Cesare Bonesana Beccaria, the Italian criminologist and economist, was born in Milan of aristocratic parents. His formal education began at the Jesuit college in Parma and ended with his graduation from the University of Pavia in 1758. After graduation Beccaria came under the intellectual influence of two brothers, Pietro and Alessandro Verri, who had gathered around themselves the young Milanese intelligentsia to form a society known as the "academy of fists," committed to promoting reforms in political, economic, and administrative affairs.

Beccaria was prompted by Pietro Verri to read the then prominent philosophies of the Baron de Montesquieu, Claude-Adrian Helvétius, Denis Diderot, David Hume, and the Comte de Buffon. At the suggestion of his friends, Beccaria wrote and published his first treatise, Del disordine e de' rimedi delle monete nello Stato di Milano nell'anno 1762 (Lucca, 1762). It was also through the encouragement of...