Naples in the Eighteenth Century

This volume contains essays on the political and cultural importance of Naples in the eighteenth century.

This volume of essays offers a series of insights into the 'age of the Enlightenment', not only in Italy but throughout Europe. In its political reforms, Naples was influenced by European culture. However, Naples also exercised a strong influence upon European culture and helped shape modern, enlightened European culture.In 1734 the kingdom of Naples became an independent monarchy, but in 1799 a Jacobin revolution transformed it briefly into a republic. In these few but intense decades of independence all the great problems of the age of the Enlightenment became apparent: attacks on feudalism and on the power of the Catholic Church, the struggle for a modern economy, and aspirations to change the administrative machinery and the judicial system. Yet Naples was also the city visited by Winckelmann and Goethe, the city of Sir William Hamilton, of the study of Pompeii and Herculanum, and of the greatest musicians of the age. This collection of essays addresses a range of issues in the city's political and cultural history, and demonstrates the city's importance in shaping the modern, enlightened culture of Europe.