Cesare Beccaria is well remembered for his treatise On Crimes and Punishments, which condemned torture and the death penalty, and was a founding work in the field of penology and the Classical School of criminology.
25 Facts About Cesare Beccaria
2.
Cesare Beccaria received his early education in the Jesuit college at Parma.
3.
Cesare Beccaria was best known for his book on crimes and punishments.
4.
In 1764, with the encouragement of Pietro Verri, Cesare Beccaria published a brief but celebrated treatise On Crimes and Punishments.
5.
Cesare Beccaria's treatise marked the high point of the Milan Enlightenment.
6.
Cesare Beccaria's treatise was the first full work of penology, advocating reform of the criminal law system.
7.
Editions of Cesare Beccaria's text follow two distinct arrangements of the material: that by Cesare Beccaria himself, and that by French translator Andre Morellet who imposed a more systematic order.
8.
Cesare Beccaria opens his work describing the great need for reform in the criminal justice system, and he observes how few studies there are on the subject of such reform.
9.
Cesare Beccaria argues that punishment should be close in time to the criminal action to maximize the punishment's deterrence value.
10.
Cesare Beccaria defends his view about the temporal proximity of punishment by appealing to the associative theory of understanding in which our notions of causes and the subsequently perceived effects are a product of our perceived emotions that form from our observations of a causes and effect occurring in close correspondence.
11.
Cesare Beccaria argues that laws should be clear in defining crimes so that judges do not interpret the law, but only decide whether a law has been broken.
12.
Cesare Beccaria believed that people have a rational manner and apply it toward making choices that will help them achieve their own personal gratification.
13.
The principles to which Cesare Beccaria appealed were Reason, an understanding of the state as a form of contract, and, above all, the principle of utility, or of the greatest happiness for the greatest number.
14.
Cesare Beccaria had elaborated this original principle in conjunction with Pietro Verri, and greatly influenced Jeremy Bentham to develop it into the full-scale doctrine of Utilitarianism.
15.
Cesare Beccaria openly condemned the death penalty on two grounds:.
16.
Cesare Beccaria developed in his treatise a number of innovative and influential principles:.
17.
Cesare Beccaria argued against gun control laws, and was among the first to advocate the beneficial influence of education in lessening crime.
18.
Once it was clear that the government approved of his essay, Cesare Beccaria republished it, this time crediting himself as the author.
19.
Cesare Beccaria travelled with the Verri brothers and was given a warm reception by the philosophes.
20.
However, the chronically-shy Cesare Beccaria made a poor impression and left after three weeks, returning to Milan and to his young wife Teresa and never venturing abroad again.
21.
The break with the Verri brothers proved lasting; they were never able to understand why Cesare Beccaria had left his position at the peak of success.
22.
Cesare Beccaria nevertheless continued to command official recognition, and he was appointed to several nominal political positions in Italy.
23.
Cesare Beccaria never succeeded in producing another work to match Dei Delitti e Delle Pene, but he made various incomplete attempts in the course of his life.
24.
In 1771, Cesare Beccaria was made a member of the supreme economic council, and in 1791 he was appointed to the board for the reform of the judicial code, where he made a valuable contribution.
25.
Cesare Beccaria's grandson was Alessandro Manzoni, the noted Italian novelist and poet who wrote, among other things, The Betrothed, one of the first Italian historical novels, and "Il cinque maggio", a poem on Napoleon's death.