Atheism Conquered
Atheism Conquered () is a philosophical work by the Italian Dominican philosopher Tommaso Campanella. Campanella wrote Atheism Conquered in 1606–1607 in Italian, under the title of Recognoscimento della vera religione universale (Identification of the True Universal Religion), while in prison on suspicion of conspiracy to rebel against Spanish rule over Naples. On June 1, 1607, he dedicated it to the German scholar Caspar Schoppe, who had come to visit him and who suggested the new title. The Italian version survives in the Vatican Library; Campanella subsequently translated it into Latin. Schoppe was not able to have it published, nor was the philosopher , who had other works by Campanella published in Frankfurt in 1617–1623. The Church regarded it as fomenting Pelagianism, a heresy in which the virtues of humanity are overemphasized at the expense of God's grace. In 1631, after great difficulty and censorship of the text more than once, Campanella managed to publish it in Rome, but the edition was almost immediately impounded. It was finally published in Paris in early 1636 in a collection of Campanella's writings dedicated to King Louis XIII. In the introductory chapter, Campanella juxtaposes politicians, whose viewpoint, based on self-love, maintains that all religion