DEATH PENALTY
WHEN LIFE GENERATES DEATH (LEGALLY)

CESARE BECCARIA

Cesare Beccaria (Milan 1738-1794), philosopher and Italian student of criminal and economic sciences, studied at the Jesuits' school in Parma and he took a degree in jurisprudence at the Pavia university; when he was 22 years old, spurred by the works of the French illuminists of the XVIII century and particulary reading Lettres Persanes of Charles-Louis Montesquieu, he got in touch with the "Accademia dei Pugni" and with Pietro Verri and he dedicated himself to the philosophic and social reflection publishing many literary works. But Beccaria is remembered mostly for Dei Delitti E Delle Pene, published in anonymous way in Livorno in 1764 and then translated in all European languages. Inspired reading the Verri's essay Del Disordine E De' Rimedi Delle Monete Nello Stato Di Milano Nel 1762 (1762), Beccaria, invoking the necessity of proportioning one's pain to one's crime, he denounced the hardness of the penal law, mostly of death penalty and torture. Among the first considering the education as a way of criminality containment, Beccaria was teacher of public law and economy in the Palatine schools in Milan from 1768 to 1770; after 1771 he held many public offices.