Giannone, Pietro

Site: ERETICOPEDIA at http://ereticopedia.wikidot.com Source page: Giannone, Pietro at http://ereticopedia.wikidot.com/pietro-giannone-en Giannone, Pietro Dictionary of Heretics, Dissidents, and Inquisitors in the Mediterranean World Edizioni CLORI | Firenze | ISBN 978-8894241600 | DOI 10.5281/zenodo.1309444 HOW TO CITE | EDITORIAL GUIDELINES | CODE OF CONDUCT | LIST OF ABREVIATIONS Pietro Giannone (Ischitella, 7 May 1676 – Turin, 17 March 1748) was an Italian philosopher, historian, and jurist, one of the most significant exponents of eighteenth-century radical Enlightenment. Best known for his monumental Istoria civile del Regno di Napoli (1723), a work that openly challenged papal claims and the political influence of the Roman Church, Giannone combined erudition and legal expertise with a militant commitment to the principle of state autonomy from ecclesiastical power. His writings circulated widely across Europe, attracting both admiration and condemnation, and his life was marked by exile, repeated attempts at intellectual rehabilitation, and a long imprisonment that ended with his death in Turin. Through his works, he left a lasting mark on European debates about the relationship between religion, politics, and law in the early modern age. Summary Biography Education and Rise within the Neapolitan Legal Establishment Family and Studies Friendship with De Angelis and Learned Readings Under the Guidance of Gaetano Argento Maturity and Old Age: From Jurisdictionalist Conflict to Exile and Imprisonment in Turin The Jurisdictionalist Conflict and the Istoria civile del Regno di Napoli The Golden Exile in Vienna and the Writing of the Triregno Il Triregno, the Attempted Return to Italy, and the Arrest The Long Imprisonment and Death Bibliography Link Related Entries Biography Education and Rise within the Neapolitan Legal Establishment Family and Studies Pietro Giannone moved to Naples at a very young age (he had been born in 1676 in Ischitella, near Foggia) in 1694. He was the son of an apothecary but descended from a family of lawyers. It was a maternal great-uncle, Carlo Sabatelli, who introduced him into the legal milieu of the capital of the Kingdom. In September 1698 he graduated in law at the University of Naples. During his university years, young Giannone came into contact with many eminent figures of Neapolitan culture of the time, devoting himself not only to legal studies but also to historical and philosophical ones. From 1696 he attended the private school of Domenico Aulisio, a distinguished professor of law at the Neapolitan university and an eminent scholar whom Vico described as “a universal man of languages and sciences.” Aulisio, however, remained indifferent to the winds of change blowing through Neapolitan culture, firmly anchored in the traditional scholastic approach and strongly opposed to the rationalism of Spinozan and Cartesian origin. Friendship with De Angelis and Learned Readings In those same years Giannone gained access to the wealth of local libraries, particularly that established by Cardinal Stefano Brancaccio, who had died in 1682, and that of the renowned sixteenth-century Cardinal Girolamo Seripando, preserved in the convent of San Giovanni a Carbonara. It was his friendship with the poet from Lecce, Filippo De Angelis, that guided him in his learned readings and in particular led him toward the thought of Gassendi and to philosophical and literary studies that distanced him from the scholastic framework in which he had been immersed, in line with the education of the time. From reading Gassendi he moved on to explore many of the Latin and Greek sources of that philosopher: Lucretius, Sextus Empiricus, Diogenes Laertius; “thus – Giannone commented in his Autobiography – I became, like my contemporaries, a Gassendist philosopher.” De Angelis also directed Giannone “towards knowledge of the good poets and the most polished Tuscan writers”: from Petrarch and Boccaccio to Machiavelli and Guicciardini. With this experience Giannone believed he had made up, as he himself stated, for the previous years “uselessly wasted, consumed in scholasticism.”1 Under the Guidance of Gaetano Argento Giannone’s encounter with the Calabrian jurist Gaetano Argento took place shortly after his graduation: he moved to practice in his office after a disappointing experience with Giovanni Musto. He remembered the latter with highly significant words: “a mere forensic lawyer, devoid of any other knowledge, most illiterate, who barely understood the clumsy Latin of the huge forensic tomes, inept in pleading cases before the courts and even more in writing and composing legal allegations.”2 It was a fundamental meeting for the young doctor of law: “The change was for me an inestimable gain,” Giannone wrote of his transfer to Argento’s office: “I found in him profound erudition and knowledge not only of Latin but also of Greek writers, and a deep understanding not only of feudal and municipal law, but also of Roman jurisprudence, which he had drawn from the clearest sources; his library was adorned with the best and most select jurists and canonists.”3 Among these authors Giannone included sixteenth-century figures