Rare books, manuscripts and ephemera from five centuries

French failings 

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[FUSINIERI, Ambrogio]. DEL CARATTERE MORALE, POLITICO E LETTERARIO DEI FRANCESI di A.F. Milano: Presso Pirotta e Maspero, MDCCIC [1799]. £295

 

FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. 59, [1] blank; small dampstain to head throughout, not affecting text, and otherwise clean and fresh; in recent marbled boards.

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First edition, rare, of this assessment of the character of the French, attributed to the lawyer and scientist Ambrogio Fusinieri (1775-1853).

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Inevitably coloured by the experience of the French occupation of Italy, the portrait Fusinieri paints of his neighbours is not a flattering one, although he acknowledges that ‘the French nation has always had a facility for visions that are both distinct from and superior to all others’ (p.8). This is the result of their nerves being ‘extremely mobile and excitable’ (p.8), which, for its advantages, also has serious negative consequences: the easy promulgation of error and an acceptance of fantasy, both masquerading as philosophy. Fusinieri argues that these tendencies, aggravated by pride, have led to a decline in serious French thought, in the sciences as well as philosophy; where once there was Descartes and Malebranche, the important thinkers have since been German (Leibniz, Wolff) or English (Newton, Locke). (He considers Descartes and Malebranche overrated in any case.) The fact that the French tend to be ‘subject to passions’ does at least mean that they excel at literature (p.16). Yet these passions are so excessive that they harm the fabric of society, for fervour can soon turn into ‘passioni viziose’ (p.18). For Fusinieri, the French Revolution is a case in point, with the moral and political reform which it promised turning out to be another fantasy. Fusinieri explains the phenomenon of the Napoleonic empire as essentially a continuation of the lie that is French greatness, describing its expansion, supposedly for the greater benefit of mankind, as a mere power grab, in Egypt as in the Cisalpine Republic. Much of the remainder of the book is dedicated to debunking the foundations of contemporary French political thought (ie. Rousseauvianism), although Fusinieri criticises above all its imposition upon other nations.

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Fusinieri (if indeed he is the author of this work) is perhaps best known for his publications on physics and chemistry. Born in Vicenza, he practiced as a lawyer in Venice before moving to Milan to teach jurisprudence at the scuole di Brera in the same year as the publication of this work. In 1814, he turned from law to a career in science, setting up a laboratory and an observatory in his country home. His research was published in various journals and subsequently in a set of collected works: Memorie sperimentali di meccanica molecolare e di una forza repulsiva nuovamente scoperta nella materia attenuata (Padua, 1844), Memorie sopra la luce, il calore, l’elettricità, il magnetismo, l’elettromagnetismo ed altri oggetti (Padua, 1845) and Memorie di meteorologia, che raccolgono fatti da prima non osservati e le loro conseguenze teoriche (Padua, 1847). 

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Not in Melzi; SBN: IT\ICCU\UTOE\679118 citing three copies in Italy; OCLC records one copy outside Continental Europe, at Connecticut. 

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[ref: 2075 ]