As Thompson has remarked, however, the work s blueprint for establishing a small community of scholar-craftsmen in contrast to the stratified castes of Utopia marks it as a Lutheran alternative to the Jesuit collages of the counter-reformation, and a Christocentric alternative to the Rosicrucian myth with which Andreae was also associated. Like its famous predecessor, More s Utopia (1516), Andreae s Christianopolis describes the ideal Christian society from the perspective of a visiting narrator, in this case the shipwrecked pilgrim Cosmoxenus Christianus, who observes the city s inhabitants, social institutions and way of life. The volume includes a folding engraved plate, often missing, depicting two views of the perfect city: a bird s-eye view of its walls, courtyards, and central tower, together with an aerial blueprint of its symmetrical architectural layout. Fine sammelband of four scarce first editions of works by the Renaissance theologian, Lutheran reformer, and self-proclaimed founding Rosicrucian Johann Valentin Andreae (1586-1654), including his celebrated Reipublicae Christianopolitanae, a Protestant vision of the Christian Utopia.
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