Christianopolis

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The Christianopolis (1619) of Johann Valentin Andreae describes in great detail a utopian community of scholar-craftsmen, as seen through the eyes of a naive young traveller. It is a multi-level text, carefully constructed to provide both entertainment and a critique of contemporary society and religion, which could also be read as the prospectus for the establishment of a new community. This new translation aims to clarify Andreae’s elliptical Latin for the first time by identifying parallel passages, allusions and sources for his ideas, and by linking Christianopolis with Andreae’s other work as satirist, dramatist, poet and mathematician. A new model of his revision of ideas drawn from Campanella is put forward, and the politico-economic principles embodied in the text are explored. The translation should be of interest to students of the history of utopian ideas, and the history of economic thought.