Ferdinand Galiani

Galiani, Ferdinand, abbé (1728-87). Secretary at the Neapolitan embassy in Paris from 1759 to 1769. He was a member of philosophe circles, who appreciated his wit—in Diderot's words, ‘le plus joli petit Arlequin qu'ait produit l'Italie, mais sur les épaules de cet Arlequin était la tête de Machiavel’. Sceptical of his friends' optimism, he attacked Physiocrat doctrines in his Dialogues sur les blés (1770).

[Peter France]