Cesare Bonesana, Marchese di Becarria (1738-1794), was an Italian jurist and economist. He was the author of the most influential and celebrated volume on criminal justice and a pioneer in systematic economic analysis.

Cesare Bonesana Beccaria was born into a noble family in Milan on March 15, 1738. Following his graduation from the university at Padua in 1758, he discovered and was deeply impressed by the writers of the French Enlightenment, especially the Baron de Montesquieu. About 1761 Beccaria joined a group of young intellectuals and reformers in northern Italy. A year later he published a monograph on the reform of the Milanese monetary system. From 1768 to 1771 he served as professor of political economy at the Palatine School in Milan. Thereafter he held a succession of public offices in Milan until his death on Nov. 28, 1794.

The intellectual ferment in 18th-century Europe produced no volume of greater or more enduring practical influence than...