Cesare Beccaria: an Italian Enlightenment Philosopher Against the Torture and the Death Penalty

Cesare Beccaria, an Italian enlightenment philosopher, author of the book Dei delitti e delle pene (On Crimes and Punishments) is considered to be one of the fathers of the Modern Criminal Law. His work preconizes the abolition of the death penalty and of the torture, considered useless, ineffective and inhumane. Owing to his reflections, the death penalty was abolished for the first time in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany (in Italy) back in 1786. This article copes, through a semiotic approach, with the main points of this revolutionary book, a key work of the scientific prose of the 18th century. In order to do that, this article will refer to the semiotic models propounded by Greimas (1979, 1986) and de Pais (1993).