On the concept of 'felicitas publica' in eighteenth-century political economy

This article presents some observations on public happiness in order to clarify the idea's meaning in the eighteenth-century Italian context. It examines Lugino Bruni's interpretation of this concept, and criticizes his understanding of public happiness as the continuation of Artistotle's eudaimonia. Bruni stresses the social and collective nature of happiness in the civil economy of the Italian eighteenth century. By examining the works of Ludovico Antonio Muratori and Antonio Genovesi, this article addresses instead the political meaning of public happiness for absolute monarchies, and underlines its origins in the German tradition of natural law.