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Chapter Three: 1701-1706: Naples

  • Thérèse Ridley (translator)
  • Thérèse Ridley (contributions by)
Chapter of: Pietro Giannone. Autobiography. The Tragedy of a Historian and the Inquisition: Translated with commentary by Thérèse Ridley
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TitleChapter Three: 1701-1706
SubtitleNaples
ContributorThérèse Ridley (translator)
Thérèse Ridley (contributions by)
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0483.03
Landing pagehttps://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0483/chapters/10.11647/obp.0483.03
Licensehttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
CopyrightThérèse Ridley
PublisherOpen Book Publishers
Published on2026-04-09
Long abstract

Chapter Three (1701-1706). G. had graduated and his family could no longer support him. Again, he fell into the hands of an incompetent master, until a friend recommended him to Gaetano Argento. He not only had a splendid library, but many first-rate students, who spent much time together; they in fact established a short-lived academy and gave lectures to each other. G. studied Argento in court, and wrote up cases in his manner. Provincials began to employ G. to undertake their cases, and Argento delegated a very complicated succession case to G., which gained him much attention. G. joined the Academy of the duke of Medina Coeli, where he met all the city’s leading intellectuals, especially Nicola Capasso and Nicola Cirillo, and discovered the works of Descartes and Malebranche, who taught him patience and endurance. He attended Cirillo’s medical lectures and lessons in Anatomy. G. generously brought his younger brother Carlo to Naples to study Law. He came to the life-changing conviction that the history of law could not be understood without civil history. He began an enormous programme of reading post-classical historians. He also realized the need to study, alongside the secular history of Naples, the parallel secular power of the Church. G. began this study in 1702: it was to become the Civil History. He was mixing in the highest circles, known even to the regents.

Print length34 pages
LanguageEnglish (Original)
THEMA
  • DNBH1
  • DSBD
  • NHD
  • QDTS
  • QRAM2
BISAC
  • BIO006000
  • HIS020000
  • PHI016000
  • LIT004200
  • REL084000
  • POL004000
Keywords
  • Pietro Giannone
  • autobiography
  • Italian historian
  • Religious persecution
  • Inquisition
  • Church and state
Locations
Landing PageFull text URLPlatform
PDFhttps://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0483/chapters/10.11647/obp.0483.03Landing pagehttps://books.openbookpublishers.com/10.11647/obp.0483.03.pdfFull text URL
HTMLhttps://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0483/chapters/10.11647/obp.0483.03Landing pagehttp://books.openbookpublishers.com/10.11647/obp.0483/ch-3.xhtmlFull text URLPublisher Website
Contributors

Thérèse Ridley

(translator)

Therese Ridley completed her Honours degree at both the University of Melbourne and Monash University (Melbourne). She studied History (with the doyen of the Melbourne School), German, Chinese and Japanese, having studied French at high school. She acquired Italian by spending many years in Italy, accompanying her husband (a specialist in Roman History and the History of Rome) on his study leave every fourth year, and for the past twenty years spending every November in Rome, an annual research trip. She spends all her time in the Vatican Library. She is also the translator from German of Friedrich Münzer, Rӧmische Adelsparteien Adelsfamilien, a classic study, originally 1920, listed in every bibliography on Roman politics, but never subsequently referred to. This was instantly published by the oldest American University Press, Johns Hopkins, in 1999. Reviews stated that “Therese Ridley’s remarkable translation of the book and her re-editing of Münzer’s bibliography at last give the English-speaking world access to Münzer’s intellectual legacy” : Ronald Weber, History, reviews of new books 28 (2000). This translation has, in fact, now superseded the original German in references. For the past twenty years Therese Ridley has devoted herself to the life and works of Pietro Giannone, reading and translating his enormous bibliography. She has traced him the length and breadth of Italy. She is well known, of course, to the doyen of Giannone studies, Professor Giuseppe Ricuperati of Torino.

Thérèse Ridley

(contributions by)

Therese Ridley completed her Honours degree at both the University of Melbourne and Monash University (Melbourne). She studied History (with the doyen of the Melbourne School), German, Chinese and Japanese, having studied French at high school. She acquired Italian by spending many years in Italy, accompanying her husband (a specialist in Roman History and the History of Rome) on his study leave every fourth year, and for the past twenty years spending every November in Rome, an annual research trip. She spends all her time in the Vatican Library. She is also the translator from German of Friedrich Münzer, Rӧmische Adelsparteien Adelsfamilien, a classic study, originally 1920, listed in every bibliography on Roman politics, but never subsequently referred to. This was instantly published by the oldest American University Press, Johns Hopkins, in 1999. Reviews stated that “Therese Ridley’s remarkable translation of the book and her re-editing of Münzer’s bibliography at last give the English-speaking world access to Münzer’s intellectual legacy” : Ronald Weber, History, reviews of new books 28 (2000). This translation has, in fact, now superseded the original German in references. For the past twenty years Therese Ridley has devoted herself to the life and works of Pietro Giannone, reading and translating his enormous bibliography. She has traced him the length and breadth of Italy. She is well known, of course, to the doyen of Giannone studies, Professor Giuseppe Ricuperati of Torino.

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