an eminent Italian writer, was born at Chieti, in the Neapolitan province of Abruzzo, on the 2d of December 1728. At eight years of age he was sent to his uncle at Naples, who was then first chaplain to the king. Here he received his elementary education, along with his brother Bernard, who was a few years older. In 1740, the uncle being obliged to go to Rome upon a political mission, he gave his two nephews in charge to the Celestine fathers, for the continuance of their studies; and accordingly, in the course of two years, they were instructed in philosophy, the mathematics, and other liberal sciences. The archbishop, on his return to Naples, received them back into his palace, where they studied law, and enjoyed the society and conversation of the most distinguished professors of the university of Naples. Ferdinand, who possessed great talents and vivacity, devoted himself with ardour to the study of history, antiquities, the belles lettres, and philosophy, and more particularly to political economy. At the age of sixteen he produced a Memoir on the Coins of the period of the Trojan War; and this early production first inspired him with the idea of his great work on money.

He also translated Locke's treatise on Money and Interest. At the age of eighteen he undertook a work on the Ancient History of the Navigation of the Mediterranean; and in his great work, we find that he there made use of part of the materials which he had collected at this early age. A jeu d'esprit, which had nearly been attended with serious consequences, diverted him for some time from his graver studies. Having been charged by his brother Bernard to deliver, in his absence, a discourse in an academy of which he was a member, the president, looking only at the youth of Ferdinand, and being ignorant of his talents, would not permit him to proceed. The latter resolved to revenge himself in a manner that showed more spirit than prudence. It was the custom in this academy, as in several others, that when any great personage died at Naples, all the academicians published, in his praise, a collection of pieces in prose and verse. The executioner at Naples having died, Galiani seized the opportunity of turning the academy into ridicule. With the assistance of a friend, he composed, in the course of a few days, a collection of serious pieces on this event, which were ascribed to each of the members, and in which their peculiar style and manner were so well imitated, that one of them confessed he should have been himself deceived, if he had not been perfectly certain that he had not written the piece to which his name was subscribed. This malicious and witty little volume appeared in 1749, under the title of Componimenti vari per la Morte di Domenico Jannaccone, Carnesice della gran corte della vicaria, raccolti e dati in luce da Gian. Anton. Sergio Avvocato Napoletano. This Sergio was the president of the academy. The publication was eminently successful, and excited a sensation which the authors had not foreseen; and as they became afraid of being discovered by the publisher, they went directly to the minister Tanucci, confessed the fact, and got off for the performance of some spiritual exercises.

Galiani soon effaced the impression made by this piece of youthful folly, by the publication of his Treatise on Money, which had employed the labour of several years. It appeared at Naples in 1750, when the author was only twenty-one. It was first published anonymously, and the author did not make himself known until the success of the work was decided. The Archbishop of Tarentum took this occasion to patronize him, and procured for him several benefices, which induced him to take orders. He afterwards travelled through the whole of Italy, was presented at the various courts, and found himself everywhere preceded by his reputation. He was well received by the pope and several of the Italian princes; he was admitted a member of some of the most celebrated academies; and he established a correspondence with many of the most eminent literary characters. His next publication was a treatise entitled Della perfetta Conservazione del Grano, written, with his usual elegance, for the purpose of recommending an ingenious machine, invented by his friend Intieri, for drying and preserving grain.

The active mind of Galiani was now engaged in investigating several scientific subjects, particularly connected with antiquities and natural history. He was the first who undertook to form a collection of the volcanic productions of Vesuvius; and he wrote a learned treatise upon this subject, which, however, was not printed until about fifteen years afterwards. He presented the manuscript to Pope Benedict XIV, along with the collection itself, which was arranged in seven boxes, according to the order of the treatise. The collection was placed in the Museum of the Institute of Bologna, where it still remains. In presenting this collection to the pope, Galiani had written upon one of the boxes, Beatisissime Pater, fac ut lapides isti panes fiant. His holiness, understanding the hint, gave him the prebend of Amalfi, worth 400 ducats a year. Galiani. In the lifetime of his uncle, whom he lost in 1753, he enjoyed a benefice of 500 ducats, which conferred upon him the episcopal dignity, and another living worth 600 ducats. His funeral oration, on the death of his patron, Benedict XIV., who died in 1758, procured him a high character for eloquence, and was one of his works which he himself most esteemed.

Galiani was one of the members of the academy of Herculaneum, established by King Charles III. for the purpose of illustrating the remains of ancient art discovered among the ruins of that city; and he furnished several memoirs, which were inserted in the first volume of that magnificent work, the Antiquities of Herculaneum. With the other academicians who were engaged in this labour, Galiani enjoyed the royal bounty, in a pension of 250 ducats.

