Fortunato Felice

Fortunato Bartolomeo De Felice, also known as Fortuné Barthelemy De Félice and Francesco Bartolomeo De Felice Placido, ( born August 24, 1723 in Rome, † February 13, 1789 in Yverdon- les- Bains, Vaud Canton, Switzerland ), second Earl of Panzutti, was an Italian- Swiss philosopher, scientist, author and editor of the Encyclopédie d' Yverdon. He is considered a pioneer in education in Switzerland.

Life

De Felice grew up in Rome as the eldest son of six children in a family originating from Naples. At twelve, he studied at the Roman College of the Jesuits, at seventeen, he went to Brescia, where the Franciscan Fortunato of Brescia (1723-1789) taught philosophy and mathematics. In 1743 he was inducted into the Order of the Franciscans in Rome and was ordained a priest in 1746. From 1746 he taught philosophy in Rome, from 1753 ancient and modern geography, experimental physics and mathematics at the University of Naples.

After the liberation of trapped by her husband in a monastery held Countess Panzutti, and a lack of money aborted common escape, he fled - even for religious reasons - in the summer of 1757 to Albrecht von Haller to Bern. He joined in 1758 by the Catholic over to the Reformed faith.

In 1758 he founded with Vincenz Bernhard Tscharner the Typographical Society of Berne and was a Italian-speaking ( l' Estratto de la europea letterature until 1762) and a Latin ( l' Excerptum Totius Italicae nec non Helveticae literaturae, until 1766 ) literary and scientific magazine out. In 1762 he moved to Yverdon, where he founded an educational institute for young people from all over Europe and a print shop. The latter quickly became one of the most important of Switzerland and remained there until his death. In 1769 he became a citizen of Yverdon and so Swiss.

He was married four times and had 13 children: 1756 Countess Agnese di Arcuato Panzutti ( 1720-1759 ) (where he received her title of Count suo jure, had previously kept her late husband in the same year as the first Count Panzutti ), in 1759 with Susanne Wavre of Neuchâtel (1737-1769), 1769 Louise Marie Perrelet († 1774), 1774 Jeanne Salomé Sinet.

Work

Felice's work is a significant contribution to education in Switzerland. As editor and translator of Burlamaqui 's Principes du Droit Naturel his name became synonymous with natural law throughout Europe. His most important work is the Encyclopédie dYverdon, which he led as editor and for which he wrote more than 800 articles. From 1770 to 1780 published 58 volumes as a sophomore the Encyclopédie of Paris in a new version from a Protestant perspective.

The rest of his work consists of a half-dozen educational, philosophical and scientific books. He translated the works of René Descartes, d' Alembert, Maupertuis and Newton into Italian.

In Felice's famous printing appeared alongside the encyclopedia French-language or translated into French works of Elie Bertrand, Charles Bonnet, Jean -Jacques Burlamaqui, Albrecht von Haller, Gabriel Seigneux de Correvon, Simon -Auguste Tissot, Johann Joachim Winckelmann and other writers of the Enlightenment.

The two magazine projects the Typographic Society Bern aimed at an international knowledge exchange. Your uniqueness allowed it Tscharner and de Felice to build up a correspondence network throughout Europe.

Writings

• Etrennes aux désœuvrés ou Lettre d' à ses frères in Quaker et à un grand docteur. In 1766. ( In this work, Felice polemic against the so-called philosophers and Voltaire)
• Mémoires de la Société de Berne oeconomique ( 24 volumes, 1763-72 )
• Essai sur la manière la plus sûre d' un système de police établir of the grains. Yverdon 1772.
• Dictionnaire Geographical location, historique et politique de la Suisse. 2 vols. Neuchâtel 1775.
• Dictionnaire de justice naturelle et civile. 1778th 13 volumes
• Tableau Philosophique de la religion chrétienne, considérée dans son ensemble dans sa morale et dans ses consolations. Yverdon, 1779.
• Eléments de la police générale d'un Etat. Yverdon, 1781.
• Le développement de la raison. Posthumous oeuvre. Yverdon, 1789.
• Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné universel of connaissances humaines. 42 volumes and 6 supplementary volumes. Yverdon 1770-1776. New edition: Fischer Verlag, Erlangen 1993, ISBN 3-89131-069-2. ( 38,000 pages on 257 microfiches. )