GIANNONE, in Latin Jannonius, Peter, a celebrated Nea1x>litan writer and historian, was born at Ischitella, a small town in the province of Capitanata. Having acquired the elements of a liberal education under the paternal roof, he was sent by his father, at the age of eighteen, to Naples, there to complete his studies, and particularly to study jurisprudence. Being placed under the immediate tuition of DominicoAulisio, who not only excelled in the qualifications necessary for training young men to the bar, but was also profoundly conversant with Greek and Roman literature, history, philosophy, and indeed all the learning of his time, Giannone made so rapid progress in his studies, both in philosophy and jurisprudence, and evinced so great penetration of mind, that he was admitted into the society or club which met at the house of Gaetano Argento, one of the most distinguished advocates of Naples, who combined the cultivation of letters with the practice of his profession. This circumstance appears to have materially influenced, if not in fact determined, the character of his subsequent pursuits. He applied himself with great ardour to the study of jurisprudence on philosophical principles, and soon gave proofs of his capacity for investigating and illustrating the sources of that science by several learned dissertations De Originibus Juris. His inquiries, however, having disclosed to him much respecting the origin and mutations of laws, and the vicissitudes of nations, which had escaped the penetration of ordinary jurisconsults, he conceived the design, with the approbation of Argento, of writing a civil history of the kingdom of Naples, comprehending an account of the origin and progress of its laws and government, and an exposition of the causes which led to the gradual abolition of ancient customs and institutions. But this work, interrupted from time to time by the affairs of the bar, was not completed until after the lapse of twenty years, and only appeared in 1723, under the title of Istoria Civile del Regno di Napoli, in four volumes 4to. Giannone took as his guide Angelo de Costanzo, whose history of Naples, which was then accounted the best, he almost entirely transfused into his work; but his distinguishing merit consists in the valuable expositions he has given relative to the ecclesiastical and civil constitution, and to the laws and customs of the kingdom. Although the style is neither correct nor elegant, the philosophical spirit, the erudition, and the profound research, which this history exhibits, secured it a high reputation. But the author perhaps affects too much passion against the court of Rome, the proceedings of which, however censurable in themselves, should have been treated by a writer like Giannone, not with the impassioned bitterness of a controversialist, but with the dignified and judicial calmness of a philosophical historian. The consequences of this asperity were such as might have been expected. The freedom with which he treated ecclesiastics generally, and the boldness with which he discussed several topics relating to the origin of the papal power, raised a storm against him, which neither the authority of the viceroy, Cardinal Althann, nor the credit of the municipality of Naples, of which he had been elected advocate, could allay, or even mitigate. “I know not, indeed,” said Argento, when speaking to him on this subject, “whether I should congratulate you or condole with you; for I very much fear lest the crown of laurel which now encircles your brows should become a crown of thorns.” Having been several times insulted by the populace, and at length excommunicated by the archiepiscopal court, Giannone, seeing his work placed in the index expurgatorius, left Naples on the 29th of April 1723, and went to seek an asylum at Vienna. The Emperor Charles VI. regarded him at first with an unfavourable eye; but the protection of such men as Prince Eugene, the Chancellor Zinzendorf, the celebrated Count de Bonneval, and the Chevalier Garelli, first physician to the emperor, procured him a pension of a hundred florins on the [7:10:499]secretaryship of Sicily. Although relieved from his excommunication by Cardinal Pignatelli, archbishop of Naples, he did not restrain himself from composing several little satires against his sentence, and particularly against the prohibition of his book; but by the advice of his friends he only circulated these in manuscript. It is in his smaller works that his resentment against the court of Rome knew no bounds. During his stay at Vienna, where he enjoyed the favour of the great and of men of letters, he laboured at a work entitled II