Ferdinando Galiani, 1728-1787

Neapolitan abbot and government official,  Ferdinando Galiani was a prominent figure of the "Neapolitan Enlightenment" and one of the progenitors of the Italian utility tradition.

Born in Chieti, Kingdom of Naples, Ferdinando Galiani was the son of a royal auditor. When he was eight years old, Galiani was placed under the tutorship of his uncle Celestino Galiani, Archbishop of Taranto, then attached to the royal court of Naples, who arranged a diet of philosophy, mathematics and law.  But Galiani was more of a wit than a scholar. Galiani's first work was a parody of a eulogy, skewering the Neapolitan academy, which caused a bit of an uproar.

While still a student, Galiani produced a dialogue on the state of ancient coinage during the Trojan War. Invited to deepen his argument, Galiani went on to produce his most celebrated economics tract, the 1750 Della Moneta, written anonymously when he was 22-years old.  Galiani introduced an alternative theory of value based of utility and scarcity, making him therefore the "Grandfather of the Marginalist Revolution".  Otherwise, Galiani's tract exhibited conventional Mercantilist ideas and some of his recommendations were adopted by the Neapolitan government. (it is here that Galiani  helped rediscover and popularize the great Mercantilist tract of Antonio Serra, after a century-and-a-half of obscurity.)

Ferdinando Galiani entered a clerical career, and was invested as a titular abbot of Santa Catarina a Celano in 1750, with a benefice of 500 ducats. To complete his education and capitalize on his early success, his uncle dispatched him on a tour of Italy in late 1750.  Galiani visited Rome, where he was received in the court of Pope Benedict XIV, then proceeded to visit other major urban centers, like Florence, Padua and Turin (where he entertained the Piedmontese court of king Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia-Savoy with his wit).  Galiani was back in Naples in 1753.  His uncle died the next year, but Galiani was already well-established in his connections in the Neapolitan court and was in correspondence with other writers throughout Italy.  His intellectual activities thereafter were varied, he composed a work on the conservation of grain, took an interest in the Roman ruins of Herculaneum,  composed a funerary oration for Benedict XIV, etc.

In January 1759, Galiani was appointed as secretary to the Neapolitan embassy in France, arriving in June1759, and remaining there for the next few years.  His wit flourished in the Versailles court.  When Galiani presented his credentials to Louis XV for the first time, Galiani (a man of short stature) remarked "You majesty, before you is only a sample of the secretary, the secretary will follow".   Galiani carried a pet monkey with him around Versailles, and when the monkey got into some mischief, Galiani would take an opportunity for wit, comparing the monkey's antics to some philosopher or politician.

Galiani fell in quickly with the French  philosophes, and communicated many of their ideas (on education reform, etc.) in his correspondence back to Naples.  While in Paris, Galiani also composed a well-received study of Horace (published anonymously in the Gazette litteraire in 1765) and a treatise on Sicilian law.  In 1765, while on holiday in Ischia, Galiani drafted a memoir on recent grain shortages in France.  Impressed, Galiani was promptly appointed the royal council on commerce in Naples.  But Galiani was quickly bored in Naples, and after some lobbying, was allowed to resume his position at the Neapolitan embassy in Paris by November 1766.  In 1767, Galiani visited London and Amsterdam, and shortly after returning to Paris, engaged the geographer Rizzi-Zannoni to compose a comprehensive map of the Kingdom of Naples.

Galiani term in Paris ended in May 1769, and he returned to Naples.  Many in the French court were glad to see him go - Galiani's acerbic wit had earned him many enemies over the years.   But Galiani left with a departing blow. Galiani's Mercantilist ideas had been deepened during his stays in the northern commercial capitals, but just around this time, the Physiocrats were reaching the peak of their influence.  So Galiani composed his Dailogues sur les bles (published 1770), directly in opposition to them.  Reinvoking the long-lost 1613 insights of Antonio Serra (which he rediscovered), Galiani noted that there are increasing returns to manufacturing, and diminishing returns to agriculture, and that the wealth of a nation ultimately depends on manufacturing and trade.  Although approving of the edict of 1764 liberalizing the grain trade, Galiani rejected much of the Physiocratic analysis, notably its "land theory of value".    His 1770 piece also provided a quite modern analysis of balance of payments. 

Despite his theoretical brilliance and his sympathy with the idea of  "natural" laws in economics, Galiani was a rather practical man,  skeptical about the reach of abstract theory, particularly when action was necessary and urgent.  He was repelled by the wide-eyed policies called for by the Physiocrats, which he believed were half-baked, unrealistic and impractical and, in times of crisis,  downright dangerous.  Watching the Physiocrats dither about "natural state" during a famine in France in 1768 infuriated the acid-tongued Galiani (and many other contemporaries).   He maintained, throughout his life, a consistently healthy suspicion of any theory that purported to claim "universality" of application, noting that propositions which may work in one time or place, might not work in others.  

Galiani could count Denis Diderot as one of his strongest supporters and followers -- as well as good friend. It was Diderot who arranged for the publication of the Dialogues in 1770, after Galiani's departure.  The tract was a success.  Voltaire lauded it effusively, and even Frederick the Great of Prussia wrote Galiani to congratulate him.  The Physiocrats did not take it well, and struggled to reply to it.  .

After his return to Naples, Galiani resumed his position on the council of commerce, but kept up a correspondence with his French friends.  Besides his official duties, Galiani also resumed his work on Horace (never completed),  composed a libretto for an opera on Socrates (set to music by Paesiello and performed in 1775).  After the eruption of Vesuvius in 1779, Galiani wrotre a little humorous tract, satirizing other writings about it.  He engaged in linguistic studies on the Neapolitan dialect, and composed a 1782 tract on diplomacy and wrote a few more humorous tracts under the pseudonym "Don Onoforio Galeota" (the actual name of a rival).

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