Luigi Taparelli d’Azeglio: Saggio teoretico di diritto naturale appoggiato sul fatto. Naturrechtslehre. Eine theoretische Abhandlung über das natürliche Recht auf objektiver Grundlage. Teil I

The main work of Luigi Taparelli d’Azeglio SJ (1793–1862), ›Saggio teoretico di diritto naturale appoggiato sul fatto‹, is the blueprint for the modern Catholic social teaching initiated by Pope Leo XIII.

Published in 1855 in its fourth edition - the last to be supplemented and revised by Taparelli – the fundamental considerations and basic features of this work are still relevant to current theological and ethical positions in the Catholic Church.

In German-speaking countries, however, there is only one translation of its first edition, published successively in the years 1840–1843; it dates back to 1845.

The need for a modern translation of the fourth edition has now been met with a bilingual edition and each of the seven treatises of the ›Saggio teoretico‹ has been published in a separate volume. The first volume comprises the »First Treatise: Individual Action«, in which Taparelli deals with the anthropological foundations on which his socio-ethical developments are then based.