Tra mercantilismo e riformismo illuministico: i Gesuiti spagnoli espulsi e il pensiero economico iberico nell'Italia del Settecento (Between mercantilism and reformism: exiled Spanish jesuits and the Iberian economic thought in eighteenth-century Italy)

The Spanish Jesuits exiled by Charles III in 1767 played a main part in spreading Iberian culture in eighteenth-century Italy. The circulation of economic ideas and reform projects between Spain and Italy is one of the most important and enduring aspects of the cultural mediation exerted by the exiled Jesuits during the last three decades of the eighteenth century. The two chief elements which convinced the Jesuits to foster Spanish economic thought in Italy were their attempt to obtain a pension for their ‘literary’ merits, and a desire to establish a dialogue with Italian enlightened and open-minded elites. The presence of an utilitarian material motive, therefore, does not exclude the existence of a cultural and ideological aim consisting in Christianising the Enlightenment after cancelling its most subversive messages. This strategy convinced exiled Spanish Jesuits to deal with economics, especially re-evaluating mercantilistic policies in the eve of the French Revolution.