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276 Germano Maifreda

1. The Lombard Enlightenment and Scientific Method

One of the chief areas of interest for international scholars of the
history of economic culture today is that of the relationship between
the evolution of economic learning and the development of modern sci-
entific inquiry in Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries. In this
context studies regarding the scientific, methodological, aspects of the
economic ideas originating in Lombardy during the second half of the
18th century, as well as their practical application in reforms enacted
by Maria Theresa and Joseph have – unlike the Neapolitan Enlighten-
1
ment – as yet been only superficially studied. Yet material as important
and vivid as the correspondence between Pietro Verri (1728-97), known
2
as the establisher of the “School of Milan”, as Voltaire called it , and his
brother Alessandro, is full of far from academic references to the great
fathers of the European scientific revolution.
In October of 1766, Pietro Verri’s first letter from Milan to his
brother and Cesare Beccaria, who were on their way to Paris and
London, remarked of the hours spent with Luigi Stefano Lambertenghi:
«He comes of an evening with his little Bacon to read in my room,
3
while I pore over Alessandro’s work with a sense of consolation» .
Indeed, the Lord Chancellor remained one of the favorite authors of
the group which called itself Accademia dei Pugni [‘The Punching
Academy’] and, in particular, a favorite of Beccaria’s (1738-1794), the
main follower of Verry and, by far, the best known name of the Italian
economic school of the time. He had copied out a number of passages
4
for his own use in about 1762 . Alessandro’s letters are studded with

1 See for example R. Ajello, Introduzione. Cartesianismo e cultura oltremontana al
tempo dell’«Istoria civile», in R. Ajello (ed.), Pietro Giannone e il suo tempo: Atti del
convegno di studi nel tricentenario della nascita, Naples, Jovene, 1980, vol. 1, pp. 1-181;
G. Galasso, Scienze, istituzioni e attrezzature scientifiche nella Napoli del Settecento, in R.
Ajello (ed.), L’Età dei lumi: Studi storici sul Settecento europeo in onore di Franco Venturi,
Naples, Jovene, 1985, vol. 1, pp. 191-228. J. Robertson, The Case for the Enlightenment:
Scotland and Naples 1680-1760, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005.
2 P.L. Porta, Italy, in V. Barnett (ed.), Routledge Handbook of the History of Global
Economic Thought, London-New York, Routledge, 2015, pp. 58-67, p. 63.
3 G. Gaspari, Viaggio a Parigi e Londra (1766-1767): Carteggio di Pietro e Alessandro
Verri. Milan, Adelphi, 1980, p. 4. See ibid., as well, the letter written two days later (p. 10):
«Dear Luisino regularly comes to pass the evening with me: he reads his Bacon, I correct
the Storia [of Milan]». On Lambertenghi and his scientific/mathematic interests, praised
by Pietro Verri in letters to Gian Rinaldo Carli, see C. Capra, Luigi Stefano Lambertenghi, in
Dizionario biografico degli italiani, vol. 63, Rome, Edizioni dell’Enciclopedia italiana, 2004.
4 G. Gaspari, Viaggio a Parigi e Londra, cit., editor’s note. Beccaria’s reputation is
almost entirely due to the pamplhlet Dei delitti e delle pene; he is therefore not perceived
as an economist, although he is one of the first professors of Political Economy
worldwide. See C. Scognamiglio Pasini, L’arte della ricchezza. Cesare Beccaria economista,
Milan, Mondadori, 2014.

Mediterranea - ricerche storiche - Anno XV - Agosto 2018 n.43
ISSN 1824-3010 (stampa) ISSN 1828-230X (online)