[4] His father, Cesare Taparelli, was at one time ambassador of Victor Emmanuel I of Sardinia to the Holy See, and his brother, Massimo, was one of the Italian ministers of State.

He was a proponent of reviving the philosophical school of Thomism, and his social teachings influenced Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical, Rerum novarum (On the Condition of the Working Classes).

The Catholic Church had not yet developed a clear philosophical view regarding the great social changes that were appearing in the early nineteenth century in Europe, which led to much confusion among the ecclesiastical hierarchy and laity.

His chief work, "Saggio teoretico di diritto naturale appogiato sul fatto", i. e. "A Theoretical Essay on Natural Right from an Historical Standpoint" (2 vols., 7th ed., Rome, 1883), was in a way the beginning of modern sociology.

Herein was developed the position, at once widely accepted in conservative circles on the Continent, that the normal origin of civil government was by extension of paternal power through the patriarchal head of a group of families.

Next in importance is his "Esame critico degli ordini rappresentativi nella società moderna", i. e. "Critical Examination of Representative Government in Modern Society" (2 vols., Rome, 1854; in Spanish, Madrid, 1867).