Dentro la Costituzione democratica. Stato, economia e religione nel progetto inedito di Casimiro De Lieto

The article analyses the unedited Costitution project written by the democratic activist Casimiro De Lieto (Reggio Calabria 1803- Florence 1874). On 13th April 1848, De Lieto sent his “ Basi d’una Costituzione pel Napoletano” –this is how he named the document- to the Kingdom of Two Sicilies minister of Foreign Affairs Luigi Dragonetti, in order to ask for a more advanced Costitution than that granted by the King a few months before. The research aims at deepening the idea of democracy Southern Italian democrats shared during the 1848 revolution, by focussing on De Lieto’s project principles and rules. In particular, the study aims both at tracing the main differences between democrats and liberals in the Neapolitan context and at providing the basic elements for an analysis of Neapolitan democracy in the framework of the European republican movements.