In the month of January 1759 he was appointed secretary of state and of the royal household, and, soon afterwards, secretary to the French embassy; and he arrived at Paris in the month of June following. Here his reception was exceedingly flattering, and his company was courted in all polite literary societies. The ambassador was the Count Cantillano, marquis of Castromonte, a Spanish nobleman, of much indolence and little talent. During the absence of the count on a six months' journey to Spain, Galiani remained chargé d'affaires, was presented to the king of France, and enjoyed all the advantages of his situation. He applied himself with great zeal and assiduity to the acquisition of a correct French style of writing; and about this time he commenced his learned and ingenious Commentary on Horace, of which the Abbé Arnaud inserted some extracts in the fifth, sixth, and seventh volumes of his Gazette Littéraire for 1765. About the commencement of that year Galiani had set out for Naples, for the purpose of taking the waters of Ischia. Long after his period of leave had expired, he was retained by the government, employed and consulted in several matters of importance, and at length appointed a member of the Supreme Council of Commerce. With this new title he returned to Paris; and about a year afterwards he obtained permission to travel for a few months in England, having been invited to that country by the Marquis of Caracciolo, who was then ambassador from the court of Naples at London. He returned through Holland to Paris, and soon afterwards wrote in French his celebrated Dialogues sur le Commerce des Blés; the style of which is so easy and elegant, that one would never suppose it to be the work of a foreigner. The manuscript was left in the hands of Diderot, and was published in 1770, with the date of London, and without the name of the author. The work excited great attention in France, and the best writers were loud and unanimous in their praise of it. Voltaire wrote to Diderot, who had sent him a copy, in the following terms: "The powers of Plato and Molière seem to be combined in the composition of this work. I have as yet only read about two thirds of it; and I expect the denouement of the piece with great impatience." The same author again praises the work in his Questions sur l'Encyclopédie, in the article Bled ou Blé.

Meanwhile, Galiani had returned to Naples, where, in addition to his office of member of the Council of Commerce, he received that of secretary to the same tribunal. These two situations brought him a revenue of 1600 ducats. In 1777 he was made one of the ministers of the junto of the royal domains, who had the charge of everything connected with the private patrimony of the king; an office which added 200 ducats to his income. His partiality for the writings of Horace inspired him with the idea of a treatise Des instincts ou des gouts naturels et des habitudes de l'homme, ou Principes du droit de la nature et des gens, tirés des Poésies d'Horace; a work which he left nearly complete, but which has never been published. There is a life of Horace prefixed, much better and more complete than that which is inserted in the works of Algarotti. The project which he entertained of a dramatic academy induced him to attempt the composition of a comic opera, in a new and singular style. This was The Imaginary Socrates, of which he gave the plan to the poet Lorenzi, who put it into verse, and it was set to music by the celebrated Paesiello. The piece was performed with the greatest success throughout Italy, Germany, and even at St Petersburg. Galiani himself was passionately fond of music. He sang agreeably, and played well on the harpsichord. His library was select rather than numerous, and particularly rich in good editions of the Greek and Latin classics. He had also a considerable and very valuable cabinet of ancient coins and rare medals, engraved stones, cameos, and a few statues.

On the 8th of August 1779, a terrible eruption of Vesuvius spread the utmost dismay throughout Naples. For some time the press teemed with new and frightful descriptions of this phenomenon, and the ravages it occasioned; and the minds of the inhabitants were every day filled with fresh terror. In order to efface these disagreeable impressions, Galiani in a single night composed a piece on this eruption, in which he imitated very happily the style of an author who was well known in the city for his ridiculous weakness. This production was printed next day under the following title: Sparientissima descrizione dello spaventoso spavento, che ci spaventa tutti col' eruzione dell'8 di Agosto del corrente anno, ma (per grazia di Dio) duro poco, di D. Onofrio Galeota, poeta e filosofo all'impronto. It was a very laughable piece on a very serious subject; and it had the effect of dispelling the melancholy ideas which had got possession of the minds of the people.

Galiani was very fond of the Neapolitan dialect, and took great pleasure in speaking it. In the same year he published anonymously, as was his custom, a work entitled Del dialetto Napoletano, in which he gave, for the first time, a grammar and history of this dialect, which he maintained was the primitive language of Italy; and shortly afterwards he composed a lexicon of the words peculiar to the Neapolitan tongue, which was begun to be printed in 1780; but the work was suspended, and has not since been resumed.

A work of a different kind soon afterwards engaged his attention. In the war which broke out in 1778, between England on one side, and France and Spain on the other, Naples and some other powers had remained neutral; but their rights, as they conceived, were not sufficiently respected by the belligerent parties. Numerous writings appeared throughout Europe on the rights and duties of neutrals; and, among others, Galiani produced a treatise in Italian, On the Duties of Neutrals towards Belligerent Powers, and of the latter towards the former. It was published at Naples in 1782, in 4to. In the same year he was appointed first assessor to the general council of finance; a situation which he accepted the more readily, as its duties were analogous to his other studies; but he refused to touch the salary. A few months afterwards, however, the king presented him with the abbacy of Scuroli, which was worth 1200 ducats per annum, after deducting all charges and pensions. The office of assessor of economy in the superintendence of the crown funds, to which he was appointed in 1748, added to his public duties, and likewise increased his income. Meanwhile his health, which was naturally weak, declined daily. On the 13th of May 1785 he had an attack of apoplexy; and in order to prevent a return, he travelled the following year through Puglia. In 1787 he made a longer journey, and went as far as Venice, where he was well received by all the men of letters; as he was also at Modena by Tiraboschi, and by Cesariotti at Padua. On his return to Naples his health rapidly declined; and he died, quietly and resignedly, on the 30th of October 1787, at the age of fifty-nine.

Besides the works already mentioned, Gallani left behind him a variety of interesting manuscripts, which came into the possession of D. Francesco Azzariti, his heir, and many of which, it is said, well deserve publication. Among them are, 1. The Commentary on Horace, with the Life; 2. The Lexicon of Words peculiar to the Neapolitan Dialect; 3. A Poetical Translation of the Anti-Lucretius; 4. A Miscellaneous Collection of Poetical Pieces; 5. Several volumes full of facetious Letters, Novels, and Anecdotes; 6. His Epistolary Correspondence, which would form of itself a pretty voluminous collection. A part of it was published at Paris in 1818, in two vols. 8vo. (See the article GALLANI, by Ginguene, in the Biographie Universelle, tom. xvi.)