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7 - Enlightenment Constitutionalism and the Rights of Man

from Part I - A Revolution in Rights?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2025

By
Vincenzo Ferrone
Edited by
Dan Edelstein  and
Jennifer Pitts
Dan Edelstein
Affiliation:
Stanford University, California
Jennifer Pitts
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
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Summary

Situating Enlightenment theories of rights in a broader arc extending back to the Scientific Revolution, this chapter focuses on the Italian jurists and philosophers who incorporated these theories into constitutional thought. Drawing on the works of Montesquieu and Rousseau, in particular, Gaetano Filangieri sought to reformulate arguments about natural rights in terms of a legislative “science.” This science, which would be eagerly received across Europe and Spanish America, sought to incorporate rights and popular sovereignty into constitutional law. Filangieri also drew on Italian intellectual traditions, which (in the case of Antonio Genovesi) insisted on social, alongside individual, rights. Following the influential example of Cesare Beccaria, Filangieri also paid particular attention to rights in penal matters. His constitutional principles were poignantly, if briefly, embodied in the 1799 Constitution of the Neapolitan Republic, drafted by Francesco Pagano.

Keywords

EnlightenmentconstitutionalismCiceroneo-StoicismGaetano FilangieriCesare BeccariaAntonio GenovesiNeapolitan school,
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of Rights , pp. 160 - 181
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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References

Further Reading

Altopiedi, V., La rivoluzione incompiuta di Olympe de Gouges. I diritti della donna dai Lumi alla ghigliottina (Rome, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2023).Google Scholar
Ferrone, V., The Enlightenment: History of an Idea (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, [2010] 2015).Google Scholar
Ferrone, V., The Enlightenment and the Rights of Man (Oxford, Voltaire Foundation, [2014] 2019).Google Scholar
Ferrone, V., Il Mondo dell’Illuminismo: Storia di una rivoluzione culturale (Turin, Einaudi, 2019).Google Scholar
Ferrone, V., The Politics of Enlightenment: Republicanism, Constitutionalism, and the Rights of Man in Gaetano Filangieri, trans. S. A. Reinert (London, Anthem Press, [2003] 2012).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Filangieri, G., La Scienza della legislazione, 7 vols. (Venice, Centro Studi sull’Illuminismo Europeo ‘G. Stiffoni,’ 2004).Google Scholar
Genovesi, A., Della diceosina o sia della filosofia del giusto e dell’onesto, ed. Guasti, N. (Venice, Centro Studi sull’Illuminismo Europeo ‘G. Stiffoni,’ 2008).Google Scholar
Maurini, A., Created Equal: La Rivoluzione mancante alle origini degli Stati Uniti d’America (Rome, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2020).Google Scholar
Morelli, F., and Trampus, A. (eds.) Progetto di costituzione della Repubblica napoletana presentato al governo provvisorio dal comitato di legislazione, with an introduction by A. M. Rao (Venice, Centro Studi sull’Illuminismo Europeo ‘G. Stiffoni,’ 2008).Google Scholar
Motta, F., Bellarmino: Una teologia politica della Controriforma (Brescia, Morcelliana, 2005).Google Scholar
Pagano, F. M., Progetto di costituzione della Repubblica napoletana, ed. Trampus, A. (Venice, Centro Studi sull’Illuminismo Europeo ‘G. Stiffoni,’ 2008).Google Scholar
Trampus, A., Diritti e costituzione: L’Opera di Gaetano Filangieri e la sua fortuna europea (Bologna, Il Mulino, 2005).Google Scholar

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