D'Avenstein - Divers Sujets Intéressans de Politique - 1760

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AMORE, GELOSIA, LUSSO E POTERE – LE IDEE DELL’ILLUMINISMO MESSE SOTTO PROCESSO
Rare original edition of 1760 of Essais sur divers sujets intéressans de politique et de morale, an important anonymous collection by the philosopher and economist Georg Ludwig Schmid d’Avenstein (1720–1805), a figure of European Enlightenment. The volume tackles five major themes that run through the entire Enlightenment culture: philosophy and philosophers; love and jealousy; projects and reforms; agriculture; luxury and commerce. The index of the exemplar clearly shows the five essays: Sur les Philosophes & la Philosophie; Sur l'Amour & la Jalousie; Sur les Projets; Sur l'Agriculture; Sur le Luxe & le Commerce. Schmid discusses the role of the philosopher in society, the progress of knowledge, human passions, the usefulness of reforms, agriculture as the foundation of prosperity and one of the great economic problems of the eighteenth century: does luxury foster civilization and trade or morally and politically corrupt a nation? The work enjoyed significant European circulation and was subsequently translated into German and English. Of particular interest is the cultural provenance of the work: Luigi Einaudi personally owned a copy of this same edition, which he described in a letter to Benedetto Croce as “s.l. (but Aarau), 1760, XI-362 pp.”

MARKET VALUE
Indicative commercial value: €200–300. The assessment is supported by the relative rarity of the original edition and especially by the work’s interest for the history of Enlightenment, political economy and moral philosophy.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION AND CONDITION
Ancient half-leather binding with boards covered in paper, leather corners, spine with raised bands, gilt-tooled title label. Red edges. Binding worn: abrasions and losses to the leather, especially at the headbands and along the spine; upper headband with significant material loss, corners worn, boards with stains and signs of use. Paper with some physiological foxing, stains and occasional halos; small defects and signs of wear. Some small holes or marginal losses visible on some quires, not substantially affecting the text. In old books with a long history, a few imperfections may be present, not always noted in the description. Pp. (2); 12; 362; 2nn; (2).

FULL TITLE AND AUTHOR
Essais sur divers sujets intéressans de politique et de morale.
[Aarau], 1760.
Georg Ludwig Schmid d'Avenstein.

CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
The Essais belong fully to the culture of the European Enlightenment, when moral philosophy and political economy were gradually transforming into autonomous disciplines. The essay on luxury and commerce tackles one of the central controversies of the eighteenth century. Thinkers such as Mandeville, Montesquieu, Hume and Rousseau had debated the relationship between wealth, consumption, commerce, virtue and political corruption. Schmid places his reflection precisely in this debate, comparing economic prosperity with public morality. Equally significant is the essay on agriculture, published during the rise of physiocracy, the French school of economics that identified agricultural production as the foundation of national wealth. Schmid’s interest in these issues would culminate in his later Principes de la législation universelle of 1776, a work tied to the diffusion of physiocratic ideas. The work immediately attracted international attention: in 1763 it was reviewed in the British Critical Review.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Georg Ludwig Schmid d'Avenstein (1720–1805) was a Swiss physician, philosopher and economist, representative of Swiss Enlightenment. He completed medical studies in Leiden in 1747 and from 1748 to 1756 served as counselor at the court of Saxony-Weimar, before returning to Switzerland. He was a member of the Société Helvétique and participated intensively in European philosophical and economic debates. Between 1767 and 1768 he also stayed in Paris, entering the intellectual circle frequented by Diderot, d’Holbach, Helvétius and Mably. His most important work after the Essais was Principes de la législation universelle, Amsterdam, Marc-Michel Rey, 1776, in which he further developed his economic and legislative concepts.

PRINTING HISTORY AND CIRCULATION
The publishing history of the work is particularly interesting. In 1760 two versions of the collection appeared. The present edition: Essais sur divers sujets intéressans de politique et de morale – [Aarau], 1760 – xi, [1], 362, [2] pp. is bibliographically documented as the original anonymous edition. In the same year appeared also the Traités sur divers sujets intéressans de politique et de morale, attributed to Paris, with a different collation. Luigi Einaudi observed that the edition of the Essais could represent an expanded reprint of the Traités. Later editions followed: the first tome was published in 1761 and a second in Yverdon in 1763. The work also reached an international audience: Schmid himself recalled that the Essais were translated into German in 1764 and into English by John Mills in 1772. The presence of a copy in the personal library of the economist and future President of the Italian Republic Luigi Einaudi constitutes further testimony to the historical interest of the work for scholars of economic thought.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
ESTC / Goldsmiths'-Kress Library of Economic Literature, no. 09548 – [Schmid, Georg Ludwig], Essais sur divers sujets intéressans de politique et de morale, [n.p.], 1760, xi, [1], 362, [2] pp., 12°.

Bernard Quaritch, Enlightenment catalogue, no. 43 – [Schmid, Georg Ludwig], Essais sur divers sujets intéressans de politique et de morale, [Aarau], 1760; xi, [1], 362, [2] pp.; described as one of the two editions of the collection that appeared in 1760.

Luigi Einaudi – Benedetto Croce, Carteggio, letter dated 18 August 1942 – Einaudi states that he personally possesses Schmidt d'Avenstein, Essai sur divers sujets intéressans de politique et de morale, s.l. (but Aarau), 1760, XI-362 pp., 12°.

Harvard University, Bibliography of Translations – documents the five essays, the [Aarau] 1760 edition and the subsequent German and English translations.

Herzog August Bibliothek – records Schmid, Georg Louis, Essais sur divers sujets intéressans de politique et de morale, 1760, also noting its presence in the historic library of the Duchess Antoinette Amalie.