The Reflections on the public and private Economy of the Otranto Province, written at the height of 1782, are the result of two reconnaissance travels made by Carlo Salerni in 1777 and in 1780, especially along the Ionian Sea coast: two travels aimed – on the basis of the Genovese’s lesson – to detect/report empirically, with a technical-scientific gaze, the state of backwardness of the South and, at the same time, to advocate - in the name of the «waking and exhorting philosophy of human genius» – new socio-economic reform requests. The first and fundamental theoretical node examined by Salerni concerns the ownership structure: compared to the considerations advanced by other southern Enlightenmentists, such as Filippo Briganti or Giuseppe Palmieri, Salerni’s agrarian reformism seems to take on markedly radical contours – of clear Filangierian ancestry -, as it is based on the broader criteria for redistributing land, which undermined the social balance of the Kingdom of Naples from within. The thinning of inequalities and the consequent economic and social development could – according to Salerni’s vision – only materialize with the promotion of innovations and technical-scientific knowledge: a further programmatic point, that of the ‘cultural revolution’, aimed – in anti-traditionalist terms – to assign a purely utilitarian function to the clergy and to the nobility. Faced with the conditions of degradation and misery that characterize the Otranto Province, and in particular the territories of the Ionian Sea, Carlo Salerni proposes important and necessary improvements in manufacturing and trade. What emerges, therefore, is the author’s persistent trust in the transforming force of modern raison, identifiable – on the basis of a pragmatic conception of culture, projected on the contingent issues of economic development – with luxury (a concept widely debated on the European scenery and which also involved southern illuminists such as Genovesi, Galiani, Filangieri and Palmieri), or with the «ambition to want to stand out», with that same «ambition» that led Salerni to send his Reflections from Taranto to Minister Acton on public and private economy.
Carlo Salerni e la «filosofia svegliatrice degl’ingegni umani»: le “Riflessioni” sulla Terra d’Otranto
Lavopa, Rosanna
2020-01-01
Abstract
The Reflections on the public and private Economy of the Otranto Province, written at the height of 1782, are the result of two reconnaissance travels made by Carlo Salerni in 1777 and in 1780, especially along the Ionian Sea coast: two travels aimed – on the basis of the Genovese’s lesson – to detect/report empirically, with a technical-scientific gaze, the state of backwardness of the South and, at the same time, to advocate - in the name of the «waking and exhorting philosophy of human genius» – new socio-economic reform requests. The first and fundamental theoretical node examined by Salerni concerns the ownership structure: compared to the considerations advanced by other southern Enlightenmentists, such as Filippo Briganti or Giuseppe Palmieri, Salerni’s agrarian reformism seems to take on markedly radical contours – of clear Filangierian ancestry -, as it is based on the broader criteria for redistributing land, which undermined the social balance of the Kingdom of Naples from within. The thinning of inequalities and the consequent economic and social development could – according to Salerni’s vision – only materialize with the promotion of innovations and technical-scientific knowledge: a further programmatic point, that of the ‘cultural revolution’, aimed – in anti-traditionalist terms – to assign a purely utilitarian function to the clergy and to the nobility. Faced with the conditions of degradation and misery that characterize the Otranto Province, and in particular the territories of the Ionian Sea, Carlo Salerni proposes important and necessary improvements in manufacturing and trade. What emerges, therefore, is the author’s persistent trust in the transforming force of modern raison, identifiable – on the basis of a pragmatic conception of culture, projected on the contingent issues of economic development – with luxury (a concept widely debated on the European scenery and which also involved southern illuminists such as Genovesi, Galiani, Filangieri and Palmieri), or with the «ambition to want to stand out», with that same «ambition» that led Salerni to send his Reflections from Taranto to Minister Acton on public and private economy.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
