The idea of building a database on economists and economic science in liberal Italy dates back to more than thirty years ago, on the occasion of a pioneering international research on The institutionalisation of Political Economy: Its Introduction and Acceptance into European, North-American and Japanese Universities, which had the aim of studying the different ‘national styles’ in the paths of formation and dissemination of economic science and professionalisation of economists.
Following that long research (1), our group decided to continue those studies and to deepen the related topics of interest, through a new methodological and historiographical approach of institutional history of political economy. This intention was translated into a vast project to be developed in a series of collective works, based on the systematic collection of bio-bibliographical and archival data on Italian economists of the period, in order to analyse all the moments and institutional places in which economic science was elaborated and disseminated in our country.
These works, which involved more than a hundred scholars and the results of which were collected in numerous volumes and monographic issues of journals, dealt with, in succession:
- economics journals (2),
- economic societies and economists’ associations (3),
- economic encyclopaedias and dictionaries (4),
- economists and politics (5),
- economics textbooks and treatises (6),
- economists and the daily press (7).
Methodological criteria
The work of identifying the more than seventy chair economists that make up our research universe is the result of a systematic reconnaissance of the economic teachings given in the various Italian universities from the end of the eighteenth century to the end of the nineteenth.
The selection criteria used to identify them include those who taught political economy (even under different names in the pre-unification period), statistics and financial science on a permanent basis.
The file of each economist was elaborated by constructing a chronology of the most significant events in their academic, scientific, political and professional biographies, accompanied by a list of their overall production and a bibliography of what has been published about them.
Italian academic economists of the 19th century
Giulio Alessio (1853-1940)
Paolo Balsamo (1764-1816)
Rodolfo Benini (1862-1956)
Angelo Bertolini (1860-1924)
Gerolamo Boccardo (1829-1904)
Luigi Bodio (1840-1920)
Giovanni Bruno (1818-1891)
Luca Cagnazzi (de Samuele) (1764-1852)
Antonio Ciccone (1808-1893)
Salvatore Cognetti de Martiis (1844-1901)
Carlo Angelo Conigliani (1868-1901)
Francesco Corbani (1805-1859)
Luigi Cossa (1831-1896)
Vito Cusumano (1843-1908)
Luigi D’Apel (1838-1912)
Riccardo Dalla Volta (1862-1944)
Arturo Jéhan De Johannis (1846-1913)
Placido De Luca (1802-1861)
Antonio De Viti de Marco (1858-1943)
Giulio Salvatore Del Vecchio (1845-1917)
Alberto Errera (1842-1894)
Francesco Ferrara (1810-1900)
Carlo Francesco Ferraris (1850-1924)
Sabino Fiorese (1851-1935)
Carlo Fontanelli (1841-1890)
Tommaso Fornari (1841-1938)
Alessandro Garelli (1845-1921)
Piero Giuliani (1811-1880)
Augusto Graziani (1865-1944)
Diodato Lioy (1830-1912)
Niccolò Lo Savio (1832-1911)
Pietro Longo Signorelli (1815-1867)
Achille Loria (1857-1943)
Eteocle Lorini (1865-1919)
Francesco Maggiore Perni (1836-1907)
Giuseppe Majorana (1863-1940)
Salvatore Majorana Calatabiano (1825-1897)
Angelo Marescotti (1815-1892)
Tullio Martello (1841-1918)
Eugenio Masè Dari (1864-1961)
Ugo Mazzola (1863-1899)
Angelo Messedaglia (1820-1901)
Emilio Morpurgo (1836-1885)
Maffeo Pantaleoni (1857-1924)
Giovanni Pinna Ferrà (1838-1904)
Antonio Ponsiglioni (1842-1907)
Francesco Protonotari (1836-1888)
Amilcare Puviani (1854-1907)
Ugo Rabbeno (1863-1897)
Adeodato Ressi (1768-1822)
Giangiacomo Reymond (1831-1902)
Giuseppe Ricca Salerno (1849-1902)
Alberto Rinieri de Rocchi (1803-1869)
Angelo Roncali (1845-1917)
Giambattista Salvioni (1849-1925)
Ignazio Sanfilippo (1784-1842)
Pietro Sbarbaro (1838-1893)
Ignazio Scarabelli (1842-1914)
Antonio Scialoja (1817-1877)
Salvatore Scuderi (1781-1840)
Pietro Sitta (1866-1947)
Camillo Supino (1860-1931)
Giuseppe Todde (1829-1897)
Giuseppe Toniolo (1845-1918)
Pietro Torrigiani (1810-1885)
Ghino Valenti (1852-1920)
Luigi Valeriani Molinari (1758-1828)
Filippo Virgilii (1865-1950)
Jacopo Virgilio (1834-1891)
Ferdinando Zanzucchi (1846-1913)
Alberto Zorli (1854-1939)
Giovanni Zucconi (1845-1894)
(1) M. M. Augello, M. Bianchini, G. Gioli, P. Roggi (eds), Le cattedre di economia politica in Italia. La diffusione di una disciplina ‘sospetta’, 1750-1900. Introduzione di P. Barucci, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 1988.
