Against the Death Penalty - by Giuseppie Pelli (Hardcover)
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<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br> "The Italian political and legal thinker Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794) is justly regarded as the founding father of the movement for criminal law reform that emerged in Europe in the mid-18th century. His treatise, On Crimes and Punishments (1764), is a seminal text that has had an enormous and lasting influence on politicians, jurists, philosophers and theologians. In particular, his attack on the death penalty has dominated the historical and philosophical debate. However, an earlier treatise that specifically argues for the abolition of the death penalty has recently come to light. This is Contro la pena di morte (1761), by Giuseppe Pelli (1729-1808). Pelli and Beccaria were not in contact and apparently had no knowledge of the other's work until Beccaria's treatise appeared. Pelli's treatise was never completed and remained unpublished for 250 years. It was discovered in the late 1980's among the papers of the descendants of his adopted daughter, and was published in Italian in 2014. In Against the Death Penalty, Peter Garnsey, a historian of the Roman Empire and Italy, provides the first English translation of this important yet forgotten text. Although Beccaria attacked the whole criminal justice system of his time, Pelli's work was singulr in its focus on attacking on just the death penalty. As such, it was the first attack of any substance that appeared in Europe, and although unfinished, it is a work of considerable sophistication and depth. It is a comprehensive critique, considerably longer and more thorough than that of Beccaria. Pelli was also a man of religious convictions and operated within the Catholic tradition: for his key arguments he drew on the writings of the natural jurists, in particular Grotius and Pufendorf. Garnsey provides a substantial introduction, the bulk of which is a comparative evaluation of the discussions of Pelli and Beccaria on the death penalty and alternative punishments. He also provides historical context for the intellectual and social environment in which the two men lived and from which their works emerged. Although much has been written about Beccarria, little is known or has been written about Pelli's life. Garnsey reconstructs what is important for understanding his text by drawing on the massive diary Pelli left,which has also only recently become available. It not only sheds light on Pelli's intellectual development but provides a fascinating, extraordinarily informative, and revealing day-by-day, profoundly personal account of a man of letters who became a bureaucrat in the service of the Habsburg Monarchy"<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><p><b>The first known abolitionist critique of the death penalty--here for the first time in English</b> <p/>In 1764, a Milanese aristocrat named Cesare Beccaria created a sensation when he published <i>On Crimes and Punishments</i>. At its centre is a rejection of the death penalty as excessive, unnecessary, and pointless. Beccaria is deservedly regarded as the founding father of modern criminal-law reform, yet he was not the first to argue for the abolition of the death penalty. <i>Against the Death Penalty</i> presents the first English translation of the Florentine aristocrat Giuseppe Pelli's critique of capital punishment, written three years before Beccaria's treatise, but lost for more than two centuries in the Pelli family archives. <p/>Peter Garnsey examines the contrasting arguments of the two abolitionists, who drew from different intellectual traditions. Pelli was a devout Catholic influenced by the writings of natural jurists such as Hugo Grotius, whereas Beccaria was inspired by the French Enlightenment philosophers. While Beccaria attacked the criminal justice system as a whole, Pelli focused on the death penalty, composing a critique of considerable depth and sophistication. Garnsey explores how Beccaria's alternative penalty of forced labour, and its conceptualisation as servitude, were embraced in Britain and America, and delves into Pelli's voluminous diaries, shedding light on Pelli's intellectual development and painting a vivid portrait of an Enlightenment man of letters and of conscience. <p/>With translations of letters exchanged by the two abolitionists and selections from Beccaria's writings, <i>Against the Death Penalty</i> provides new insights into eighteenth-century debates about capital punishment and offers vital historical perspectives on one of the most pressing questions of our own time.</p><p/><br></br><p><b> About the Author </b></p></br></br><b>Peter Garnsey</b> is emeritus professor of the history of classical antiquity at the University of Cambridge and emeritus fellow of Jesus College. His recent books include <i>Thinking about Property: From Antiquity to the Age of Revolution</i> and, with Richard Saller, <i>The Roman Empire: Economy, Society and Culture</i>.
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