Constructing an intellectual identity: autobiography and biography in eigtheenth-century Naples

This article examines the autobiographies, biographies and eulogies written by Neapolitan intellectuals in the eighteenth century to reveal the constr uction of a new identity for reformers as an intellectual class in Naples, separate from its traditional association with the Crown. This new intellec tual genealogy was constructed by rejecting the erudite and antiquarian int erests of the native juridical tradition from the late seventeenth century and, instead, emphasizing the more practical and patriotic concerns of writ ers influenced by the teaching of Antonio Genovesi from the 1750's in parti cular Giuseppe Maria Galanti. Through examination of these texts, this shif t can be placed within a broader narrative of intellectual change to reveal , from the last decades of the eighteenth century, central themes concernin g the political role of the intellectual in southern Italy, with echoes int o the twentieth century.