Cesare Beccaria - Des délits et des peines - 1756

BECCARIA, Cesare
On Crimes and Punishments, translated from Italian according to the third edition revised, corrected & augmented by the Author. With Additions by the Author not yet published in Italian.
Philadelphia [i.e. Paris, at several booksellers], 1766.

A volume in-12 bound in full marbled calf of the period, smooth spine ornamented with compartments and gilded floral motifs, rolling on the edges, red edges, marbled endpapers. Wear from use and losses at the corners and head and tail. A work presented in its original patina, testifying to the authenticity of copies circulating clandestinely in the Enlightenment era.

An absolute monument of penal philosophy and legal humanism, this edition dated 1766 stands as a fundamental milestone in the history of modern justice. By publishing this revolutionary treatise, the Marquis Cesare Beccaria drafted the first uncompromising indictment against torture, the cruelty of torments, and the death penalty, laying the rational and proportionate foundations of criminal justice that Europe as a whole clamored for.

The copy is surrounded by a fascinating and regal collecting anecdote related to its clandestine diffusion: bearing the fictitious publication note ‘In Philadelphia’ on its title page to escape the implacable censorship of the French royal authorities, this work was one of the books most jealously concealed by the intellectuals of the Ancien Régime. It is said that Voltaire himself, exhilarated by this manifesto of reason, ordered numerous clandestine copies to be distributed discreetly to his influential correspondents, thereby consecrating the work as the supreme intellectual weapon to civilize the justice of European nations.