Between Reason of State and Mercantilism: Antonio Serra’s Breve trattato in 17th-century Naples

Abstract

The article intends to propose a reading of Antonio Serra’s Breve trattato sulle cause che possono far abbondare li regni d'oro e d'argento centred on a history of the arts of government. By reconstructing the Neapolitan debate on the causes of the monetary crisis of the early 17th century and focusing on the problem of the practices of money government, the aim of the essay is to remove Serra’s treatise from the hypothetical framework of an history of economic science and to place it in the context of the political problems of its time.