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5 unusual facts about Pietro Verri


Palazzo Marino

In 1781, the palace was once again bought by the State (the notable Milanese scholar Pietro Verri had an important role in convincing the authorities to buy the palace) and became the seat of administrative and tax offices.

Panettone

The first recorded association of Panettone with Christmas can be found in the writings of 18th century illuminist Pietro Verri.

Pietro Verri

In his early life he translated Destouches' works (1754) and wrote satirical almanacs (Borlanda impasticciata, Gran Zoroastro and Mal di Milza) which scandalized the Milanese society.

In 1761, together with his brother Alessandro, he founded a literary association, the Società dei Pugni ("Society of the Fists"), and, from 1764, published the magazine Il Caffè ("The Coffeehouse"), where some 40 articles by him on various subjects appeared and which became an important reference on Enlightenment Milan.

This was followed by the Meditazioni sull'economia politica ("Meditations on Economic Politics", 1771), where he enunciated the laws regulating supply and demand (also in mathematical form), explained the role of money as "universal good", and supported laissez-faire in trade, arguing that balance of payments equilibrium is achieved by GDP adjustments rather than by exchange rate adjustments; as such, he was a precursor of both Adam Smith and marginalism.


Marginal utility

Eighteenth-century Italian mercantilists, such as Antonio Genovesi, Giammaria Ortes, Pietro Verri, Marchese Cesare di Beccaria, and Count Giovanni Rinaldo Carli, held that value was explained in terms of the general utility and of scarcity, though they did not typically work-out a theory of how these interacted.

Marginalism

Eighteenth-century Italian mercantilists, such as Antonio Genovesi, Giammaria Ortes, Pietro Verri, Cesare Beccaria, and Giovanni Rinaldo, held that value was explained in terms of the general utility and of scarcity, though they did not typically work-out a theory of how these interacted.


see also