Le Moment Beccaria

Jamais, dans aucune autre priode de lhistoire, le problme pnal na t aussi dbattu quau sicle des Lumires. Or, lvnement dclencheur de ces dbats est la publication des Dlits et des peines, le petit livre de Cesare Beccaria dont la premire dition parat Livourne en 1764. On assiste, aprs cette date et durant un demi-sicle, une profusion impressionnante de ractions et de prolongements directement lis cet ouvrage. tel point que, pour dsigner cette priode, on a pu parler dun moment Beccaria. Les recherches rassembles dans ce volume explorent diffrents foyers thmatiques et gographiques (Allemagne, Angleterre, France, Italie) de cette phase indite et fondatrice de lhistoire europenne du droit de punir. Pourquoi cette soudaine publicit du problme pnal? Comment sest-elle manifeste, par quels canaux, sous quelles formes thoriques et matrielles? Comme le montre cet ouvrage, le droit pnal moderne est n dun livre, mais aussi de ses interprtations: il est n des ides de Beccaria et des dbats quelles ont provoqus. Ces deux sources se sont croises et ne peuvent se comprendre lune sans lautre. --- Throughout history, criminal law was never more discussed than during the Age of Enlightenment. The debates started after the publication of a small book by Cesare Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishments, in Livorno in 1764. For fifty years from that date, reactions and additions to the book proliferated so much that this period is called by some "the Beccaria moment". The contributions in this volume explore different thematic and geographical areas (Germany, England, France, Italy) to explore that innovative and foundational moment in the European history of criminal law. Why was the criminal problem suddenly publicised? How did those interrogations manifest? Which theoretical and material forms did they take? This volume shows that modern criminal law originates in a book, and also in its interpretations in Beccaria's ideas and the debates they started. Those two sources interacted and now cannot be understood separately.