GALIANI, FERDINANDO. — Writer and economist, born in Chieti on 2 December 1728, died in Naples on 30 October 1787. Secretary of the Neapolitan Embassy in Paris from 1759 to 1769.
Among his most notable works are Della moneta (Naples 1750), Dialogues sur le commerce des bles (London 1770), De' doveri de' principi neutrali verso i principi guerreggianti e di questi verso i neutrali (s. l. 1782); mention should also be made of the delightful Socrate immaginario (Naples 1775), written in collaboration with Giambattista Lorenzi (G.’s are certainly the idea, plot, and several scenes) and set to music by Paisiello.
A refined spirit and a fascinating man of the world, G. is not a powerful thinker, but possesses a keen intellect, always eager to apprehend the world in contradiction, and is also a demolisher of the very myths of the eighteenth century; he is opposed to every form of irrationality, but also to rationalistic optimism; he acknowledges that freedom and necessity do not stifle one another; in delineating the duties of neutral princes, he is convinced that force is not a right, that raison d’état is repugnant to the “culture” of reason, and that in politics the principles of pure morality and justice must be cherished; but at the same time he limits politics to the possibility of doing the greatest good for humanity with the least effort, and declares that Nations are perfect when they arise from the mingling of passion and reason, order and disorder.
Opposed to physiocratic palingeneses, he observes with acute realism that, in the grain trade, freedom and protection must be advocated according to the needs of the various countries. In G., problems often end up coexisting simultaneously and becoming confused without being resolved within a clear system. A great friend of Diderot, G. is irreligious and a sensualist, but not deterministic.