Pilati, Carlo Antonio

PILATI, CARLO ANTONIO. - Political writer, b. at Tassullo, near Trento, on 28 Dec. 1733, d. there on 27 Oct. 1802.

A professor of civil law at Trento, he began his publicistic activity with a work entitled L'esistenza della legge naturale (Venice 1764), placed on the Index by decree of 16 June 1766. Having left Trento, he settled at Chur, where he set up a printing house. In 1767 there appeared the writing Di una riforma d'Italia, ossia dei mezzi di riformare i più cattivi costumi e le più perniciose leggi d'Italia (decree of the Holy Office, 29 July 1767), in which P. maintains the possibility of attaining, after the abolition of the Inquisition, a deeper and more heartfelt religiosity through the abolition of the regular clergy, the reform of the secular clergy and the instruction of the laity. The advisability of a policy hostile to the religious Orders on the part of the Italian States is reaffirmed by P. in the work Riflesioni di un italiano sopra la Chiesa in generale, sopra il clero si regolare che secolare, sopra i vescovi ed i pontefici romani e sopra i diritti ecclesiastici de' principi (decree of the Holy Office, 1 March 1770). After travelling through half of Europe, he retired (1801) to his native town.

Silvio Furlani