Educating in virtue. Educating to virtue. The Italian Illuminists and the fight against corruption between reforms and revolution

Abstract

In the context of the Enlightenment culture, the belief that education was, at the same time, the duty of the state and the right of every subject was established in Europe. After recalling the theoretical contribution of the Italian philosophes and reformers most attentive to the question of literacy and schooling, the article focuses on the intense political season of the “Triennio repubblicano” (1796-1799). In those crucial years, while persistently reiterating the need for effective public education programs, many republican intellectuals tended to focus their attention on the concept of ‘education’ lato sensu, identifying it as an essential tool for the formation of a solid democratic conscience among the associates. For Bocalosi, Botta, Fantoni, Galdi, Russo, Pagano and others, the primary purpose of education was the promotion of ‘virtue’ – a term among the most present in the vocabulary of Italian patriots -, intended primarily as ‘republican virtue’, that is civic sense, love of country and devotion to the general interest and, as such, an indispensable antidote to political and moral corruption. On the basis of this conviction, both Vincenzio Russo and Mario Pagano proposed the creation of an ad hoc institution in charge of controlling public morality: the Censorship, which will find its most exhaustive formulation in the draft Constitution of the Neapolitan Republic drawn up by Pagano in 1799.