SOURCE: "Valentin Andreae: Christianopolis," in Journey Through Utopia, 1950. Reprint by The Beacon Press, 1951, pp. 103-26.

In the following essay, Berneri provides an overview of the main characteristics of Andreae's Christianopolis, with a focus on the areas of work, education, and marriage.

Andreae's Christianopolis was published in 1619, only seventeen years after Campanella wrote his City of the Sun, yet it bears a much closer resemblance to the reformist utopias of the 19th century than to that of the Calabrian monk. Johann Valentin Andreae, the German scholar and humanist, has much in common with the cotton manufacturer and great reformer, Robert Owen, and it is perhaps for this reason that his ideal city seems more familiar than the unreal dreams of More and Campanella. Andreae does not write with the imagination and originality of a visionary; he discusses questions which he must have known intimately and for which he offers...