Giuseppe Ricciardi

Count Giuseppe Napoleone Ricciardi of Camaldoli (Naples, 19 July 1808 – Naples, 1 June 1882) was an Italian man of letters, patriot, politician and publisher, exponents of romantic ideals and political radicalism during the period of unification of Italy.

Biography

The second son of jurist Francesco Ricciardi (Minister of Justice of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Naples of Joachim Murat), and Marchioness Luisa Granito (poet), Giuseppe Ricciardi grew up in a cosmopolitan family environment, with intense social and intellectually stimulating relations.

He studied extensively the works of Henri de Saint-Simon, Robert Owen, Charles Fourier, and, above all, François-Noël Babeuf.

In 1832, he began publishing the journal The Progress in Naples, modeled after Vieusseux's Florentine Anthology, which had been closed by Austrian censorship. With a liberal-radical orientation, the journal frequently addressed economic and political topics, and had numerous contributors, among others, Saverio Baldacchini, Paolo Emilio Imbriani, Luca de Samuele Cagnazzi, Luigi Blanch, Lodovico Bianchini, Matteo De Augustinis. Thus it quickly achieved great renown in Italy, and became a sort of "organ of Neapolitan Romanticism".

Defined as a «worldly and salon-loving rebel» by Carlo Dionisotti, Ricciardi was initiated into Mazzini's "Young Italy" in 1832, and participated in some of his attempted insurrections. For this reason, he was arrested in September 1834, and released after a period of detention, he was forced into exile on October 15, 1836.