Antonio Genovesi (1 November 171322 September 1769) was an Italian writer on philosophy and political economy. Biography Son of Salvatore Genovese, a shoemaker, and Adriana Alfinito of San Mango, Antonio Genovesi was born in Castiglione, near Salerno in 1713. He began studying early on under the direction of his father and, at fourteen, under Niccolò Genovesi, a relative, and young doctor from Naples, who taught Antonio peripatetic philosophy for two years, and Cartesian philosophy for another year. When he was eighteen, during his theological studies, he fell in love with a girl from Castiglione, Angela Dragone. His father didn't approve of the couple, and sent his son to a convent of Augustinian monks in Buccino, home of some of his relatives. Here he continued his theological and philosophical studies under the priest Giovanni Abbamonte, focusing his interest on Latin and Greek. After passing his exam in dogmatic theology, he was ordained deacon on 22 December 1736 in the Cathedral of Salerno, with the attendance of archbishop of Salerno, Fabrizio di Capua. In 1738, Antonio Genovesi, at 25, was ordained a priest. After a few months, he moved to Naples, where he met and befriended Giambattista Vico. In 1741, he was granted a chair in metaphysicsin later conjunction with the chair of Ethicsat the Naples University. At this prestigious university, he also was granted the Economics chair, in 1755, the first one of this kind in Italy (the name was originally “Commerce and Mechanics”). At this time, he published the "Lessons in Commerce", in which he declared himself favorable to a more incisive free-trade policy. Among his students were Giuseppe Palmieri and Francesco Mario Pagano. He was a scholar in classical Literature, theology and metaphysical sciences. Later in his life, nonetheless, he started to disdain his old theoretical culture, substituting it gradually with a study focused on practical aims. A follower of Vico's thought, and even more of Locke's, at least regarding his philosophy, Genovesi managed to keep his minister's functions only due to the intervention of the archbishop of Taranto, Celestino Galiani, and of Pope Benedict XIV himself. He died in Naples on September 22, 1769. His body was buried in the church of the monastery of Sant'Eramo Nuovo, thanks to his friend Raimondo di Sangro, prince of San Severo. He was simply placed in the crypt, and therefore we have no specific tomb. Due to renovations in the early