BOVIO, GIOVANNI. - Thinker and political figure, born in Trani in 1837, died in Naples on 15 April 1903. At his time, he was one of the most prominent and admired figures of Italian democracy. In his native city, he spent his youth immersed in studies, already caught up in the fervor of liberal ideas that, even in Apulia, at the twilight of Bourbon rule, were widespread among the educated class. His predilection was philosophy, and his first work was indeed *Il Verbo novello: sistema di filosofia universale*, dedicated to the tribunes of the university (1864). Though its tone was emphatic and at times bizarre, it revealed the uncommon culture he had acquired in the history of philosophy, as well as a fervent intellect.
He then turned to studies in the philosophy of law, where he gained far greater fame: he published (1872) *Saggi critico del diritto penale* (3rd ed. 1883, reprinted in Milan in 1908), *Filosofia del diritto* (4th ed., Rome 1894), and the rambling and often fanciful *Sommario della storia del diritto in Italia* (2nd ed., ibid. 1895). Bovio, following the classical school, affirmed the principle of personal freedom, but constrained it within a social determinism conceived as the development of humanity toward pure rationality. For the relationship with Lombrosian doctrine, see *Il genio* (Milan 1903). Thus, he moved from the moral question to the juridical, thence to the political, to outline a philosophy of history in which he positioned himself as an emulator of G. Ferrari. He loved the paradoxical, the sententious style; yet his theses were not devoid of charm due to the vigor of his dialectic, by which he knew how to enliven ideas, carve them with imagination, and oppose them dramatically.
Extraordinary was the enthusiasm he aroused among the youth of the University of Naples, where he delivered his lectures. Naturally, political motives then triumphant were intertwined with this. At that time in Italy, he embodied the typical figure of the “free thinker,” to whom there was not lacking even the solemnity of a certain priestly, indeed pontifical, air. Meanwhile, positivism had spread rapidly, and Bovio increasingly bent his earlier rationalism toward a naturalism that he defined as “mathematical,” according to which “matter, by proportioning and relating itself, becomes nature; this reflecting itself becomes thought; this moving itself becomes history”; see *Schema di un naturalismo matematico* (1877) and *Il naturalismo* (posthumous, Naples 1903). Elected deputy to Parliament (in 1876), he was among the leading exponents of the republican party and reaped numerous laurels with his *Discorsi* (ibid. 1900, and Rome, edited by the Chamber of Deputies, 1915), which were more literary than properly political. His republicanism, unlike Mazzini’s, had a rather anarchic direction: at its center was the freedom of the individual, and the State was a transitory necessity in the historical development of humanity; see *Scritti filosofici e politici* (ibid. 1883) and *Dottrina dei partiti in Europa* (ibid. 1886). The anticlerical note (never, however, vulgar) recurs frequently and at times strays into expressions close to atheism. Yet in the end, it was a superficial irreligiosity, as attested also by the licentiousness of his morals and his modest life.
He had, perhaps, a soul more of an artist than a thinker. From a young age, he composed verse. Among his numerous inscriptions, some remain as models of this literary genre. His greatest fame in the literary field, however, was achieved in some dramas, especially with *Cristo alla festa di Purim* (*Opere drammatiche*, Milan 1908). But perhaps superior to the other dramas are the Attic scenes of *Socrate* (Turin-Rome 1902), in which one senses the desire for closeness to that great moral figure.
