The Intellectual Education of the Young Ferdinando Galiani (1728–1749)

The chapter traces the intellectual, social and political context characterising the Kingdom of Naples in the first half of the eighteenth century. A political periphery, but intellectually lively, capable both of dialoguing with the most advanced part of European culture and of opposing innovations coming from abroad, in the name of defending an indigenous tradition. Neapolitan intellectual life was thus profoundly divided by the opposing conceptions engaged in a clash considered decisive: all European intellectual currents were reproduced in Naples with a greater polemical intensity, exploding in violent and bitter confrontations. It was in this terrain of intellectual contention that Ferdinando’s compact personality was formed, under the guidance of his uncle, Celestino Galiani, a Newtonian, who was entrusted with the responsibility of governing Neapolitan intellectual life.