GIOLA, MELCHIORRE. - Politician and writer, born in Piacenza on 20 Sept. 1767, died in Milan on 2 Jan. 1829. In 1784 he entered the Collegio Alberoni,
from which he emerged in 1793 as an ordained priest. Sympathizing with Jacobin ideas, he was imprisoned. Released through Napoleon’s intervention, he took refuge in Milan. He cast off his clerical garb and devoted himself to journalism. He founded several newspapers. He cherished the idea of an independent Italian state and was imprisoned again, emerging in 1800 after the victory at Marengo.
He held various offices and experienced varying fortunes until the collapse of the Kingdom of Italy in 1814. The following years were marked by fruitful activity. He published the *Nuovo progetto delle scienze economiche* (Milan 1815–19), *Del merito e delle ricompense* (ibid. 1818), and the *Elementi di filosofia* (ibid. 1818). Suspected by the Austrian police, he was imprisoned once more for several months (1820–21). After his release, he continued publishing: in 1822, the *Ideologia*; in 1824, *Esercizio logico su gli errori* (this and other works were placed on the Index). His final work was the *Filosofia della statistica* (Milan 1826). He possessed a wide-ranging culture, largely drawn from French sources. In philosophy, despite occasional attempts to rise above vulgar sensism, he remained within the sphere of the then-dominant ideological school. He often indulged in crude hedonism and utilitarianism. A more original position is recognized in the social sciences, where he founded statistics as the “economic science of nations,” examining the influence of physical and moral, internal and external causes on the sources of production, population, labor, and habits. In trade and commercial theories, G. was a staunch advocate of liberalist doctrine.