Gian Rinaldo Carli (1720-1795): Diagnosis and treatment of a monetary plague

Gian Rinaldo Carli was an “expert” of money who lived in the 18th century, in an economic environment revolving around national and international trade. Belonging to a community of scholars who lived in a sort of golden age of pre-classical studies on money, Carli stood out for his insistence on the need to intervene to contain monetary imbalance, seen as a serious impediment to the expansion of trade and economic dynamism. Carli curved his analysis, which was theoretical in its depth, to political action and initiative. He sought to craft those rigorous empirically based measures that should underlie the practical work of a reformer. The paper aims to understand how Carli introduced rigor into his approach to monetary advice, in order to make it more adequate to meet what he believed was a growing need expressed by the governors of the time, starting with the Empress of Austria.