aristotelian scholastic philosophy in favour of the natural philosophy of Bernardino Telesio. In 1599 he was implicated in a conspiracy in Calabria against Spanish rule, imprisoned for nearly twenty-seven years in Naples and wrote several of his best-known works during that period. The monument was unveiled in 1923 by Giovanni Gentile.