VERGANI, PAOLO. — Prelate and economist, born in Piedmont in 1753, died in Paris around 1820.
Biographical information about V. is scant, although he was one of the most prominent figures in the Rome of Pius VI. In his youth he devoted himself to legal studies, proving himself an admirer and follower of Beccaria in his pamphlets On the Death Penalty; On Criminal Justice and On the Anonymity of the Duel. Pope Braschi summoned him to Rome and appointed him general assessor of Finance and Commerce, secretary of the Economic Congregation, as well as inspector of Agriculture and the Arts. Faithful to Verri’s economic doctrines, V. was a convinced protectionist and devised and implemented Pius VI’s customs reform of 1786, in defense of which he later wrote (1795) a substantial volume (On the Importance and Merits of the New System of the Finances of the Papal State). He maintained that imports impoverish national finances and opposed the «specious objection that the State should recognize its wealth solely in agriculture». According to the judgment of Ricca-Salerno (History of Economic Doctrines in Italy, Rome 1880, p. 170), V.’s work is «not only a splendid illustration of the laws and regulations issued by Pius VI, but the most complete and sagacious interpretation of the principles governing the customs system then in force in practice in the more civilized states, in breadth of outlook, wealth of particular and technical observations, full knowledge of the subject, and clarity of expression».
We know nothing more about V. until 1811, when he is found in Paris, compelled to give Italian lessons to earn his bread, while working on the treatise La législation de Napoléon le Grand considérée dans ses rapports avec l'agriculture (1812), in which he shows that he had shifted from the concepts of an economy based predominantly on industry to new views more receptive to the advantages of agriculture. And indeed, after the fall of the Napoleonic Empire, Msgr. V. ROMAGNA. In 1814 he composed an Essai historique sur la dernière persécution de l'Église, which is a vehement condemnation of Napoleonic policy toward the papacy.