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Cesare Beccaria

Cesare Beccaria

1738 CE1794 CE · Jurist · Milan

Cesare Beccaria was an Italian jurist, philosopher, and economist of the Milanese Enlightenment. Born into a minor aristocratic family, he studied at a Jesuit college in Parma and took a law degree at Pavia in 1758. In Milan he joined Pietro Verri's Accademia dei Pugni and contributed to the journal Il Caffè. In 1764 he published Dei delitti e delle pene (On Crimes and Punishments), a concise treatise arguing that punishment should be proportionate, public, and preventive, and criticizing torture and capital punishment. The work was widely translated and read across Europe. He later held a chair in political economy and served in Habsburg administrative posts in Lombardy until his death.

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Milan

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Christoph Willibald Gluck, Stendhal

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