The Italian philosopher and economist Antonio Genovesi (the name was originally Genovese), was born in Castiglione, Salerno. After studying literature and rhetoric and then philosophy, he attended the lectures of the aged Giambattista Vico. In 1741 he began to teach metaphysics at the University of Naples as extraordinary professor. In 1743 he published the first volume of his Elementa Metaphysicae Mathematicum in Modum Adornata (5 vols., Naples, 1743–1745), for which he was accused of rationalism and atheism. In 1745 he began to teach ethics. In that year he published his Elementa Artis Logico-criticae and an important historical introduction to the Neapolitan edition of Pieter van Musschenbroek's Elementa Physicae. In the same year his Universae Christianae Theologiae Elementa was accused of heterodoxy; it was not published until after his death (Venice, 1771). Discouraged, Genovesi turned to other, less philosophical studies. He was offered the new chair of civil economy (economics), the...