Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Melchiorre Delfico

DELFICO, Melchiorre (1744–1835), an eminent Italian writer on political economy, was born, at Teramo in the Abruzzi on the 1st August 1744, and was educated at Naples. He devoted himself specially to the study of jurisprudence and political economy, and thus qualified himself for the valuable service he was to render to his native country by his writings on legal and economic subjects. His first publication, Saggio filosofico nel matrimonio (1774), was an eloquent vindication of marriage against the loose views that were prevalent. To his Memorie sul Tribunate della Grascia e sulle Legge Economiche nelle Provincie conftnante del Begno, addressed to the king, the Neapolitans owed the abolition of the most vexatious and absurd restrictions on the sale and exporta tion of agricultural produce. Other Memorie on kindred subjects followed, and did much to promote reform in the direction of free trade. Equally beneficial was the adop tion of the principles developed in his Riflessioni sulla Vendita dei Feudi Devohiti, in 1790, and his Lettera al Duca di Cantalupo su i Feudi Devohtti, in 1795, which were so powerfully reasoned that a law was promulgated for the sale of all feudalities reverting to the crown as free estates. During the short reign of Joseph Bonaparte at Naples, Delfico was made a councillor of state, and employed in the formation of the new judicial organization of Naples. He was employed in a similar manner under Murat; and, when Ferdinand was restored in 1815, Delfico was made president of the commission of the archives, an office which he filled until 1823, when he tendered his resignation on account of his advanced age. His sovereign acknowledged his eminently patriotic services by the grant of a large pension for life. Soon after, he retired to his native town, where he died on the 21st June 1835, at the advanced age of ninety-one. Besides the works we have noticed, on which his Neapolitan fame may be said chiefly to rest, we owe to him several general works of no mean reputation, especially Eicerche sul vero Carattere della Giurisprudenza Komana, e di sue Cultore, 1790, and Pensieri sulla Storia, e sull Incertetsa ed Inutilitfr della Medesima, 1806, which have both been several times reprinted. In the latter he has anticipated the scepticism of Niebuhr on the early history of Rome, which he treats as fabulous ; and he denies to the Romans before the second Punic war all arts but that of agriculture, and of making war on their neighbours.

See Gregoire de Filippis Delfico s Delia Vita e dclle Opere di Mdchiorre Delfico (Teramo, 1836), and Tipaldo s Biografia, degli Italiani illustri (vol. ii.)