The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) runs a double degree with Bocconi University in Milan, Italy, a fellow member of CIVICA, the pan-European social science university alliance. At an event to mark the fifth anniversary of this double degree, Dr Angelo Martelli of LSE’s European Institute gave a speech to staff, students and guests that took in a brief history of changing economic, political and philosophical thought and collaboration at European universities.
The double degree between our two universities, beyond the intrinsic academic value, is of particular significance in this historical moment, marked by wars and conflicts and bound to become even more complex in a global election year.
When thinking about partnerships and projects in a geopolitical and economic framework, which characterised Europe over the last 70 years and is now threatened by destabilisation and crisis, it is perhaps useful to recall some of the ideas and protagonists of the 18th century Enlightenment. They imagined and elaborated strategies for change grounded in economic, political and philosophical thought.
In the second half of the 18th century, some events of considerable importance took place along the Milan-Naples route – at the time together with Venice, the most important centres of the Italian Enlightenment. On 5 November 1754 the first chair of political economy in Europe was inaugurated at the University of Naples, entrusted to Antonio Genovesi; on 9 January 1769 in Milan at the Scuole Palatine the chair of political economy was created, commissioned by Gian Rinaldo Carli and entrusted to Cesare Beccaria. Both Genovesi and Beccaria delivered their speeches in Italian, when university courses were generally held in Latin.
The projects of the two chairs are connected to the developments of the European Enlightenment culture, marked by an unprecedented circulation of ideas and books between Milan, Naples, Venice, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Vienna, Gottingen and others.
Genovesi in Naples, Beccaria and Pietro Verri in Milan engaged with the works of other European authors, in particular British and French, such as Melon, Dutot, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Locke, Hume, Cary, Bielfeld and Butel-Dumond. From de Forbonnais’s articles written for the Encyclopedie, to Spanish texts by Ustariz and Ulloa.
In his inaugural lecture, Genovesi delivered some of the fundamental concepts earlier published in the Discorso sopra il vero fine delle lettere e delle scienze, which can be considered a sort of manifesto of the Italian Enlightenment in the context of a new European culture.
The true purpose of knowledge, claimed Genovesi, is to “benefit the needs of human life”, a new paradigm compared to traditional culture and teaching. With that speech and with the courses held in the following years, Genovesi achieved a highly modern and significant shift in economic and political thought. He offered students the translations and analyses of important texts such as those by John Cary Discourse on trade and Thomas Mun England’s treasure by Forraign trade.
A scientific and educational project without national borders, a discussion and contamination between the most advanced developments of economic thought and European culture of the 18th century.
A teaching project and practice which, by overcoming the distinction between strictly intellectual and practical-economic activity, managed to bridge the gap between humanistic and scientific culture; a knowledge aimed at transforming societal conditions.
Genovesi also designed a new role for schools and universities to develop skills, “ingegni” – as he calls them. He recognised that individual action can do little without an adequate arrangement of civic life, as also our CIVICA Alliance demonstrates; an economy that presupposes the inseparable link between institutions and economic life, which together with a reform of the “public spirit” can deliver the primary goal: public happiness, in its Enlightenment meaning.
In Milan, first Pietro Verri from the pages of “Il Caffè” and then Beccaria engaged with Genovesi, agreeing and disagreeing, analysing reform proposals which took into account the different economic, social and political realities of Milan and Lombardy and the Kingdom of Naples. But all of them shared an inescapable relationship with the developments of European economic science. In his lectures at the Scuole Palatine and his work Elementi di Economia politica, Beccaria elaborated on those egalitarian, radical, philanthropic social ideas that were at the core of his masterpiece, Dei delitti e delle pene, the most widespread and discussed Italian work of the Eighteenth century throughout Europe.
Twenty years later, Adam Smith defined economic development as the result of individual action, driven by legitimate self-interest. Different positions, almost antithetical, but decisive, which defined economic thought for over two centuries and still define it today, in the search for an inevitable synthesis.
The partnership between our two institutions, of which we are celebrating the anniversary today, serves as an idea and as an extraordinary opportunity for our students to pursue knowledge without national barriers – and I underline this from my personal journey, being a proud alumnus of both Bocconi and LSE, with dual Italian and British nationality, from Southern Italy and strongly European. Paths like those we imagined with our partnership, beyond the achievement of a top qualification, foster intellectual and human encounters and comparisons, cultural and disciplinary contaminations, which in our modern times are deeply needed.
A twin event, Supporting Ukraine’s European destiny: a multilateral’s perspective, was held at LSE in March 2024.
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Double degrees at the LSE European Institute and LSE-Bocconi Double Degree
The CIVICA university alliance and CIVICA European Week 2024
