Vergani, Paolo

VERGANI, PAOLO. - Prelate and economist, b. in Piedmont in 1753, d. in Paris ca. 1820.

Biographical information on V. is scarce, even though he was one of the most prominent figures in the Rome of Pius VI. In his youth he devoted himself to legal studies, showing himself an admirer and follower of Beccaria in his pamphlets Sulla pena di morte; Sulla giustizia criminale e Dell'anomita del duello. Pope Braschi summoned him to Rome and appointed him assessor general of Finance and Commerce, secretary of the Economic Congregation, as well as inspector of Agriculture and the Arts. Faithful to the economic doctrines of Verri, V. was a convinced protectionist and elaborated and implemented the customs reform of Pius VI of 1786, in defense of which he later wrote (1795) a dense volume (Della importanza e dei pregi del nuovo sistema delle Finanze dello Stato pontificio). He maintained that imports impoverish the national finances and opposed the «specious objection that the State must recognize its wealth only in agriculture». According to the judgment of Ricca-Salerno (Storia delle dottrine economiche in Italia, Rome 1880, p. 170), V.'s work is «not only a splendid illustration of the laws and ordinances issued by Pius VI, but the most complete and sagacious interpretation of the principles that governed the customs system then in force in the practice of the most civilized States, for breadth of views, abundance of particular and technical observations, full knowledge of the subject and lucidity of expression».

We know nothing further of V. until 1811, when he is found in Paris, forced to give Italian lessons to secure his bread and attending to the work La législation de Napoléon le Grand considérée dans ses rapports avec l'agriculture (1812), in which he shows that he had converted from the concepts of an economy based predominantly on industry to new views more open to the advantages of agriculture. And indeed, once the Napoleonic empire had fallen, Msgr. V. urged Pius VII to promote the repopulation and intensive cultivation of the Agro romano. In 1814 he dictated an Essai historique sur la dernière persécution de l'Église, which is a violent condemnation of Napoleonic policy toward the papacy.

Renzo U. Montini