The Enlightenment in translation: Antonio Genovesi's political economy in Spain, 1778–1800†

Abstract

This article examines the influence of the Neapolitan philosopher and economist Antonio Genovesi on academic debate during the Enlightenment in Spain in the latter decades of the eighteenth century. In particular, it focuses on the reaction aroused by his famous Lezioni di commercio (1765–7). The success of Genovesi's work in Spain is evident in the many translations of the Lezioni carried out over the years by many analysts, from pioneering historians such as Venturi to more contemporary commentators. In this article we shall endeavour, first, to study all the different Spanish versions of Genovesi's book and, second, to demonstrate that Genovesian influence in Spain was heterogeneous, which is why the Lezioni provides a very illustrative example of the struggle between the various reformist and anti-reformist strategies circulating in late eighteenth-century Spain. At the same time, it provides a good standpoint from which to observe the powerful flow of ideas from Naples to Spain during the Enlightenment.