The Politics of Enlightenment

Vincenzo Ferrone is Professor of Modern History at the University of Turin, Italy.

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