The Reading Horizont of Adam Smith from the Perspective of His Italian Library

Abstract

The paper proposes understanding the reading interest in Italian of the thinker Adam Smith (1723-1790), author of the Theory of Moral Sentiments and of the Wealth of Nations from the perspective of the partial review of his library’s catalogue, with approximately 1,000 titles published in English, French, Italian, Greek and Latin. The list of books published in Italian, which Adam Smith purchased for his library and we assume he also read, since he quoted some, represent the Appendix of the present work. From his Italian library, 60 volumes were identified, published between 1547 (B. Castiglione, Il Cortegiano) and 1784 (32 volumes from Parnaso Italiano ovvero Raccolto de’ Poeti Classici Italiani). Just a few years before his death, the great admiror of Italian literature, assiduous reader of Italian poetry, drama, memoirs, correspondence, biographies, jurisprudence, economics, art and history (especially that of Venice and Florence) was still purchasing and reading books from the Italian states, a fact which sketches a personality with a profound cultural and humanities features.