Written by one of Italy's leading historians, this book analyses the context and legacy of Gaetano Filangieri's seven-volume Science of Legislation. The study engages with the unique history of Enlightenment Naples, the intellectual traditions upon which Filangieri drew, and the powerful repercussions of the American Revolution in eighteenth-century Italy to re-draw the map of Enlightenment republicanism and the early history of human rights and their political economy.

Particularly, the book elucidates Montesquieu's polyvalent influence on the development of Enlightenment political...

Written by one of Italy's leading historians, this book analyses the context and legacy of Gaetano Filangieri's seven-volume Science of Legislation. The study engages with the unique history of Enlightenment Naples, the intellectual traditions upon which Filangieri drew, and the powerful repercussions of the American Revolution in eighteenth-century Italy to re-draw the map of Enlightenment republicanism and the early history of human rights and their political economy.

Particularly, the book elucidates Montesquieu's polyvalent influence on the development of Enlightenment political...