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Reading Il Caffè: scientific method and economic knowledge in the “School of Milan” 285

Even for the famous «Verri formula», as Pier Luigi Porta has again
pointed out, Verri’s thought does not appear to be at all ingenuously
formalizing, however much it may have been subsequently «stiffened»
in this sense by Frisi’s re-elaboration. In its original version, the
‘formula’ was already extremely cautious in treating the question of
the heuristic potentialities of the formalizing process as applied to
society: «So, then, the price of things», Verri wrote, «is to be inferred
from the number of sellers as compared to the number of buyers: the
more the first increase or the second diminish, by so much will the
price become lower, and the more the former are lowered and the
latter multiply, so much the more will prices rise. We may use the lan-
guage of that science which treats quantity, for that is just what we
are dealing with, nor do I know of any other way of expressing myself
with exactness […] The price of things will be in direct relation to the
number of buyers and in inverse ratio to the number of sellers». This
explanation was qualified even more carefully in a sentence inserted
into the text in the ‘sixth edition’, in which Verri, almost anticipating
the most obvious objection which would be advanced – that is that the
mere number of sellers and buyers is an imperfect indicator of the re-
spective aggregates of supply and demand – declared that, «these
ratios are approximately true; for, to be rigorous, the buyers should
all purchase equal quantities so that geometric exactitude might be
26
satisfied» .
A few thoughts concerning the forms and the significance of the
application of mathematical formalism to economic knowledge by
those among the leaders of the Lombard Enlightenment engaged in
this field might also be stimulated by a new look at the political and
ethical sense assigned to this operation in the specific historic/cultural
context in which they operated. It was on the occasion of the
bicentennial of Galileo’s birth, in 1764, that Paolo Frisi wrote the
‘Saggio su Galileo’ published in Il Caffè; rereading it now could furnish
a wealth of suggestions for evaluating the deeper meanings in the text.
Frisi’s essay – which has been defined «a provisional statement, meant
to weigh up prevailing judgments and prejudices within the limits [im-
posed by] an efficacious popular style» 27 – was prompted by the conde-
scendence with which his friend, d’Alembert, conceding only a few
lines to Galileo in the Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopédie, had

26 P.L. Porta, Nota introduttiva, in G. Bognetti, A. Moioli, P.L. Porta, G. Tonelli (eds.),
Scritti di economia, finanza e amministrazione, Edizione nazionale delle opere di Pietro
Verri, tome 2, vol. 2, Rome, Edizioni di Storia e letteratura, 2007, pp. 1-91, pp. 52-3.
27 P. Casini, Frisi e Galileo, in R. Ajello (ed.), L’Età dei lumi: Studi storici sul Settecento
europeo in onore di Franco Venturi, Naples, Jovene, vol. 2, 1985, pp. 976-85, p. 67.

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