GENOVESI, ANTONIO (1712-1769)

This article appears in Volume V11, Page 600 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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GENOVESI, ANTONIO (1712-1769) , Italian writer on philosophy and political

economy

ECONOMY

, was born at Castiglione, near

Salerno

SALERNO (anc. Salernum)

, on the 1st of November 1712. He was educated for the church, and, after some hesitation, took orders in 1736 at

Salerno

SALERNO (anc. Salernum)

,
GENSONNE
where he was appointed professor of eloquence at the theological

seminary

SEMINARY (Lat. seminarium, from semen, seed)

. During this period of his life he began the study of philosophy, being especially attracted by Locke. Dissatisfied with ecclesiastical life, Genovesi resigned his post, and qualified as an advocate at Rome. Finding law as distasteful as theology, he devoted himself entirely to philosophy, of which he was appointed extraordinary professor in the university of Naples. His first works were Elementa Metaphysicae (1743 et seq.) and Logica (1745). The former is divided into four parts, Ontosophy, Cosmosophy,

Theosophy

THEOSOPHY (from Gr. Oe6s, god, and vogbta, wisdom)

, Psychosophy, supplemented by a treatise on ethics and a dissertation on first causes. The Logic, an eminently

practical

PRACTICAL

work

WORK

, written from the point of view of Locke, is in five parts, dealing with (1) the nature of the human mind, its faculties and operations; (2) ideas and their kinds; (3) the true and the false, and the various degrees of knowledge; (4) reasoning and argumentation; (5) method and the ordering of our thoughts. If Genovesi does not take a high rank in philosophy, he deserves the credit of having introduced the new order of ideas into Italy, at the same time preserving a just mean between the two extremes of sensualism and idealism. Although bitterly opposed by the partisans of scholastic routine, Genovesi found influential patrons, amongst them Bartolomeo Intieri, a Florentine, who in 1754 founded the first Italian or European chair of political

economy

ECONOMY

(commerce and mechanics), on condition that Genovesi should be the first professor, and that it should never be held by an ecclesiastic. The fruit of Genovesi's professorial labours was the Lezioni di Commercio, the first complete and systematic

work

WORK

in Italian on economics. On the whole he belongs to the " Mercantile " school, though he does not regard money as the only form of wealth. Specially noteworthy in the Lezioni are the sections on human wants as the foundation of economical theory, on labour as the source of wealth, on personal services as economic factors, and on the united working of the

great

GREAT

industrial functions. He advocated freedom of the corn trade, reduction of the number of religious communities, and deprecated regulation of the

interest

INTEREST

on loans. In the spirit of his age he denounced the relics of medieval institutions, such as entails and tenures in

mortmain

MORTMAIN (0. Fr. mortemain; med. Lat. mortua manus, dead hand)

. Gioja's more important treatise owes much to Genovesi's lectures. Genovesi died on the 22nd of September 1769.
See C. Ugoni, Della letteratura italiana nella seconda meta del secolo X VIII (18201822) ; A. Fabroni, Vitae Italorum doctrina excellentium (17781799); R. Bobba, Commemorazione di A. Genovesi (

Benevento

BENEVENTO

, 1867).

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