
Thus, almost a quarter of century since publication of Allegro ma non troppo, this in fact is the first edition that makes The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity available in its original version. Yet, with an irony that the author of these laws would have appreciated, it has never been published in the language in which it was first written. Allegro ma non troppo has been a bestseller both in Italy and in all the countries where translated versions have appeared.

Only in 1988 did he accept the idea of its publication in an Italian version as part of the volume entitled Allegro ma non troppo, together with the essay Pepper, Wine (and Wool) as the Dynamic Factors of the Social and Economic Development of the Middle Ages, also originally written in English and published privately by Mad Millers for Christmas 1973. He consequently long declined any proposal to have it translated. The author believed that his short essay could only be fully appreciated in the language in which it had been written. Originally written in English, The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity was published for the first time in 1976 in a numbered and private edition bearing the unlikely imprint of «Mad Millers». Publisher's Note The Mad Millers to the Reader

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