GIANNO'NE, METRO, born at Ischitella, in the province of Capitanata, in 1676; studied at Naples, and applied himself to tho profession of the law. From the prate of his practice he managed by assiduous labour and economy to purchase a small country-house, where ho spent all the time ha could spare from his professional occu pations, and where he wrote his great work, 'Storia Civil.) del Repo di Napoli,' 4 vols. 4to, 1724. Unlike most other historians who had preceded him, and whose narratives were merely chronicles of kings and wars and baths, Giannone laboured particularly to investigate the history of civil institutions, the laws, the manners, and the govern ment of the various countries which were afterwards united by the Normans into one state, called by the varioua names of the dukedom of Puglia and Calabria, Sicily citm I'harum, and lastly the kingdom of Naples; and then to describe the changes in the institutions of the monarchy under the Normans, the Swabian!, the Anjous, and the Aragencae, and in the time of Charles V. and the Spanish oonqueat. lle next relates the events of two centuries of the Spanish vice-regal administration down to the year 1700. 'Storia del Reame di Napoli,' 1534, by Colletta, is a continuation of Giannone's work.
A principal object of Giannone was to draw tho distinction, so long left undefined, between the spiritual and the secular powers, and to show by what means and gradual steps the Church of Rome, or rather its hierarchy, had trespassed upon those limits, until at last., "having invaded every civil jurisdiction, it strove to render the empire wholly subservient to the priesthood." (' Stevie Civile,' b. i. ch. 2.) The profound learning of the author in the history and practice of tho jurisprudence of the dark and middle ages, and the frequent citation of his authorities, constitute the chief merits of the work. In other respects he has been charged by some and net unfriendly critics with occasional historical and chronological inaccuracies ; with borrowing without acknowledgment from Costanzo, Summate, and other writers who had preceded him ; and also with displayiug throughout his work a spirit of fixed hostility to the clergy not always restrained within the limits of historical impartiality. But the pretensions of the ecclesias tical power were in Gianneue's time so exorbitant, their encroach ments so formidable, and their intermeddling so vexatious, as to sour the naturally irritable temper of Giannone, who felt already, and was also warned by his friends, that his boldness would cost him dear. Naples was then under the dominion of the Emperor Charles V1., whose government was rather favourable to Giaunoue's views ; this however did not prevent the author from being assailed, after the publication of his work, by the clerical party, and being openly insulted in the streets of the capitaL Being obliged to leave Naples, he went to Vienna, where the emperor Resigned him a small pension out of the Neapolitan treasury. Meantime his book was solemnly
condemned by the Inquisition at Rome, and a monk wrote a refutation of it, in which he undisguisedly asserted the absolute authority of the pope over the temporal state—` Della Potestls Politics della Chiesa: Trattati due del Padre G. A. Bianchi centre le Nuevo Opinioni di Pietro Giannone,' 5 vols., Rome, 1745. In the year 1734 the Austrians lost the kingdom of Naples, and Giannone, who lost his pension at the same time, repaired to Venice in quest of employment, but he there incurred the suspicion of the government, and was ordered away in 1735. He then took refuge at Geneva, where he completed a work which he had begun at Vienna, called '11 Trireguo, ossia del Repro del Cielo, della Terra, s del Papa,' in which he no longer confines his attacks to the temporal pretensions of tho papal see, but impugns also .several dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church. The book was never printed, though manuscript copies of it were circulated, and a copious extract of it is found in the biography of Gisnuone by Leonardo Pauzini. Giannons however was, or thought himself, all the while a true member of the Romiah Church ; and as he wished to take the sacrament at Easter, and there was then no Itennus Catholic church at Geneva, he listened to the advice of a pretended frieud from Savoy, who invited him to pass over the border of the Genovese territory to a neighbouring village, where he could perform the sacred rite. The advice was treacherous; Giannone, as soon as he entered the territory of Savoy, was arrested, iu 1736, and taken to the castle of Miolans, whence he was transferred to the fortress of Cava, and lastly to the citadel of Turin, by order of the King of Sardiuia. Ile was treated however with some degree of attention, but never recovered his liberty, and he died in the citadel of Turin, in March 1748, at the age of seventy-two, after twelve years of imprisonment. During his captivity he had conferences with a priest, and was induced to abjure the opinions which had been condemned by Rome, and was conse quently relieved from the interdict by the Inquisition. After the accession of Don Carlos of Bourbon to the throne of Naples, that sovereign sent for the surviving son of Gianuoue, and assigned to him a liberal pension, stating by an edict, dated l'ortici, May 8, 1769, "that it was unbecoming the interest and the dignity of his govern ment to leave in diatress the son of the most useful subject and the most unjustly persecuted man that the ago had produced." (Cortnani, &colt della Letteratura Italiana ;' Botta, • Storia d'Italia,' b. xli.) Giannone's 'Opera Poatuum,' chiefly in his own defence, were published at Lausanne after his death.