Abstract
It is very well known that Antonio Serra’s Breve trattato delle cause che possono far abbondare li regni d’oro e d’argento dove non sono miniere, of 1613, was first “discovered” by the Tuscan born mathematician-agronomist Bartoleomo Intieri, who developed a strong interest in political economy just after Naples became an independent state in 1734.1 Together with Celestino Galiani, Intieri had ridden out in 1734 to be the first to welcome Charles of Bourbon to his new Kingdom.2 In the following years, the two men discussed the future of the Neapolitan state, its economic development, and financial disorders, the record of which is preserved in a series of letters by Intieri to Celestino Galiani of the late 1730s.3
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Notes
As he wrote to Antonio Cocchi, as late as 1752, see Venturi, F., “Alle origini dell’illuminismo napoletano, dal carteggio di Bartolomeo Intieri”, Rivista Storica Italiana, 71[2], 1959, pp. 433–434.
For the development of this line of reform strategy, see Ajello, R., “Gli ‘afranc-esados’ a Napoli nella prima meta del settecento. Idee e progetti di sviluppo”, in Di Pinto, M. (ed.), Borbone di Napoli, Borbone di Spagna, Naples: Guida, 1985, pp. 115–192.
The first professor was Antonio Genovesi, see Jossa, B., R. Patalano, and E. Zagari (eds), Genovesi Economista: nel 250° anniversario dell’istituzione della cattedra di commercio e meccanica, Naples: Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici, 2007.
For the Enlightenment in Naples in English, see Imbruglia, G., “Enlightenment in eighteenth-century Naples”, in id. (ed.), Naples in the eighteenth century: the birth and death of a nation-state, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. 70–94 and
Robertson, J., The Case for the Enlightenment: Scotland and Naples 1680–1760, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Ideas in Context, 2005.
Galiani, F., Della moneta e scritti inediti, Caracciolo, A. & A. Merola (eds), Milan: Feltrinelli, 1963 [1751].
A previous manuscript of the work has been transcribed recently by Patalano, R., “Il manoscritto di Della moneta”, Il Pensiero Economico Italiano 13, 2, 2005, pp. 115–145.
But see S. Reinert’s mentioning of Paolo Mattia Doria’s manuscript “Relazione dello stato politico, economico, e civile del Regno di Napoli …”, Manoscritti napoletani di Paolo Mattia Doria, vol. 1, Lecce: 1979, where Doria cites Serra on pp. 119, 146, in his introduction to Serra, A Short Treatise on the Wealth and Poverty of Nations (1613), trans. Jonathan Hunt, London: Anthem, 2011, p. 6f15.
The same copy is now part of the collection of the Fondazione Einaudi in Turin; see Reinert, E.S. and S.A. Reinert, “An Early National Innovation System: The Case of Antonio Serra’s Breve trattato”, Instituzioni e sviluppo economico, 3, 2003, pp. 87–119.
For a recent article dealing with Serra from the point of view of the history of economic thought, see Rosselli, A., “Early Views on Monetary Policy: The Neapolitan Debate on the Theory of Exchange”, History of Political Economy, 32, 1, 2000, pp. 61–82.
See the letters that Galiani wrote after his departure from Paris to his friends Mme. d’Épinay, Grimm, and others, in Galiani, F., Correspondence avec Mme d’Epinay, Mme Necker, Mme Geoffrin, &c. Diderot, Grimm, d’Alembert, De Sartine, d’Holbach, &c., II vols, Perey, L. and G. Maugras (eds), Paris: Levy, 1881.
Koen Stapelbroek, “The progress of humankind in Galiani’s Dei Doveri dei Principi Neutrali: Natural law, Neapolitan trade and Catherine the Great”, in id. (ed.), Trade and War: The Neutrality of Commerce in the Inter-State System, special issue of COLLeGIUM: Studies Across Disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences published by the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced studies, 2011, pp. 161–183.
See Stapelbroek, K., Love, Self-deceit and Money: Commerce and Morality in the Early Neapolitan Enlightenment, Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 2008, ch. 4.
See Galiani, F., Scritti di politica economica, (ed.) Cesarano, F., Lanciano: Rocco Carabba, 1999, pp. 1–3.
Diodati, L., Vita dell’abate Ferdinando Galiani, Naples: presso Vincenzo Orsini, 1788, p. 6
Bianchini, L., Della storia delle finanze del regno di Napoli, Naples: Stamperia Reale, 1859 [1835])
Venturi, F., “Il dibattito sulle monete”, in Settecento riformatore, Da Muratori a Beccaria, vol. I, Turin: Einaudi, 1969, pp. 487–490.
Some interesting biographical information is contained in Venturi, F., “Tre note su Carlantonio Broggia”, Rivista Storica Italiana, 80, 4, 1986, pp. 830–853.
On his monetary theory and the work on money he published, probably in 1748, see Patalano, R., “La scienza della moneta more geometrico demostrata: le Riflessioni politiche di Troiano Spinelli”, Il Pensiero Economicio Italiano, 10, 2, 2002, pp. 7–42.
See also the entry for Spinelli in Costabile, L. and R. Patalano (eds), Repertorio Bio-bibliografico degli scrittori di economia in Campania. Parte Prima (1594–1861), Naples: La città del sole, 2000.
Argelati, F. and C. Casanova, De monetis Italiae variorum illustrium virorum, dissertationes quarum pars nunc primum in lucem prodit, vols I–VI, Milan: 1750–1759, and
Costantini, G., Delle monete, controversia agitata tra due celebri scrittori altremontani, Venice: Antonio Zatta, 1754.
Galasso, G., “I manoscritti napoletani dell’abate Galiani”, in La filosofia in soccorso de’ governi: la cultura napoletana del Settecento, Naples: Guida, 1989, pp. 353–368 and the website of L’Archivio Storico degli Economisti on http://ase.signum.sns.it/.
For the economic effects of the Spanish quest for Empire on the Neapolitan economy, see Calabria, A., The Cost of Empire: The Finances of the Kingdom of Naples in the Time of Spanish Rule, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
For an account in English of Giannone’s historical narrative, see Pocock, J.G.A., Barbarism and Religion (Vol.2): Narratives of Civil Government, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Quoted from Francesco Algarotti by Piazza, A., Discorso all’orecchio di monsieur Louis [Ange] Goudar, London [Venice]: 1776, p. 52.
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Stapelbroek, K. (2016). “To Console and Alleviate the Human Mind”: Ferdinando Galiani’s Attempted Republication of Serra in the 1750s. In: Patalano, R., Reinert, S.A. (eds) Antonio Serra and the Economics of Good Government. Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137539960_12
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