La formazione filosofica di Antonio Genovesi by Paola ZambelliReview by: Gustavo CostaIsis, Vol. 66, No. 1 (Mar., 1975), pp. 138-139Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/229565 .

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138 BOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 66 * 1 * 231 (1975)

Thus Topsell accepts the mythology of the origin of the Barnacle Goose, "so may Barnicles engendred out of wood begotten by the humour of the Sea, by a naturall instinct fall to breede by copulation who were begotten by putrefaction and opera- tion of the Sea, euen as the first created fowles which God made out of the waters." On the other hand there are many natural history observations mixed in with the my- thology of birds, for this period represents the uncertain mixture of fancy and fact, the Renaissance time of quoting divine authority mixed with actual observations, which in another few years would triumph over the parrotings of others. Thus his observations on the Cornish chough are accurate and obviously developed from personal observation, including the quota- tion about the voice of the chough; "A pipe & a Chough, Pallas & a sowe, an asse & a harpe are neuer good musicke."

The illustrations-colored drawings in- terleaved through the text-are well reproduced and give the book added charm. They are reminiscent of the il- lustrations in the books of falcony of the time and the preceding century. This is a valuable addition to any library of orni- thology.

S. DILLON RIPLEY

Smithsonian Institution Washington, D.C. 20560

Paola Zambelli. La formazione filosofica di Antonio Genovesi. xii + 954 pp., index. (Collana di Filosofia diretta da Pietro Pio- vani, Volume XVI.) Naples: Morano Edi- tore, 1972. L. 15,000.

Antonio Genovesi is beyond any doubt one of the strongest representatives of the Italian Enlightenment. A man endowed with an excellent knowledge of the most pressing problems of his time, he made important contributions to various fields such as philosophy, theology, and econom- ics. Last but not least, he is credited for having fostered the cult of his great master, Giambattista Vico, one of the most original thinkers of Western Civilization. These facts must be kept in mind in order to understand the revival of studies on Gen- ovesi which took place in the last decade

mainly under the influence of the distin- guished historian Franco Venturi.

Now Paola Zambelli, a pupil of the great scholar Eugenio Garin, brings us far beyond all previous inquiries with the illu- minating pages of this weighty volume, which is destined to remain a basic work on the subject for many years. In fact, Professor Zambelli has not only exploited in greater depth the material available to previous students; she has also uncovered in various libraries and archives a quantity of precious autographs which shed new light on the development of Genovesi's personality and philosophy. Prominent among these unpublished manuscripts, which constitute the backbone of the book, is what appears to be the first autograph draft of the thinker's autobiography. The manuscript belonged to a private collector, Baron Gennaro Serena di Lapigio, at whose death it was donated to the Museum of Altamura. This text, referred to by Pro- fessor Zambelli as Autobiography I in order to distinguish it from the more recent Memorie autobiografiche, or Autobiography II, is printed in the first appendix to the volume (pp. 797-860) and is accompanied by an exhaustive commentary.

Like many of his contemporaries, in- cluding his master Vico, Genovesi was a self-educated man, a fact clearly demon- strated in the first part of the book, entitled "Gli studi di un autodidatta" (pp. 25-417). Born in 1713 in a mountain village of Southern Italy, Castiglione dei Genovesi, he at first lacked opportunities for cultivat- ing his mind. But his thirst for learning and his keen intelligence enabled him to make rapid progress in every branch of learning. When he was thirteen years old, he had already completed his humanistic studies and gone beyond the limited possi- bilities of the local teachers. It was at this time that one of his relatives, Niccolo Gen- ovesi (a successful physician), stepped in to enrich the youth's culture by giving him lectures on scholasticism, canon law, and Cartesianism. Thanks to this valuable teacher, Genovesi became acquainted with all the subtle problems involved in Aris- totelian logic, and, around the year 1730, he was already initiated into the Cartesian method in which he found a compensation for the empty disputes of scholasticism. The

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BOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 66 * 1 - 231 (1975) 139

documents we have do not specify the titles of Descartes' works that were studied by the young thinker, but it seems that his teacher insisted particularly on the Principia philosophiae, on Le monde, and on De 1'homme.

The whole section dedicated to the early stage of Genovesi's intellectual career will be of great interest to the historian of science. Niccolo Genovesi's culture is re- constructed on the basis of the works of his acknowledged master, the celebrated physician Nicola Cirillo: not so much the Consulti medici and the Considerazioni deal- ing with the cultivation of rice, but rather the commentary to the works of the botanist and alchemist Michael Ettmuller. Other problems concerning the history of science are touched on by Professor Zambelli when she illustrates the further development of Genovesi's mind. Actually the Italian phi- losophe was keenly interested in matters concerning scientific progress, quoted Malpighi, Borelli, Bellini, Boyle, Boer- haave, and Leeuwenhoek, and took a stand in favor of Cesalpino and Sarpi in the dispute on the discovery of the circulation of blood. Moreover, we get fascinating insights into the spread of the theories of Newton and Locke in early-eighteenth- century Italy.

From the beginning of his career Gen- ovesi appears to have been a programmatic eclectic, always ready to seize the most significant ideas of his time in order to harmonize them in a system of thought which exerted a strong influence on several generations of Italians. This conclusion, reached by Professor Zambelli in the first section, is totally confirmed in the rest of the book, particularly in the second part, "La teologia e la liberta di pensare" (pp. 421-706). Here the author effectively demolishes the traditional view of Genove- si's biographers who tend to overestimate the crisis of the years 1748-1754 and con- sider it the dividing point of the thinker's development. Professor Zambelli, on the other hand, is able to establish the continu- ity of Genovesi's intellectual activity during the entire arch of his life, from the early to the most mature stage, in which he dedicated himself to those economic and social matters that are the subject of the

third and last section of the book (pp. 709-794).

The value of the volume is enhanced by its copious indexes, among which the one dedicated to the manuscripts will be particularly appreciated by scholars.

GUSTAVO COSTA Department of Italian

University of California Berkeley, California 94720

* NINETEENTH & TWENTIETH CENTURIES

Cyril Bibby. Scientist Extraordinary. The Life and Scientific Work of Thomas Henry Huxley, 1825-1895. xi + 208 pp., 21 plts., bibl., glossary of names, index. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1972. $8.50.

In the Preface to this work, Cyril Bibby alludes to Huxley as he now sees him: "his thinking on evolution supplemented Dar- win's... . . his wide-ranging work in com- parative anatomy forms a vital part of the central corpus of those branches of science. . . . some of his views on anthropology and ethnology were so long neglected be- cause the sciences had not caught up with him.. . . we can be startled by the aston- ishing modernity of some of his off-the-cuff comments about the deepest nature of the physical world." Bibby lauds this "magnifi- cent man" who is an "immensely reward- ing" subject for a biography. These words suggest that we should prepare ourselves for a then-and-now glorification of this important Victorian figure, and this in fact is the case.

To date Bibby has produced countless works on Huxley, including three other books: one on him as a scientist, humanist, and educator (1959); a general readings book (1967); and another readings book on Huxley's educational writings (1971/1972). In the book under review Bibby acknowledges assistance from many institutions and libraries, thus suggesting that he has produced a carefully researched work on Huxley, although he never expli- citly sets forth the goal of this work, except perhaps in the title. Apparently his 1959

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