24 articles in this issue
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John D. Bessler
This article traces the reception of Cesare Beccaria’s book, Dei delitti e delle pene (1764), in Britain and in colonial and early America. That book, first translated into English as An Essay on Crimes and Punishments (1767), catalyzed penal reform and t... see more
Gianni Francioni
This essay investigates Beccaria’s ideas on Great Britain and his contacts with British intellectuals and their published works. His interests were not restricted to philosophy but included history and fiction. Particular attention will be devoted to all ... see more
Emilio Mazza
At the end of 1765 Morellet wrote to Hume: «I send you 3 copies of my translation of the book de’ delitti». A few days afterwards he informed Beccaria that Hume «desires me to tell you one thousand things for him». To justify his translation Morellet appe... see more
Elisabetta Lonati
In the second half of 18th-century Europe, the notions – and the administration – of law and justice underwent dramatic and fundamental epistemological changes. Crime and punishment were gradually reconceptualised and redefined. The general aim of the pre... see more
Barbara Witucki
This paper posits the influence of Cesare Beccaria’s Dei delitti e delle pene on the development of characters and episodes in Oliver Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield using the close analogies between the two texts, particularly the later chapters of th... see more
Alberto Carrera
Considered as one of the staunchest supporters of the need to reform the eighteenth-century British penal system, the jurist Manasseh Dawes combines legal reflection with moral criticism. This union emerges from the reading of his works and in particular ... see more
Massimo Galtarossa
Ferdinando Abbri
Gregorio Piaia
Luisa Piccinno
Eleonora Alfano
Valentina Lepore
Marialuisa Parise
Francis Bacon’s works were a strong influence upon Cesare Beccaria in his formative years, contributing to inform his ideas and style. The chief testimonia are two: the autograph ms. of Excerpta from Bacon in the Ambrosian Library of Milan (Becc. B 201) a... see more
Rosamaria Loretelli,John Dunkley
Philippe Audegean
Although in the section A chi legge he suggested otherwise, Beccaria owes much to Hobbes. This is evinced by three theses advanced in Dei delitti e delle pene: human beings are by nature unsociable; there is no natural law prior to the establishment of th... see more
Manuela D’Amore
The aim of this paper is to shed light on an under-researched area of study: that of the relations that the leading members of the «Caffé» – Paolo Frisi, Cesare Beccaria and the Verri – established with the Royal Society’s Anglo-Italian circles in 1765-17... see more
Lia Guerra
The present essay intends to address an aspect of Biffi’s anglomania as it appears from his partial translation from the original English language of the epistolary novel The History of Lady Julia Mandeville (1763), found among his manuscript papers. The ... see more
Philip Schofield
Scholars have long recognized the debt owed by the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) to Cesare Beccaria (1738-94). Ignoring Beccaria’s appeals to the social contract and natural law, Bentham took the more practical positions that he had found... see more
Luigi Ferrajoli
The philosophies of Beccaria and Bentham have a number of features in common: the juspositivist principle of legality, the project of minimizing criminal law, the dependence of punishment on types of action rather than types of actors, the idea of the tri... see more
Jeanne Clegg
In the course of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century a series of measures were introduced into the practice of law enforcement in England which, though «piecemeal, incremental, ad hoc» were, J.M. Beattie claims, driven by a common belief in ... see more
Rosamaria Loretelli
Unlike the first French translation, which has received adequate scholarly attention, the first English translation, printed in London in 1767 for the Whig bookseller, journalist and advocate for the freedom of the press John Almon, has as yet been neglec... see more