The thesis is in two parts: an introductory discussion (chapters 1 – 5, 7) and a new translation of Christianopolis (chapter 6):
Part I The introductory essay is divided into five sections.
The first section (The Text and its Context) sketches Andreć’s biographical details up to 1620, just after the publication of Christianopolis. The intention of this section is to highlight aspects of Andreć’s life or experience which may help to clarify the text. This is combined with an account of the text itself, which emphasises the aspects of its style and language which bear upon our interpretation of the work.
The second section (The Sources of Christianopolis) outlines the sources on which Andreć drew, with particular emphasis on his relationships with More’s Utopia and the works of Tomasso Campanella. It is argued that the strength of the influence of Campanella on Andreć and his associates has been seriously underestimated. This chapter also refers to Andreć’s debt to the architectural ‘utopists’, designers of the cittŕ ideale, and draws attention to the ways in which Christianopolis is prefigured in some of Andreć’s earlier work, particularly the Christenburg and his comedy Turbo.
The third section (Interpretation) considers some of the problems of interpretation posed by Christianopolis. One aspect of this is the consideration that although Andreć refers to Christianopolis as a ‘city’ (urbs, civitas) he was in fact describing an institution much more comparable in size and structure to a monastery or college; secondly, we consider the character of the model he has in mind - that is, the extent to which Christianopolis describes a model, or perhaps a metaphor, rather than a material construction. Finally, we consider something of the ambivalent role of science and technology in Christianopolis, where it is both an applied study of the earth and a spiritual discipline that leads its practitioners away from the earth; which makes effort more productive, but is used to reduce effort rather than increase production.
The fourth section (The Economy) considers some of the socio-economic aspects of the text, particularly the role of ‘Economics’, and the functions in Christianopolis of the economist, the ways in which Andreć visualised the economic management of the community, and the goals of to be pursued by economic policy
The concluding section of the introductory essay discusses the impact of Andreć’s work on his successors in Germany, and later in England under the Commonwealth.