FILBERT FILICAIA. 



193 



his father not being very opulent, lie was destined to 

 the military service, which he entered in his four- 

 teenth year, but which he soon after left, and devoted 

 himself to study with such ardour, that, notwithstand- 

 ing the neglect of his early education, at the age of 

 twenty, he was well acquainted with the Greek and 

 Latin languages, ancient and modern history, the law 

 of nature and nations, and had also studied nearly 

 all the branches of the mathematics. He had already 

 conceived the plan of two works, one on public and 

 private education, and the other on the morality of 

 princes, founded upon nature and the constitution of 

 society. To gratify the wishes of his family, he com- 

 menced the practice of the law. His learning and 

 eloquence soon made him distinguished. In a work 

 against the favourers of the old system, he success- 

 fully defended the reforms suggested by the spirit of 

 the age and by reason itself, which Tanucci, then 

 (1774) prime minister of Naples, was carrying into 

 execution. Tanucci immediately became his patron, 

 and Filangieri was soon appointed to stations of hon- 

 our at the court, which did not, however, divert him 

 from his favourite studies. He engaged in the pre- 

 paration of a work which was to embrace the whole 

 science of legislation; and, as the celebrated Beccaria, 

 at Milan, had already published his essay on crimes 

 and punishments, which formed a new epoch in cri- 

 minal legislation, Filangieri intended to examine all 

 the relations, and explain the fundamental principles 

 of legislation in general. He executed this task with 

 great depth of thought and soundness of judgment. 

 He divided the work, La Sciemta, della Legislazione 

 (The Science of Legislation), into seven books, of which 

 the first, containing the general principles of legis- 

 lation, and the second, treating of the principles of 

 legislation in their application to political economy, 

 appeared (1780) at Naples, in two vols. This work 

 met with prodigious success, not only in Italy, but 

 all over Europe; and the author, at the age of twenty- 

 eight, was ranked among the most distinguished pub- 

 licists. He speaks with boldness and independence 

 of abuses ; and, although he exposes those of his own 

 government, the king conferred on him the com- 

 mandery of the royal order of Constantine. In 1783, 

 he published the two next volumes, on criminal juris- 

 prudence. This subject he treated in its whole ex- 

 tent, and exposed abuses or defects with the same 

 freedom and boldness. His exposure of the evils of 

 the feudal system, and of the abuses in the church, 

 excited the fears of the high nobility and clergy. A 

 venal writer, one Joseph Grippa, was hired to refute 

 Filangieri ; and his work was also condemned by an 

 ecclesiastical decree of Dec. 6, 1784, as tending to 

 foster sedition and atheism. Filangieri did not answer 

 the obscure Grippa, and his only reply to the feudal- 

 ists and curialists was the publication of the fifth, 

 sixth, and seventh volumes of his work, which 

 treat of education, morals, and public instruction. 

 In 1783, Filangieri married Caroline von Frendel, 

 daughter of a Hungarian nobleman, and governess 

 of the second daughter of the king of Naples, and 

 soon after retired, with the consent of his king, to a 

 small town in the vicinity of Naples, to write, in the 

 silence of the country, the last volume of his great 

 work, which relates to religion as connected with the 

 state. But his health had already suffered much, 

 and he proceeded but slowly. The new king, Fer- 

 dinand IV., called him (1787) to his supreme council 

 of finance. He was, therefore, compelled to return 

 to Naples, and devote himself, almost exclusively, to 

 his new duties. He soon after became sick, and died 

 July 21, 1788, aged thirty-six. He had previously 

 completed the eighth part of his work, on the reli- 

 gions that preceded Christianity. We find here pro- 

 found researches and spirited descriptions. Of the 



last book, we have only the divisions of the chapters. 

 This work has been translated into many living 

 languages. From the papers of Filangieri, it ap- 

 peared that he had intended to prepare a Nuova Sci- 

 enza della Scienze, reducing all human sciences to 

 first principles ; and a Storia civile universale perpe- 

 tua, in which, from the history of nations, the history 

 of man was to have been explained, with all the 

 progress of his mental development. His sudden 

 death, and his opposition to the measures of the in- 

 famous Acton (q. v.), gave rise to a suspicion of poi- 

 son. There is no proof, however, that this conjecture 

 is well founded. 



FILBERT; the fruit of the European liazel. See 

 Hazel. 



FILICAIA, VINCENZO DA ; an Italian poet of the 

 seventeenth century, who successfully opposed the 

 torrent of bad taste, which was corrupting the poetry 

 of his native country. He was born in 1642, at 

 Florence, where he began his studies in the Jesuits' 

 college, and afterwards studied at the university of 

 Pisa. His first poetic attempts were verses to his 

 mistress ; but, deprived of the object of his love by 

 her early death, he resolved never again to sing of a 

 passion, the pleasures of which, he supposed, were 

 vanished from him for ever, and determined to devote 

 his lyre to sacred or heroic subjects. On his return 

 to Florence, he was chosen member of the academy 

 delja Crusca, and soon after he married the daughter 

 of a senator, Scipio Capponi, with whom, after his 

 father's death, he retired to the country, and devoted 

 his whole attention to the education of his children, 

 and the ease which he loved so well. In this retire- 

 ment he wrote a great number of Italian and Latin 

 poems ; but, as his modesty led him to find more 

 fault with them than did the few friends to whom he 

 showed them, they remained unpublished ; and he 

 would, probably, have continued to conceal his 

 splendid talents, had not his friends, at length, re- 

 vealed the secret. Filicaia had celebrated, in six 

 odes, the deliverance of Vienna from the Turks, by 

 John Sobieski, king of Poland, and the duke of Lor- 

 raine, and the entire defeat of the Turks, which 

 happened soon after. These odes were so much 

 admired, that the grand duke of Tuscany sent them 

 to those princes. They were printed at Florence, in 

 1684, and Filicaia's fame was thus established as the 

 first poet of his time in Italy. His fortune, however, 

 was little improved by this accession of fame. Queen 

 Christina of Sweden first interested herself in reliev- 

 ing the poet, appointed him a member of the academy 

 of distinguished men which she had founded at Rome, 

 and charged herself with the education of his two 

 sons, on condition that it should not be made known, 

 because she was ashamed to do so little for so dis- 

 tinguished a man. The attention of the grand duke 

 of Tuscany was afterwards turned towards him, and 

 one of his sons, who, however, soon died, was re- 

 ceived into his service as page. Filicaia was then 

 appointed by him senator and governor of Volterra, 

 and afterwards of Pisa. In the discharge of these 

 offices, he gained the love of the people and the 

 esteem of the sovereign; and, notwithstanding the 

 multiplicity of his occupations, he always found time 

 to devote to his favourite studies. His advanced age, 

 and the loss of several of his children, turned his 

 whole thoughts to religious subjects. He undertook, 

 however, the publication of a revised edition of his 

 complete works, but died at Florence, Sept. 24, 1707, 

 at the age of 65. His son Scipio published the col- 

 lection begun by his father, under the title of Poesie 

 Toscane di fincenzo da Filicaia, and dedicated it to 

 Cosmo III. Another edition, with the life of the 

 poet, by Tommaso Bonaventuri, appeared in 1720, 

 and a third, in two volumes (Venice, 1762), which 



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