Pietro Giannone
| Pietro Giannone | |
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Pietro Giannone.
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| Born | 7 May 1676 |
| Died | 17 March 1748 (aged 71) |
| Occupation | Italian historian |
Pietro Giannone (7 May 1676 – 17 March 1748) was an Italian historian born in Ischitella, in the province of Foggia. He opposed the papal influence in Naples, for which he was imprisoned for twelve years until his death.
Arriving in Naples at the age of eighteen, he devoted himself to the study of law, but his legal pursuits were much surpassed in importance by his literary works. He devoted twenty years to the composition of his great work, the Storia civile del regno di Napoli (History of the Kingdom of Naples), ultimately published in 1723. In his account of the rise and progress of the Neapolitan laws and government, he warmly espoused the side of the civil power in its conflicts with the Roman Catholic hierarchy.
His merit lies in the fact that he was the first to deal systematically with the question of Church and State, and the position taken by him, and the manner in which that position was assumed, gave rise to a lifelong conflict between Giannone and the Roman Catholic Church.
Despised by the mob of Naples, and excommunicated by the archbishop's court, he was forced to leave Naples and settled in Vienna, Austria. Meanwhile, the Roman Inquisition had attested the value of his history by putting it on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.
In Vienna the favor of the Emperor Charles VI and of many leading personages at the Austrian court obtained for him a pension and other facilities for the prosecution of his historical studies. Of these the most important result was Il Triregno, ossia del regno del cielo, della terra, e del papa.
On the transfer of the Neapolitan crown to Charles of Bourbon, Giannone gave up his Austrian pension and relocated to Venice, hoping to find service with the new Neapolitan monarchy. But denied a passport to Naples, he remained in Venice where he was, at first, favorably received. The post of consulting lawyer to the republic, in which he might have continued the type of service that Fra Paolo Sarpi had exemplified in previous centuries, was offered to him, as well as that of professor of public law in Padua. He declined both offers. Unhappily there arose a suspicion that his views on maritime law were not favorable to the pretensions of Venice, and notwithstanding all his efforts to dissipate this suspicion, the distrust of Giannone together with clerical intrigues, led to his expulsion from the Republic.
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