Triregno, ossia del regno del Cielo, della Terra, e del Papa, which occupied him nearly twelve years, and to which he only put the last touches at Geneva. This work, in which man is successively represented in the state of nature, under the law of grace, and under the temporal dominion of the popes, comprehends ten epochs, the first three of which extend to the ninth century; but the remainder has not been completed. Don Carlos having ascended the throne of Naples and of Sicily in 1734, Giannone lost his pension and all his hopes. Being constrained to quit Vienna, he retired to Venice, where he was received with every mark of distinction, by persons of quality and men of letters, particularly by the senator Angiolo Pisani, who gave him a lodging in one of his houses. He refused the appointment of counsellor of the republic, and the chair of Roman law in the university of Padua, ingenuously confessing that he was not in a condition to explain the laws in the Latin language, according to the usage of the schools. But the repose which he hoped to enjoy at Venice was not of long duration. Denounced as unfavourable to the pretensions of the republic over the Adriatic, he endeavoured to avert the storm by publishing a Lettera intomo al dominio del mare Adri-aticoed ai trattati seguiti in Venezia tra Papa Alessandro III. e ĪImperador Federigo Barbarossa ,∙ but as the state inquisitors had taken umbrage at the prolonged visits paid by him to the ambassadors of France and Spain, his removal was decided on, and, in the night of the 23d September 1735, sbirri seized and conducted him in a small boat or barque to the frontiers of the territory of Ferrara. The apprehension of still greater misfortunes now induced him to change his name to that of Antonio Rinaldo, under which he sojourned at Modena, Milan, and Turin, and arrived with his son at Geneva, on the 5th of December. His reputation, which had preceded him in different cities, procured him in the last-mentioned place the most satisfactory reception on the part of Dr Turretin, the minister Vernet, and the bookseller Bousquet, who furnished him with the means of living at his ease. In 1736 he was preparing to print a volume of supplement to his history, when, having been conducted by a perfidious friend to pass Easter in a catholic village belonging to the king of Sardinia, he was arrested by order of that sovereign, and his manuscripts seized and conveyed to Rome. He was himself conducted to the castle of Miolan, and thence to the fort of Ceva, where, in hiscalmer moments, he employed himself in translating various works into Italian, in writing on politics, and in preparing memoirs of his life. The discussion which arose between the courts of Rome and Turin on the nomination to consistorial benefices in the states of the king of Sardinia, and which was terminated by the concordat of 1738, furnished Giannone with an occasion of writing, in favour of the rights of the sovereign, a memoir, which he sent to the king. His Sardinian majesty appeared to receive it with pleasure; but, strange to add, he caused the author to be more closely confined than before, and ordered him to be transferred to the citadel of Turin, where he passed twelve consecutive years in trouble and agitation. It was in this fortress that, giving ear to the persuasions of Father Prever of the Oratory, Giannone retracted, on the 4th April 1738, the maxims which had been condemned in his history. But this submission did not procure him his liberty; for he died in prison on the 7th of March 1758, aged seventy-two years. In 1760 his posthumous works were published at Lausanne, in one volume 4to, under the title of Oj>ere Postume in difesa della sua Storia civile del regno di Napoli, con la di lui professione di fede. The history of Giannone was translated into French by Louis Bochat of Lausanne; and among the re-impressions of the work maybe distinguished that which appeared with illustrations by the Abbe Cestari. It has been highly commended by Gibbon in his Extraits de mon Journal (Miscellaneous Works, vol. V. p. 413, 8vo ed.) “The candour, penetration, and freedom of this excellent lawyer,” says he, “will ever ensure to this work the esteem of all wise men. But,” he adds, “churchmen are not always of the number.” In the number of the refutations which have appeared, it is only necessary to mention the Rifiessioni nurrali e teologiche sopra l’Istoria civile del regno di Napoli, by Eusebio Filopa-tro (Father San-Felice, a jesuit), in two volumes 4to, an extract of which may be seen in the Mémoires de Trévoux for January 1730. (Fabroni, Vitee Italorum, vol. xiii. v. Petrus Jannonius.) (a.)