Johann Valentin Andreae

On an evening before Easter Day, I sat at a table, and having in my humble prayer sufficiently conversed with my Creator, and considered many great mysteries and being now ready to prepare in my heart, together with my dear Paschal Lamb, a small, unleavened, undefiled cake; all of a sudden arose so horrible a tempest, that I imagined no other but that through its mighty force, the hill on which my little house was founded would fly into pieces.But inasmuch as this, and the like from the Devil (who had done me many a spite) was no new thing to me, I took courage, and persisted in my meditation, till somebody in an unusual manner touched me on the back; whereupon I was so hugely terrified, that I dared hardly look about me; yet I showed myself as cheerful as (in such occurrences) human frailty would permit. Now the same thing still twitching me several times by the coat, I looked back, and behold it was a fair and glorious lady, whose garments were all sky-coloured, and curiously (like Heaven) bespangled with golden stars; in her right hand she bore a trumpet of beaten gold, on which a Name was engraved which I could well read but am as yet forbidden to reveal it. In her left hand she had a great bundle of letters of all languages, which she (as I afterwards understood) was to carry to all countries. She also had large and beautiful wings, full of eyes throughout, with which she could mount aloft, and fly swifter than any eagle.

Primera utopía redactada en el ámbito de la incipiente cultura protestante, de carácter masónico (Rosacruz) y cristiano reformista. Redactado en latín, es un texto completamente original que refleja con gran fidelidad las aspiraciones religiosas y sociales de la Reforma temprana.

Johann Valentin Andreae (1586-1654), pastor luterano humanista y polígrafo, es conocido principalmente por su vinculación con los Manifiestos Rosacruces, de los que es el autor casi con seguridad, y también, aunque mucho menos, por su obra Cristianópolis, un escrito utópico en que expone el programa para una genuina Fraternidad Rosacruz o sociedad cristiana. Esta utopía es la primera de cierta envergadura que se produce en el ámbito protestante y refleja con fidelidad las aspiraciones religiosas y sociales de la Reforma temprana, aspiraciones que habían sido formuladas de manera provisional y embrionaria en la Fama y la Confessio, los dos documentos fundacionales del movimiento rosacruz. En contra de lo que suele repetirse, Cristianópolis es una utopía completamente original, muy superior en su propio género tanto a La ciudad del Sol de Campanella, a la que no imita en absoluto, como a la Nueva Atlántida de Bacon, por la que más bien es imitada en algunos aspectos fundamentales. La traducción que aquí ofrecemos es la primera que se hace al castellano, directamente basada en el texto latino de la edición original de 1619.