ID:
10540
Duration (hours):
60
CFU:
9
SSD:
STORIA DEL DIRITTO MEDIEVALE E MODERNO
Year:
2025
Overview
Date/time interval
Secondo Semestre (23/02/2026 - 07/05/2026)
Syllabus
Course Objectives
The historical teaching of law aims at offering to the student who’s studying the positive law order the perception of the complexity of legal experience and the sense of continuous becoming of the law within the evolution of civilization. In this framework, the History of Italian law course provides the indispensable tools for the knowledge of the essential aspects of the evolution of law and its sources from the medieval to the contemporary age, with particular attention to the genesis of the system currently in force, whose fundamental features can be fully known only with reference to the long-term events that have produced them. The fact that in the past Italy has been marked by the coexistence of a number of local and foreign legal systems, and the consideration of the current prospects for unification and legal harmonization at the continental level also require that the learning of the driving lines of the Italian experience must be accompanied by the historical and comparative evaluation of the legal structures developed in the different European areas.
Course Prerequisites
No prerequisite is required.
Teaching Methods
Teaching is done through frontal lessons integrated by didactic seminars on the nodal points of the historical evolution of medieval, modern and contemporary law.
Assessment Methods
Learning is verified by an oral exam aimed at assessing the achievement of the learning objectives of the teaching. The subject of the exam is the contents of the reference texts and, limited to the attending students, the contents of frontal lessons and didactic seminars.
Texts
- A. Padoa Schioppa, Storia del diritto in Europa. Dal medioevo all’età contemporanea, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2007, limited to the following sections: II. L’età del diritto comune classico (secoli XII-XV), chap. 7-16; III. L’età moderna (secoli XVI-XVIII), chap. 17-26; IV. L’età delle riforme (1750-1814), chap. 27-31. As an alternative to Padoa Schioppa’s book, the student will be able to choose the following text: A. Cavanna, Storia del diritto moderno in Europa. Le fonti e il pensiero giuridico, I, Milano, Giuffrè, last issue, limited to the following sections: Part one, chap. I, §1 (pp. 21-24), chap. II (pp. 33-65), chap. IV, §§ 1-3 (pp. 78-87), chap. V (pp. 95-104), chap. VI (pp. 105-136), chap. VII (pp. 137-145), chap. VIII, §§ 1-3 (pp. 146-163), § 5 (pp. 166-171), chap. IX (pp. 172-190); Part two, chap. I, § 1 (pp. 193-197), chap. II, §4 (pp. 247-251), chap. III, § 2 (pp. 254-258), §§ 5-7 (pp. 269-282), § 9 (pp. 287-293), chap. IV, § 4 (pp. 310-318), chap. V, § 2 (pp. 325-337), chap. VI, §§ 1-4 (pp. 338-369); Part three, chap. II (pp. 391-409), chap. III, § 2 (pp. 415-416), §§ 4-5 (pp. 420-427), chap. IV, §§ 3-4 (pp. 434-442), chap. V, § 2 (pp. 445-447), §§ 9-10 (pp. 460-466), chap. VII, §§ 1-7 (pp. 479-516), chap. VIII (pp. 530-546), chap. IX (pp. 547-554), chap. XI (pp. 567-583), chap. XII (pp. 584-610) .- E. Dezza, Lezioni di Storia della codificazione civile. Il Code Civil (1804) e l’Allgemeines Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (ABGB, 1812), Torino, Giappichelli, 2000, pp. 5-106 and 125-162.
Contents
The course presents the following structure: 1) Age of customary law. Justinian; the early medieval roots (V-XI centuries): the roman-Justinian law; the germanic laws; the role of custom; the longobard-franc laws; the feud. 2) The age of jurisprudential law. A) The classic age of ius commune (12th-15th Centuries): the Glossators; canon law; municipal and territorial laws; the source system; the Commentators. B) Absolutism and the crisis of ius commune (XVI-XVIII centuries): the pragmatism of late ius commune (consilia, communis opinio and the jurisprudence of the Grand Courts); the new addresses of the legal culture (legal Humanism and the Scola Culta); the roman tradition and the emergence of national laws in Europe. C) The origins and the development of Common Law (12th-20th centuries). 3) The age of codified law. A) The age of Reforms (17th-18th centuries): Giusnaturalism and Rationalism; the Age of Enlightenment; the Absolutism; the State modernization and the Consolidazioni, the french Ordonnances; the first Enlightenment laws in Europe and the ALR (Allgemeines Landrecht); the Italian experiences. B) Codification (18th-19th centuries): the Habsburg model and the ABGB (Allgemeines Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch); the French Revolution model; the Napoleonic model and the Code Civil; the codification in Italy between Reform and Restoration; Constitutional codification; the birth of modern and contemporary public law. C) Positivism (19th-20th centuries): the School of Exègese; the Historical School; the BGB (Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch); Legal unification and codification in Italy; the Scuola Classica and the Scuola Positiva of Criminal Law; the Socialismo giuridico; the 20th century.
Course Language
Italian
Degrees
Degrees (2)
LEGAL SERVICES STUDIES
Bachelor’s Degree
3 years
LAW
Single-cycle Master’s Degree
5 years
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