GIOIA, MELCHIORRE. — Politician and writer, born at Piacenza on 20 September 1767, died at Milan on 2 January 1829. In 1784 he entered the Collegio Alberoni, from which he emerged as an ordained priest in 1793. Sympathizing with Jacobin ideas, he was imprisoned. Released through Napoleon’s intervention, he took refuge in Milan. He abandoned the clerical habit and devoted himself to journalism. He founded several newspapers. He cherished the idea of an independent Italian state, and was again imprisoned; he was released in 1800 after the victory of Marengo.
He held various offices and experienced varying fortunes until the collapse of the Kingdom of Italy in 1814. Years of fruitful work followed. He published Nuovo progetto delle scienze economiche (Milan 1815–19), Del merito e delle ricompense (ibid. 1818), and Elementi di filosofia (ibid. 1818). Suspected by the Austrian police, he once again endured imprisonment for several months (1820–21). Upon his release, he continued to publish: in 1822, Ideologia; in 1824, Esercizio logico su gli errori (these and other works were placed on the Index). His final work was Filosofia della statistica (Milan 1826). He possessed a broad culture, acquired largely from French sources. In philosophy, despite some attempts to rise above vulgar sensationalism, he did not leave the sphere of the ideological school then dominant. He often indulged in a crude hedonism and utilitarianism. A more original position must be recognized in the social sciences, where he founded statistics as the “economic science of nations,” in which “the influence of physical and moral causes, internal and external, upon the sources of production, the population, labor, and customs is examined.” In economic and commercial theories, G. follows the doctrine of free trade.