BOVIO, GIOVANNI. - Thinker and politician, b. at Trani in 1837, d. at Naples on 15 April 1903. In his time he was one of the most prominent and admired figures of Italian democracy. He spent his youth in his native city, wholly absorbed in his studies, but already caught up in the fervor of the liberal ideas that were widespread among the educated class even in Apulia at the twilight of the Bourbon government. His predilection was philosophy, and his first work was in fact the Verbo novello: sistema di filosofia universale, dedicated "to the tribunes of Liberty" (1864). Emphatic in tone and at times bizarre, it nonetheless revealed the uncommon culture he had acquired in the history of philosophy, and a fervent intellect.
He then turned to studies in the philosophy of law, and here he acquired much greater fame: he published (1872) the Saggio critico del diritto penale (3rd ed. 1883, reprinted at Milan in 1908), the Filosofia del diritto (4th ed., Rome 1894), and the muddled and often fanciful Sommario della storia del diritto in Italia (2nd ed., ibid. 1895). B. affirms, with the classical school, the principle of personal liberty, but confines it within a social determinism conceived as humanity's development toward pure rationality. For its relation to the Lombrosian doctrine see Il genio (Milan 1903). He thus passed from the moral question to the juridical one, and from this to the political one, in order then to sketch a philosophy of history, in which he set himself up as a rival of G. Ferrari. He loved the paradoxical and the sententious style; but his theses were not without fascination, owing to the vigor of a certain dialectic of his, whereby he knew how to animate ideas, to sculpt them with the imagination, to set them dramatically against one another.
Extraordinary was the enthusiasm he aroused among the youth of the University of Naples, where he delivered his lectures. Political motives then triumphant naturally joined in. He embodied, at that time, in Italy, the typical figure of the "free thinker," who did not lack even the solemnity of a certain priestly, indeed pontifical, air. Positivism, meanwhile, had spread rapidly, and B. bent his previous rationalism ever more toward a naturalism that he defined as "mathematical"; according to which "matter, proportioning and relating itself, becomes nature, this reflecting itself becomes thought, this moving itself becomes history"; see the Schema di un naturalismo matematico (1877) and Il naturalismo (posthumous, Naples 1903). Elected a deputy to Parliament (in 1876), he was among the foremost exponents of the republican party, and reaped numerous laurels with his Discorsi (ibid. 1900, and Rome, edited by the Chamber of Deputies, 1915), more literary, moreover, than properly political. His republicanism, unlike Mazzini's, had a rather anarchic direction: for at its center was the liberty of the individual, and the State was a transitory necessity in the historical development of humanity: see Scritti filosofici e politici (ibid. 1883); and the Dottrina dei partiti in Europa (ibid. 1886). The anticlerical note (never, however, vulgar) recurs frequently, and at times verges on expressions close to atheism. But it was, in the end, a superficial irreligiosity, as also attested by the purity of his morals and his most modest life.
He had a soul, perhaps, more of an artist than of a thinker. From his youth he composed in verse. Among his numerous inscriptions, some remain as models of this literary genre. His greatest fame, however, in the literary field, was attained by him in certain dramas, especially with the Cristo alla festa di Purim (Opere drammatiche, Milan 1908). But perhaps superior to the other dramas are the Attic scenes of the Socrate (Turin-Rome 1902), in which one perceives the desire to draw near to that great moral figure.
Bibliography
Armando Carlini