Einaudi as a Bibliophile and Historian of Thought

Luigi Einaudi (1874-1961) was a bibliophile and book collector on a vast scale. He took a keen interest not only in his own library, but also in the enrichment of many institutional libraries. His own collection amounted to some 100,000 books, its core was a group of about 7,000 rare economic books, mostly Italian, French and English, often in their original editions. Einaudi’s inextinguishable appetite for books made him sometimes buy whole libraries. (The last of such acquisitions was a library of around 3,000 books bought in 1961 at the age of 81 years). Einaudi was extremely competent in the bibliography of economic literature, and highly esteemed for this. He used not only to buy many books, but also to read them, contrary to the vulgar belief that bibliophiles are too busy amassing books to spend time reading them. Many of his writings were of a historical character; on the history of economic thought he often wrote scholarly notes on many different subjects, but he also wrote some substantial pieces, as one in the 1958 edition of Quesnay’s works. It shows the Physiocrats in a strikingly original light, giving prominence to elements which no ‘orthodox’ writer had before stressed.