XLIII. Invited to write a comedy--and it will be here remembered that Giordano Bruno had composed _Il Candelaio_--Campanella replied with this impassioned outburst of belief in the approaching end of the world. It belongs probably to his early manhood.
XLIV., XLV. Adami heads these two sonnets with this title: _Sopra i colori delle vesti_. It is a fact that under the Spanish tyranny black clothes were almost universally adopted by the Italians, as may be seen in the picture galleries of Florence and Genoa. Campanella uses this fashion as a symbol of the internal gloom and melancholy in which the nation was sunk by vice upon the eve of the new age he confidently looked for.
XLVI. The year 1603, made up of centuries _seven_ and _nine_ and years _three_, was expected by the astrologers to bring a great mutation in the order of our planet. The celestial signs were supposed to reassume the position they had occupied at Christ's nativity. Campanella, who believed in astrology, looked forward with intense anxiety to this turning-point in modern history. It is clear from the termination of the sonnet that he wrote it some time before the great date; and we are hence perhaps justified in referring the rest of his prophetic poetry to the same early period of his career.
XLVII. _Qui legit intelligat_, says Adami. Line 7: refers to the outlying vassals of the Roman Empire, who destroyed it, ruled Rome, and afterwards fell under the yoke of the Roman See. Lines 9-14 are an invective against the Papacy.
XLVIII. A sonnet on his own prison. The prison or worse was the doom of all truth-seekers in Campanella's age.
XLIX. For the understanding of this strange composition Adami offers nothing more satisfactory than _mira quante contraposizioni sono in questo sonetto_. The contrast is maintained throughout between the philosopher in the freedom of his spirit and the same man in the limitations of his prisoned life. Line 12 I do not rightly understand. Line 14 refers to Paradise.
L. There is an allusion in this sonnet to an obscure passage in Campanella's life. It seems he was condemned to the galleys (see line 12); and this sentence was remitted on account of his real or feigned madness. We should infer from the poem itself that his madness was simulated; but Adami, who ought to have known the facts from his own lips, writes: _quando bruciò il letto, e divenne pazzo o vero o finto_. Line 12: I have translated _l'astratto_ by _the mystic_; _astratto_ is _assorto_, or _lost in ecstatic contemplation_.