Pietro Verri Research Articles

Pietro Verri's Political Economy: Commercial Society, Civil Society, and the Science of the Legislator

Research Article| March 01 2002 Pietro Verri's Political Economy: Commercial Society, Civil Society, and the Science of the Legislator Pier Luigi Porta; Pier Luigi Porta Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Roberto Scazzieri Roberto Scazzieri Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google History of Political Economy (2002) 34 (1): 83–110. https://doi.org/10.1215/00182702-34-1-83 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Pier Luigi Porta, Roberto Scazzieri; Pietro Verri's Political Economy: Commercial Society, Civil Society, and the Science of the Legislator. History of Political Economy 1 March 2002; 34 (1): 83–110. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/00182702-34-1-83 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsHistory of Political Economy Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Duke University Press2002 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Announcements of Capitalism and Their Reception in Eighteenth-Century Europe: The Dispute Between Diderot and Morellet in 1770-71

In the second half of the eighteenth century various Europeans began to write about the investment of capital in broad and dramatic terms, identifying it as a transforming force capable of making immense headway against poverty and scarcity. However, despite their powerful import, these “announcements of capitalism” were often ignored or misconstrued. In the dispute between Morellet and Diderot the former called for the bringing of capital and entrepreneurs to French agriculture while the latter, rather than rejecting the plea, simply circumvented it and went on to other issues. Morellet’s use of abstractions or ideal types to advance his economic ideas contrasted with Diderot’s insistence upon drawing insight only from a known landscape which happened to be short on capital and entrepreneurs. Likewise, when Morellet neglected to distinguish the entrepreneur from other kinds of European leasefarmers Diderot could suppose the argument won by pointing to operators who were too poor to produce much or who used their money to establish commercial monopolies. Nonetheless, we do not argue that Diderot failed to understand Morellet’s literary presentation of agrarian capitalism just because he had at his disposal no actual examples of it. Instead, we offer the instance of Austrian Lombardy where rich and productive leasefarmers dominated agriculture in the wet plains and where the accomplished student of political economy, Pietro Verri, residing practically next door to the great dairy farms of the Lodigiano, never managed to make sense of them, in particular refusing to see in the substitution of capital for labour anything other than a narrow pursuit of personal gain. In sum, if the Enlightenment invented the ideas of capitalism and the entrepreneur it also put up effective barriers to their reception.

The Letters of Fortunato Bartolomeo De Felice to Pietro Verri

Felice appeared in Strumenti critici,* evidence of the epistolary relationship between Pietro Verri and De Felice, one of the most important publishers of eighteenth-century Europe. The eighteen letters published here for the first time further substantiate the relationship and explore a significant link in the dense network of Italo-Swiss relations in the eighteenth century. These letters not only shed further light on the association between Pietro Verri and other Italian publishers such as Giuseppe Aubert and Giuseppe Galeazzi, but they also add to our knowledge of the reception of Voltaire and Rousseau in Italy, as well as the reception of Verri's own work. The letters also provide insight into the individual character of each correspondent and the dynamics of their relationship against the backdrop of De Felice's personal history, which intersects with the turbulent political and religious history of Italy between 1755-75.

Death of two eminent members of the Movement

The ICRC learned with deep sadness of the death on 24 September 1988 of General Pietro Verri, President of the Florence Branch of the Italian Red Cross, and the death on 16 October 1988 of Mr. Soehanda Ijas, Co-Chairman of the Indonesian Red Cross.General Verri, former Vice-Commander of the Arma dei Carabinieri, was an active supporter of the Red Cross and a tireless champion of international humanitarian law (IHL), a subject in which he was well versed. He was a member of the Italian delegation to the Diplomatic Conference which led, in 1977, to the adoption of the Protocols additional to the 1949 Geneva Conventions and as a profilic author and translator did much to promote the dissemination of IHL in his country. He drew his ability to do so from a flawless knowledge of the theoretical questions underlying the law of armed conflicts, coupled with a vast experience of the practical problems arising from the implementation of these rules. For several years he also acted as director of the courses set up by the Italian Red Cross to train instructors of humanitarian law and regularly taught the law of armed conflicts to members of the Air Force and Police Officer Academies.

The Anonymity of the Milanese "Caffe" 1764-1766

SERGIO ROMAGNOLI'S 1960 publication of II Caffe, a principal locus of eighteenth-century Italian Illuminismo, was the third complete edition of the periodical but unique among these in identifying its various authors by name.' For the first time in the two hundred years since the journal's appearance, information regarding the authorship of its hundred odd articles has been made readily available to readers. The items that remain to be attributed are relatively few. Among the latter are eight brief pensieri that now may positively be assigned to the pen of Pietro Verri. The seventy-two issues of the Cafef distributed at ten-day intervals from June 1764 to April 1766 contain essays, dialogues, letters, and supplementary moral thoughts, the majority of which were tagged with but a single initial to indicate authorship. The evident intent of the periodical's editors-Pietro and Alessandro Verri, Cesare Beccaria, and the remaining members of the informal fraternity, the Accademia dei Pugni-was to veil in secrecy the names of contributors to the journal. What, if any, was the purpose of this subterfuge? One possibility is, of course, that Pietro Verri, the principal moving spirit of the project, simply wished to imitate in form as well as substance the pseudonymous English journals which it had been his express intention to emulate.2 This hypothesis would seem to have validity in view of the relatively subdued tone of the earliest CafJe issues. Indeed, during the first several months of publication, the Caffettisti did little more than prolong the linguistic, theatrical, and agricultural debates with which Pietro and the Marchese Beccaria, as former members of

The Italian Nationality Problem of the Austrian Empire

In 1713 Austria acquired the duchy of Milan, even then the richest part of Italy, and after 1748 it extended its ascendancy over all the states of the Italian peninsula. Not only did they accept Austrian hegemony without resistance, but the Italians played a part in the administration of the empire. At the court of Maria Theresa Italians did not find themselves in an alien environment. The Vienna of that age, to use Franco Valsecchi's happy phrase, delighted in “the melodious culture of Italy.” Viennese operas were composed to Italian libretti. Mozart was hardly less an Italian than a Germanic composer. The empire drew on its Italian-speaking subjects to fill important posts in the administrative and diplomatic services and courts of law. During the later years of Maria Theresa's reign, sons of the conservative Milanese patriciate, imbued with the ideas of the Enlightenment and led by Pietro Verri, Cesare Beccaria, and their associates of the Accademia dei Pugni, cooperated willingly and fruitfully in planning the reforms that Maria Theresa carried out, even though those reforms were undermining the autonomy of their country. The Enlightenment developed simultaneously in Italy and Austria, and for a period the leaders of that movement in Italy looked to Vienna rather than Paris as the citadel of their intellectual and reformist conceptions.