Francesco Bernardino Cicala, il "Saggio filosofico e critico sulli giuochi d'azzardo"

The reformer Francesco Bernardino Cicala (Lecce,1765-1815) wrote the 'Saggio filosofico e critico sulli giuochi d’azzardo' in Naples (1790), which dealt with the theme of gambling. Cicala explained the nature of game of chance and passion for them, the moral and physical effects and the consequences on men and women. The Southern scholar declared the interest it aroused, the role the law plaied and the fines to be paid. He wrote out his personal experience, as he said himself; this autobiographical involvement was linked to the feeling of ‘being useful’ to his fellow citizens. Gambling was considered by Cicala in its collective dimension; it was not made plain as a purely individual factor. It is quite possible that the wide spread of gambling was a true ‘political’ problem and thus became a fertile land for committed literary involvement such as his. The space reserved for human sensitivity, passions and feelings and the preoccupation and care devoted to the “heart’s reasons”, all broadly run trough his Saggio, making it nearly an “anti-saggio”, against most of its illuministic context. The same work observed the signs and forerunners of a new and different atmosphere in comparison with the illuministic requirements: even today it seems a sort of compulsory cohabitation. The importance he gives to human sensitivity justifies his ideological choices and his poetics.