Sicily and the Enlightenment: The World of Domenico Caracciolo, Thinker and Reformer

by Angus Campbell

Dominico Caracciolo was an important figure on the 18th-century European stage, holding high office as a diplomat in London, Turin and Paris, and as viceroy and prime minister in the Two Sicilies. He was an inveterate letter-writer and his huge correspondence, with his diplomatic despatches and other official writing, is a unique original source, providing a detailed and vivid picture of the 18th-century European elite with all its extravagance and scandalous behaviour but, even more importantly, it is an account of an Enlightenment struggle against the increasingly outdated clerical and feudal rule in Sicily. Caracciolo was an abrasive and combative official and politician and vigorous scion of the Enlightenment. In this book, Angus Campbell provides a detailed portrait of Caracciolo and of the political, social, economic, legal and cultural context in which he lived and worked. In doing so, he provides a unique vantage point on the European diplomatic culture of the 18th century.

242 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 30, 2016

Reviews

[Lucas · Rating 2 out of 5]

A thorough and interesting biography of Caracciolo. The author represents him as a philosophe who sought to implement Enlightenment-derived laws based largely on moral grounds rather than economic, legal, or political ones. As such, he is an interesting character study of a sort of hemmed in philosopher king, whose power to make changes “in the rational interest” are constrained by prevailing political will, lack of support from his superiors in Naples, and double-dealing.