such as Andrea Alciati and his pupil François Douaren, Guillaume Budé and other illustrious French jurists supporting the new humanistic orientation of law, frowned upon by the ecclesiastical hierarchies of the Counter-Reformation; among the seventeenth-century authors was the Jansenist Zeger Bernard, linked to the Port-Royal milieu, much admired by eighteenth-century Italian jurisdictionalists, also persecuted by the Church and placed on the Index: in short, all authors of “rupture” with tradition, often opponents of the prerogatives of the Church and supporters of those of the State. The library contained “nothing lacking from other forensic writers; but they were well distinguished, even among forensic authors, between the clumsy and insipid ones and those who had adapted Roman jurisprudence to the use of the courts, and who in their learned volumes had seasoned and treated forensic doctrine as grave and serious jurists.” Obviously the library was not limited to legal works “but included highly erudite books of every kind, of poets, historians, orators and even philosophers”; among these could not be missing the beloved Gassendi. Argento was also a great patron, promoter of the Accademia de’ Saggi. Already in his university years Giannone had attended the Accademia di Medinacoeli, of which the Accademia de’ Saggi was the ideal continuation. Not surprisingly, Giannone emphasized: “what gave me the utmost contentment was that I found there young men of my age and some older, who under the same [Gaetano Argento’s] guidance had embarked on the path of the legal profession, highly learned, of good sense, and lovers not only of forensic studies but also of belles-lettres and various erudition; almost all of whom I later saw ascend to the highest honours of the toga.”4 Such friendships encouraged intellectual exchange and emulation, particularly fruitful for common advancement in studies. Maturity and Old Age: From Jurisdictionalist Conflict to Exile and Imprisonment in Turin The Jurisdictionalist Conflict and the Istoria civile del Regno di Napoli Giannone conceived the idea of writing the Istoria civile del Regno di Napoli precisely during his apprenticeship with Argento, spurred by the discussions held within the Accademia de’ Saggi (which began to meet at Argento’s house in 1702). Meanwhile his rise in his legal career was beginning, linked to his first publications: Per li possessori degli oliveti nel feudo di San Pietro in Lama contro monsignor vescovo di Lecce barone di quel feudo intorno all’esazione delle decime dell’olive (1715) and Ristretto delle ragioni de’ possessori degli oliveti (1716). The Lettera scritta da Giano Perontino… (1718) reflected Giannone’s scientific interests, cultivated from a young age but soon abandoned in favour of law and historical-legal studies. The Istoria civile del Regno di Napoli was finally printed in March 1723, after a long preparation, at the height of Giannone’s career, who on 17 March 1723 had been appointed Attorney General of the city of Naples. The strongly anti-Roman and anti-curial content of the work aroused wide controversy and forced the author into sudden exile. The Istoria accused the Roman Church of having exercised a disastrous influence on the history of the Kingdom of Naples. In particular, the call of the Angevins was condemned as responsible for turning the Kingdom into a papal fief, a source of endless claims by the ecclesiastical hierarchy, whose legitimacy Giannone entirely denied. The Spaniards were also vehemently criticized for their excessive collusion with the Papacy. The jurisdictionalist principle of the autonomy of the State from the Church and its interference was asserted with maximum force. The Golden Exile in Vienna and the Writing of the Triregno Giannone arrived in Vienna at the beginning of June 1723, finding protection under Emperor Charles VI. Meanwhile, the Istoria civile had been placed on the Index and Giannone had been excommunicated (though Charles VI managed to have the sentence lifted). In Vienna Giannone lived in a kind of golden exile, which allowed him to devote himself intensively to study, as well as to legal practice, which he resumed after a short break. The fruits of this period were the treatises Del concubinato de’ Romani ritenuto nell’Impero dopo la conversione alla fede di Cristo, De’ rimedi contro le proposizioni de’ libri che si decretano in Roma e della potestà de’ principi in non farle valere ne’ loro Stati, and De’ rimedi contro le scommuniche invalide e delle potestà de’ principi intorno a’ modi di farle cassare ed abolire. These were followed by the Ragionamento per il signor don Leopoldo Pilati (1725), the treatise De’ veri e legittimi titoli delle reali preminenze che i re di Sicilia esercitano nel Tribunale detto della Monarchia (1727), the Breve relazione de’ Consigli e dicasteri della città di Vienna and the Ragioni per le quali si dimostra che l’arcivescovado beneventano… sia… sottoposto al regio exequatur, come tutti gli altri arcivescovadi del Regno (both 1731), as well as the Dissertazione intorno il vero senso della iscrizione “Perdam Babillonis nomen” posta in una moneta di Lodovico XII re di Francia, da alcuni creduta coniata