GIOJA, Melchiorre.
Ideologia, esposta da Melchiorre Gioja ...
Milan, Giovanni Pirotta, 1822-1823.
2 vols, 8vo, pp. x, 227, [1 errata]; 271, [1 errata] + 14 (Avviso agli associati); one or two marginal spots, the upper outer corners of a few initial leaves of vol. 2 reinforced, but a very good, fresh copy, uncut in the original printed wrappers with contemporary marbled paper spines, paper labels on spines; edges and corners of the wrappers skilfully repaired.
First edition, a very good copy, of the work in which the Italian economist and philosopher expounds his theory of sensations and passions. It was immediately placed on the Index.
‘Born in Piacenza, Italy, Melchiorre Gioja [1767–1829] actively participated in the turbulent political life of his time, ending up in prison more than once. Gioja became a Catholic priest; however, his gospel was that man should obtain the “maximum product with the minimum expenditure of effort”. This “principle” inspires his main contribution to the development of economic analysis: the principle of the association and division of work [which appears in the first volume of the Nuovo Prospetto] … [He] criticized the laissez-faire policies advocated by the English school of political economy. He anticipated some aspects of the theories of market failures due to externalities and monopolies and favoured state intervention for correcting them’ (The New Palgrave II, 532).
Published a few years after his more strictly economical works, this study of sensations, passions, pain and pleasure aimed at getting to the roots of the dynamics of human exchange. It also included a section on the diseases of the ‘faculties of the mind’, such as mental disorders, manias, demented states and psychiatric conditions,
Clio III, 2167; Einaudi 2572.
