The Italian Ideas Behind America’s Founding: NIAF to Host Virtual Discussion Ahead of America’s 250th Anniversary

As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary in 2026, Americans are being invited to look more deeply at the ideas, people, and traditions that helped shape the birth of our Republic. For Italian Americans, this anniversary is also an opportunity to remember something too often overlooked: Italian thought helped influence the American founding.

The National Italian American Foundation, known as NIAF, will host a special virtual discussion titled “The Italian Ideas Behind America’s Founding” on Wednesday, June 24, 2026, at 12 noon Eastern Time. The event is free and open to the public and will take place online via Zoom.

This timely program is part of NIAF’s Leandro P. Rizzuto, Sr. Capitol Hill Program and will explore the influence of Italian political and legal thinkers on the American Revolution, the Constitution, and the broader ideals of liberty, justice, and individual rights.

Italy and the American Founding

When most Americans think about the intellectual roots of the United States, they usually think of English, French, and Scottish Enlightenment thinkers. Names like John Locke, Montesquieu, and Adam Smith are often mentioned in classrooms and history books.

But Italy’s contribution deserves a place in that conversation too.

Long before Italy became a unified nation in 1861, the Italian peninsula was home to scholars, jurists, philosophers, reformers, and political thinkers whose ideas traveled across Europe and the Atlantic world. Their writings helped shape debates about criminal justice, religious liberty, constitutional government, human dignity, and the limits of state power.

Among the figures NIAF will highlight are Cesare Beccaria, Gaetano Filangieri, and Filippo Mazzei.

Beccaria, one of the great figures of the Italian Enlightenment, is best known for his work on criminal justice reform. His arguments against torture and cruel punishment helped influence later ideas about due process, proportional punishment, and the rights of the accused. These principles remain deeply connected to the American legal tradition.

Filangieri, a Neapolitan legal and political thinker, wrote about constitutional government, law, commerce, education, and liberty. His work was known to important Americans of the founding era and reflected the kind of transatlantic exchange of ideas that shaped the modern democratic world.

Mazzei, a Tuscan physician, merchant, writer, and friend of Thomas Jefferson, is one of the most fascinating Italian figures connected to early American history. He supported the American cause and wrote passionately about equality and liberty. For Italian Americans, Mazzei stands as a powerful reminder that the Italian presence in America’s story did not begin only with the great immigration waves of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Italians were connected to the American project from the beginning.

A Forgotten Chapter Worth Remembering

This is exactly the kind of history we need to recover and teach more often.

Italian Americans are sometimes told that our story in this country begins only with Ellis Island, Little Italies, hard labor, prejudice, and eventual assimilation. That story is real and important. Our ancestors built railroads, worked in factories, opened grocery stores, fished the coasts, farmed the valleys, laid bricks, started businesses, raised families, filled parishes, and fought in America’s wars.

But there is an older story too.

The Italian contribution to America is not only found in food, music, art, family life, Catholic parishes, and neighborhood traditions. It is also found in ideas. Italian thinkers helped shape the moral and legal vocabulary of the modern world. Their writings about freedom, justice, law, equality, and government helped influence the age of revolutions, including the American Revolution.

As an American of Italian descent, I find that deeply meaningful.

It reminds us that Italian heritage is not something separate from American patriotism. It is part of the larger American story. We do not have to choose between loving America and honoring Italy. There is room in our hearts for both. I am an American first, but I can also recognize that the land of my ancestors contributed something profound to the ideals of the country I love.

The NIAF Program

The discussion will be moderated by Viviana Mazza, U.S. Correspondent for Corriere della Sera.

The featured speakers will include:

Professor John Bessler, an internationally recognized scholar of Cesare Beccaria and the history of criminal justice reform.

Professor Amedeo Arena, a legal historian and expert on Gaetano Filangieri and the exchange of political ideas between Italy and the United States.

Together, they will explore how Italian Enlightenment thought helped shape the American Republic and why these connections still matter as the nation prepares for its semiquincentennial commemoration.

Event Details

Event: The Italian Ideas Behind America’s Founding
Host: The National Italian American Foundation
Date: Wednesday, June 24, 2026
Time: 12 noon Eastern Time
Location: Online via Zoom
Cost: Free and open to the public

Register here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_UycC0HJqSXSzzvPUAMBeqw

NIAF is also an America250 Supporting Partner, making this event especially fitting as the country prepares to mark 250 years since the Declaration of Independence.

Why Italian Americans Should Attend

This program is more than a lecture. It is a chance to reclaim part of our history.

For Italian Americans in California and across the country, events like this help us understand the deeper meaning of our heritage. We are not merely descendants of immigrants who brought recipes, dialects, music, devotions, and family customs. We are also heirs to a civilization that helped shape law, government, art, science, religion, philosophy, and public life.

America’s founding was not created in isolation. It was part of a larger Atlantic conversation about liberty and human rights. Italy was part of that conversation.

As America turns 250, it is worth remembering that the story of the United States includes Italian voices too. Not only in the neighborhoods of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, San Diego, and Los Angeles, but also in the intellectual foundations of the Republic itself.

That is a chapter of American history worth learning, sharing, and celebrating.