Biblioteca laica. Il pensiero libero dell'Italia moderna

The aim of this volume is to shed light on the process of creation and elaboration of the ‘liberty of the moderns’, and to show the essential role played in this process by Italy, from the Early Modern and Renaissance periods to the great thinkers of the Enlightenment, from Beccaria to Genovesi and Filangieri. The introduction to the volume, which precedes an extensive anthological collection, distances itself from traditional interpretations and focuses on the ‘tragic line’ of Italian culture – from Leon Battista Alberti’s «Intercenali» to Machiavelli’s «Ghiribizzi al Soderini», from the important works by Paolo Sarpi to Giacomo Leopardi, who draws on Alberti’s motifs. On this base the most important contributions to the development of modern Italian culture are delineated, ranging from libertas philosophandi and freedom of press and opinion, to the repudiation of torture and death penalty elaborated in 1764 in Beccaria’s «Dei delitti e delle pene». From this analysis emerges an unusual portrait of the ‘Italian tradition’, and particularly of its ‘lay’ connotations.