in Napoli l’anno 1502 (written in 1729 and published in Latin in London in 1733 within an edition of Historiarum sui temporis libri XXIV by Jacques-Auguste de Thou). Meanwhile, debate about his work and his anti-curial doctrines remained intense in Italy, but it also acquired a significant European dimension following the English translation of the Istoria civile (The Civil History of the Kingdom of Naples, London 1729–31). Giannone became part of the Republic of Letters of the time, maintaining lively literary correspondence, particularly with German and English intellectuals. Of special importance was his acquaintance with Prince Eugene of Savoy, who owned a rich library featuring libertine and radical works. Il Triregno, the Attempted Return to Italy, and the Arrest The composition of the Triregno began in 1731 and was completed in 1733. The work analyses the evolution of the relationship between religion and power in Judaism and Christianity, drawing a clear distinction between early Christianity and papal Catholicism. According to Giannone, in the “Earthly Kingdom” of the Jews, the covenant between God and His people was reduced to the promise of dominion over other nations. With the “Heavenly Kingdom,” early Christianity had introduced an otherworldly perspective. But, due to its greed, the Church had bent the evangelical message to its own interests, introducing the “Papal Kingdom” to support its supremacy over secular states. With the Triregno Giannone reached the peak of his anti-papal and anti-curial polemic. The work was not published in print but circulated from its earliest drafts and proved “fatal” for Giannone’s fate. Indeed, in 1734 Charles VI acquired possession of the Kingdom of Naples, obliging the emperor to pursue a more conciliatory policy toward Rome. In August 1734 Giannone left Vienna for Venice, residing in the territory of the Serenissima for a year and refining the text of the Triregno. In September 1735 he was kidnapped by papal agents and put aboard a vessel that disembarked in the territory of Ferrara, within the Papal States. He managed to take refuge in Modena, where he drafted the Ragguaglio dell’improvviso e violento ratto praticato in Venezia ad istigazione de’ gesuiti e della corte di Roma. He then moved on to Milan, initiating negotiations to be received by the Piedmontese sovereign Charles Emmanuel III of Savoy as court historian. He narrowly escaped a trap set by the Piedmontese to arrest him, fleeing to Geneva. In March 1736 he fell into another Piedmontese trap, was kidnapped and taken to Chambéry, within Savoyard territory. The Long Imprisonment and Death Thus began for Giannone a long imprisonment, first in the fortress of Miolans (April 1736 – September 1737), where he wrote his Autobiografia or Vita di Pietro Giannone scritta da lui medesimo, then in Turin (September 1737 – June 1738), in the fortress of Ceva (June 1738 – August 1744), and finally again in Turin (from 3 September 1744 until his death on 17 March 1748). He was tried by the Inquisition of Turin and forced to recant, which he did in March 1738. During his years of imprisonment, particularly the six years spent in the fortress of Ceva, he continued to read and write. In May 1738 he completed the Discorsi sopra gli Annali di Tito Livio, then drafted the Apologia de’ teologi scolastici (1739–41), the Istoria del pontificato di san Gregorio Magno (1741–42), and L’ape ingegnosa (1743–44). He died in Turin on 17 March 1748. Bibliography Raffaele Ajello (ed.), Giannone e il suo tempo. Proceedings of the Conference on the Tercentenary of His Birth, Jovene, Naples 1980. Sergio Bertelli, Giannoniana. Autografi, manoscritti e documenti della fortuna di Pietro Giannone, Ricciardi, Milan–Naples 1968. Andrea Del Col, Giannone, Pietro, in DSI, vol. 2, pp. 682–683. Lino Marini, Pietro Giannone e il giannonismo a Napoli nel Settecento, Laterza, Bari 1950. Andrea Merlotti, Giannone, Pietro, in DBI, vol. 54 (2000). Fausto Nicolini, Gli scritti e la fortuna di Pietro Giannone. Ricerche bibliografiche, Laterza, Bari 1913. Giuseppe Ricuperati, L’esperienza civile e religiosa di Pietro Giannone, Ricciardi, Milan–Naples 1970. Giuseppe Ricuperati, La città terrena di Pietro Giannone. Un itinerario tra “crisi della coscienza europea” e Illuminismo radicale, Olschki, Florence 2001. Brunello Vigezzi, Pietro Giannone riformatore e storico, Feltrinelli, Milan 1961. Link Entry on Pietro Giannone on the Symogih.org website Related Entries Jurisdictionalism Notes 1. See P. Giannone, Vita di Pietro Giannone in Illuministi italiani, vol. I, Opere di Pietro Giannone, edited by Sergio Bertelli and Giuseppe Ricuperati, Ricciardi, Milan–Naples 1971, p. 33. 2. Ibid., p. 40. 3. Ibid., p. 41. 4. Ibid., p. 42. Article written by Daniele Santarelli | Ereticopedia.org © 2013–2014 | English version 2025 et tamen e summo, quasi fulmen, deicit ictos invidia inter dum contemptim in Tartara taetra invidia quoniam ceu fulmine summa vaporant plerumque et quae sunt aliis magis edita cumque [Lucretius, "De rerum natura", lib. V] page revision: 5, last edited: 24 Sep 2025, 12:21 (38 seconds ago) The content of this website is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License