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BECCARIA, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1716-1781)

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Originally appearing in Volume V03, Page 602 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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BECCARIA, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1716-1781) , See also:Italian physicist, was See also:born at See also:Mondovi on the 3rd of See also:October 1716, and entered the religious See also:order of the Pious See also:Schools in 1732. He became See also:professor of experimental physics, first at See also:Palermo and then at See also:Rome, and was appointed to a similar situation at See also:Turin in 1748. He was afterwards made See also:tutor to the See also:young princes de Chablais and de Carignan, and continued to reside principally at Turin during the See also:remainder of his See also:life. In May 1755 he was elected a See also:fellow of the Royal Society of See also:London, and published several papers on See also:electrical subjects in the Phil. Trans. He died at Turin on the 27th of May 1781. Beccaria did much, in the way both of experiment and exposition, to spread a knowledge of the electrical researches of See also:Franklin and others. His See also:principal See also:work was the See also:treatise Dell' Elettricismo Naturale ed Artificiale (1753), which was translated into See also:English in 1776. BECCARIA-BONESANA, CESARE, MARCHESE DE (1735-1794), Italian publicist, was born at See also:Milan on the 15th of See also:March 1735. He was educated in the Jesuit See also:college at See also:Parma, and showed at first a See also:great aptitude for See also:mathematics. The study of See also:Montesquieu seems to have directed his See also:attention towards economic questions; and his first publication (1762) was a See also:tract on the derangement of the currency in the Milanese states, with a proposal for its remedy. Shortly after, in See also:conjunction with his See also:friends the Verris, he formed a See also:literary society, and began to publish a small See also:journal, in See also:imitation of the Spectator, called Il Caffe.

In 1764 he published his brief but justly celebrated treatise Dei Delitti e Belle Pene (" On Crimes and Punishments "). The weighty reasonings of this work were expounded with all the additional force of a clear and animated See also:

style. It pointed out distinctly and temperately the grounds of the right of See also:punishment, and from these principles deduced certain propositions as to the nature and amount of punishment which should be inflicted for any See also:crime. The See also:book had a surprising success. Within eighteen months it passed through six See also:editions. It was translated into See also:French by See also:Morellet in 1766, and published with an See also:anonymous commentary by See also:Voltaire. An English See also:translation appeared in 1768 and it was translated into several other See also:languages. Many of the reforms in the penal codes of the principal See also:European nations are traceable to Beccaria's treatise. In See also:November 1768 he was appointed to the See also:chair of See also:law and See also:economy, which had been founded expressly for him at the See also:Palatine college of Milan. His lectures on See also:political economy, which are based on strict utilitarian principles, are in marked accordance with the theories of the English school of economists. They are published in the collection of Italian writers on political economy (Scrittori Classici Italiani di Economia politica, vols. xi. and xii.). In 1771 Beccaria was made a member of the supreme economic See also:council; and in 1791 he was appointed one of the See also:board for the reform of the judicial See also:code.

In this See also:

post his labours were of very great value. He died at Milan on the 28th of November 1794.

End of Article: BECCARIA, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1716-1781)

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