BECCARIA, Cesare.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Dei delitti e delle pene. First edition, complete with the errata leaf, and very rare thus. The leaf "was bound in a scarce number of examples" (translated from Firpo, p. 389): only three copies such were known to Beccaria's bibliographer Firpo in 1984 (two in Italian institutions, one was his own), and only two can be traced at auction in over 60 years.Beccaria composed the work in Milan between March 1763 and January 1764, and the manuscript was sent to Livorno on 12 April to be printed by Coltellini. Published anonymously for fear of a negative reaction from the Austrian government in Milan, the book proved immediately popular, with more than 500 copies sold during the first month. Despite its inclusion in the papal index of forbidden books in 1766, the work maintained its popularity: it was reprinted in five subsequent editions within 18 months and eventually translated into 22 languages. It was read with enthusiasm by contemporary philosophers and political thinkers including Voltaire (who wrote a commentary on it), the encyclopaedists Diderot and D'Alembert, Hume, Hegel, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. "Beccaria maintained that the gravity of the crime should be measured by its injury to society and that the penalties should be related to this. The prevention of crime he held to be of greater importance than its punishment, and the certainty of punishment of greater effect than its severity. He denounced the use of torture and secret judicial proceedings. He opposed c

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