NERI, Pompeo.

£9,500 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Osservazioni sopra il prezzo legale delle monete, First edition of Neri's major contribution to Italian monetary theory. Written in the wake of the War of the Austrian Succession and amid rising anxieties over inflation and fiscal disorder, Neri adapts the monetary philosophies of Aristotle and John Locke to address the challenges of a shifting European economy, and proposes a form of European monetary union.Neri (1706-1774) was appointed president of the census bureau in Lombardy in 1748, where he became a key figure in fiscal and administrative reform. Economic instability in mid-18th-century Italy produced numerous works on monetary theory and policy, which tied in with questions about Italy's transition from feudal systems to a commercial society. In the aftermath of the War of the Austrian Succession, some proposed devaluing currency to stimulate growth. Neri opposed individual states devaluing their currencies, whether due to domestic problems or to gain international advantage.At the core of Neri's work is a theory of monetary value grounded in natural law rather than state decree. Neri argued that money derives its worth from collective agreement. Gold, silver, and bronze function as "representations of goods," not because of sovereign fiat, but because of shared trust in their value. As a solution to the destabilising effects of national monetary policies, Neri proposed a pan-European concord on currency standards: a monetary union grounded in mutual restraint and sh

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