Abstract

This paper focuses on Giuseppe Ferrari and Risorgimento socialism. The topic is treated with reference to Verri’s and Beccaria’s Lombard Enlightenment and to the radical views of Saint- Simon and Proudhon, in the context of the indictment of the Italian national unification seen as monarchical conquest or “piemontesismo”. From a theoretical perspective, Ferrari stresses the link between Vico and Romagnosi, in the source of a “civil philosophy” and of a conception of progress based on the notions of perfectibility and civilization. It is the study of mind in society and history, or Cattaneo’s “social ideology”.