Messianic and Utopian Influences on Imperial Spain

Roure draws a novel connection between Tomasso Campanellas utopian ideas for Imperial Spain and Catholicism and Portuguese navigator Pedro Fernndez de Quirs vision of an idyllic society and a mythical city of New Jerusalem in the antipodes. The book presents newfound evidence suggesting Spain experimented with Messianism to secure their empire in the late Renaissance. The case is made that the Spanish monarchy contemplated Campanellas Messianic ideas and sent Quirs to initiate them on the imagined Terra Australis Incognita. Campanella and Quirs shared idiosyncratic beliefs that by means of divine providence Spanish power would imminently transform the world, elevate humanity to a higher spiritual plane, dominate politics and religion and prepare for the second coming. The work advances our understanding of previously unknown links between Campanellas religious solutions for idealising temporal government, Quirss objective of a utopian society in the great south land and Spains tentative experimentation with Messianism. It also permits the drawing of inferences on the possible rationale behind political messianism in the contemporary world. A valuable resource for scholars, students, researchers, and professionals interested in European and World History of the late Renaissance as well as those interested in the religious and political imperatives of Imperial Spain during the Habsburg period.