Francesco Soave

Francesco Soave (10 June 1743 — 17 January 1806) was a Swiss pedagogist and philosopher.

Biography

Francesco Soave was born in Lugano, Switzerland, on 10 June 1743. He frequented the schools of the Order of Clerics Regular of Somasca. After completing his studies, he joined the same congregation of his teachers. He was sent to Parma, where the minister Guillaume du Tillot destined him to the teaching of poetic and eloquence first at the College for Noblemen, then at the University of Parma.

Soave introduced Locke's and Kant's philosophy in Italy through his teaching and translations. He influentially promoted an eclectic empiricism (derived from Locke, Condillac, and Bonnet). His versions of Salomon Gessner's ''New Idylls'' and of Edward Young's ''The force of religion'' exercised a certain influence on the preromantic movement in Italy. In 1772 he wrote one of his most important philosophical works, ''Intorno all'istituzione naturale d'una società e d'una lingua, e all'influenza dell'una e dell'altra sulle umane cognizioni'' (On the natural formation of a society and of one language, and their influence on human cognitions). Soave presented the work to an announcement of competition from the Prussian Academy of Sciences, in which, instead, the winner was Johann Gottfried Herder.

In 1772 he was appointed professor of philosophy at the Brera Academy in Milan. He introduced important reforms in the method of teaching, wrote and translated many works of education and established numerous schools in Lombardy.Cf. Costanza Rossi-Ichino, « Francesco Soave e le prime scuole elementari tra il '700 e l’800 » in Paola Brotto ''et al.'' (eds.)'', Problemi scolastici ed educativi nelle Lombardia del primo Ottocento'', vol. 1, Milan, Sugar Co, 1977, p. 93-185. His pedagogical interests induced him to write works for children. His ''Novelle Morali'' (Moral Tales) obtained the prize instituted by Count Carlo Bettoni, at Brescia, for the best collection calculated to excite in youthful minds the love of virtue and abhorrence of vice. The ''Novelle Morali'' were a landmark in Italian children's literature and went through over 100 editions between 1782 and 1909. In 1795, Soave drafted against the ideas of the French Revolution the ''Vera idea della Rivoluzione di Francia'' (True meaning of the French revolution), which was frequently reprinted.

He died in Pavia on 17 January 1806, where he was professor of ideology at the university.

Works

* ''Ricerche intorno all'istituzione naturale d'una società e d'una lingua'' (1772)
* ''Novelle morali'' (1782)
* ''Istituzioni di logica, metafisica ed etica'' (1791)
* ''La filosofia di Kant esposta ed esaminata'' (1803)
* ''La mitologia ossia esposizione delle favole e descrizioni dei riti religiosi dei gentili..., con l'aggiunta d'un transunto delle Metamorfosi d'Ovidio'' (1810)
* ''Storia del popolo ebreo compendiata, ad uso delle scuole'' (1813)
* ''Memoria sopra il progetto di Elementi di ideologia di Antoine Destutt de Tracy'' (1809)
* ''Esame dei principi metafisici della Zoonomia di Erasmus Darwin'' (1809)

Notes

Bibliography

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* Claudio Marazzini, Simone Fornara (eds.), ''Francesco Soave e la grammatica del Settecento'', Atti del convegno di Vercelli (21 marzo 2002), Alessandria, Edizioni dell'Orso.
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* Orelli, Giovanni. ''La Svizzera italiana'', in Alberto Asor Rosa (ed.), ''Letteratura italiana. Storia e geografia. L'età contemporanea'', 3, 1989, pp. 885-918.
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Soave, Francesco
1743 births
1806 deaths
Academic staff of the University of Parma
Academic staff of the University of Pisa
18th-century Swiss philosophers
People from Lugano
Catholic philosophers