(2) M. M. Augello (ed.), L’economia politica nell’Italia di fine Ottocento. Il dibattito sulle riviste, special issue of «Il pensiero economico italiano», III, 2, 1995.
M. M. Augello, M. E. L. Guidi (eds), The Emergence of Economic Periodical Literature in Italy, 1750-1900, «History of Economic Ideas», IV, 1996, 3, pp. 15-62.
M. Bianchini (ed.), Political Economy in European Periodicals, 1750-1900. Special issue of «History of Economic Ideas», IV, 1996, 3.
M. M. Augello, M. Bianchini, M. E. L. Guidi (eds), Le riviste di economia in Italia, 1700-1900. Dai giornali scientifico-letterari ai periodici specialistici, Milano FrancoAngeli, 1996.
(3) M. M. Augello, M. E. L. Guidi (eds), Associazionismo economico e diffusione dell’economia politica nell’Italia dell’Ottocento. Dalle società economico-agrarie alle associazioni di economisti, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 2000, 2 voll.
M. M. Augello, M. E. L. Guidi (eds), The Spread of Political Economy and the Professionalisation of Economists. Economic Societies in Europe, America and Japan in the Nineteenth Century, London, Routledge, 2001.
(4) P. Roggi (ed.), Le grandi ‘voci’ nei Dizionari specializzati (e non) di economia, Special issue of «Storia del pensiero economico», 2001, nn. 41-42.
(5) M. M. Augello, M. E. L. Guidi (eds), La scienza economica in Parlamento 1861-1922. Una storia dell’economia politica dell’Italia liberale, vol. I, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 2002.
M. M. Augello, M. E. L. Guidi (eds), Gli economisti in Parlamento 1861-1922. Una storia dell’economia politica dell’Italia liberale, vol. II, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 2003.
M. M. Augello, M. E. L. Guidi (eds), Economists in Parliament in the Liberal Age, 1848-1920, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2005.
(6) M. M. Augello, M. E. L. Guidi (a cura di), La manualistica delle scienze economiche e sociali nell’Italia liberale, special issue of «Il pensiero economico italiano», XIV, 1, 2006.
M. M. Augello, M. E. L. Guidi (eds), L’economia divulgata. Stili e percorsi italiani. Vol. 1. Manuali e trattati. Vol. 2. Teorie e paradigmi. Vol. 3. La «Biblioteca dell’Economista» e la circolazione internazionale dei manuali, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 2007.
M. M. Augello, M. E. L. Guidi (eds), The Economic Reader. Textbooks, Manuals and the Dissemination of the Economic Sciences during the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, London, Routledge, 2011.
(7) G. Pavanelli (ed), Scienza economica e opinione pubblica. Luigi Einaudi, gli economisti torinesi e la stampa quotidiana tra età liberale e primo fascismo, Special issue of «Il pensiero economico italiano», XVIII, 1, 2010.
M. M. Augello, M. E. L. Guidi, G. Pavanelli (eds), Economia e opinione pubblica nell’Italia liberale. Gli economistie la stampa quotidiana, Vol. 1. Gli economisti. Vol. 2. I dibattiti, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 2016.
(8) M. M. Augello, La nascita di una professione accademica: gli economisti italiani post-unitari, 1860-1900. Un’analisi quantitativa, «Quaderni di storia dell’economia politica», X, 1992, 3, pp. 3-39.
M. M. Augello, L’evoluzione della letteratura economica in Italia: 1861-1900. Un’analisi storico-quantitativa, «Il pensiero economico italiano», II, 1, 1994, pp. 7-36.
M. M. Augello, M. E. L. Guidi (eds), The Italian Economists in Parliament from 1860 to 1922: A Quantitative Analysis, «The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought», XII, 2005, 2, pp. 279-319.
(9) M. M. Augello, Gli economisti accademici italiani dell’Ottocento. Una storia ‘documentale’, Roma, Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali, Direzione generale per gli archivi, 2013, 2 voll. in 4 tt.