La statistica e i suoi archivi. Considerazioni a partire dal caso della Sicilia preunitaria

Abstract

The article deals with the historical development of the Sicilian Central Statistical Office in the 19th century (1832-1862), by analysing its historical background on the basis of a new archival inventory published in 2020. The experience of the Central Statistical Office appears historically significant in relation to the intellectual vitality of the group of young liberal economists who revitalised the Office at least until the caesura of 1848 and introduced a critical approach to statistics and its use that would lead to important developments within twentieth-century Italian economic thought.