The Politics of Enlightenment

Vincenzo Ferrone, translated by Sophus A. Reinert

Written by one of Italy's leading historians, this book analyses the Neapolitan nobleman Gaetano Filangieri and his seven-volume 'Science of Legislation' in their historical context, expounding on his legacy for the histories of constitutional republicanism, liberalism, and political economy.

Foreword by Sophus A. Reinert; Preface: A World to Rediscover: The Enlightenment Origins of Modern Italian Republicanism; Part One: The New Politics ‘Ex Parte Civium’; 1. The Enlightenment and the Political Critique of the ‘Scientia Juris’; 2. The Critique of the British Constitutional Model and the Political Laboratory of the American Revolution; 3. Against Montesquieu and Class Constitutionalism: The Denunciations of the ‘Feudal Monster’ and the ‘Tempered Monarchy’; 4. Constructing a New Constitutionalism: Masonic Sociability and Equality; 5. The Neapolitan School of Natural Law and the Historical Origins of the Rights of Man; 6. Beyond ‘Reason of State’: The Moral and Religious Foundations of the New Politics ‘Ex Parte Civium’; 7. Nation or Fatherland? The Republican and Constitutional Patriotism of Italian Enlightenment Thinkers; Part Two: A Difficult Legacy; 8. The Original Character of Enlightenment Constitutionalism: From the ‘Scienza della legislazione’ to the 1799 ‘Progetto di constituzione napoletana’; 9. Vincenzo Cuoco: The National Critique of Cosmopolitan Enlightenment Constitutionalism; 10. The Liberal Constant against the Enlightened Filangieri: Two Interpretations of Modernity; 11. Filangierian Heresies in the European Democratic Tradition: The Principle of Justice and the Rights of Happiness; Notes; Index