Regular students:
a) Notes taken from the lessons(P. Cappellini, Storie di concetti giuridici, Torino, Giappichelli, 2010 ,pp. 39-48; 111-135; 151-160; 233-248) and b) P. Grossi, L’Europa del diritto, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2007, pp. 3-255. and c)F.Marinelli, Scienza e storia del diritto civile, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2009, pp.266.
Learning Objectives
Contents
The course intends to give a general overview of the historical development of european civil and criminal law. The course is divided into two parts.
Objectives
The course intends to illustrate and describe the historical development of legal culture and of european legal systems from the Middle Age to the XX century, providing a deep analysis of the main institutions and
concepts.
Skills
Students are supposed to:
A) Contextualize the relevant legislation in order to solve specific legal matters;
B) Understand the legal language in an historical perspective;
C) Develop a multidisciplinary approach.
Abilities
The course intends to provide the fundaments of legal culture, emphasizing the role played by history both in law genesis and in (an effectiveness-oriented) legal interpretation. Students, thanks to an historical approach, will gradually discover the relativity of modern legal concepts, as well as the complexity and vitality
of legal systems both in a time and space perspective, thus avoiding the risk of considering them only from a legislative point of view.
Prerequisites
the students who attend to the lessons, they would enroll in a separate list in view of the final test whose date will be communicated at the beginning of the course.
Teaching Methods
Compulsory lecture: 60 hours. Seminars/tours: 10 hours (facultative, no credits).
Further information
Final Test Students, between the third and fourth year, will be required to draft a
study plan including other activities as well as the subject of the final test.
Type of Assessment
Oral Examination
Course program
Introductory part:
History as fundamental dimension of legal experience; the legal order in the age of globalization: a new european ius commune?; a pluralistic experience: the medieval legal tradition; features and crisis of the ius commune system in modern Europe (XVI-XVIII century): law as synonime of justice and order; the notion of interpretatio; the Second scholasticism movement and legal humanism; the protestant reform: individualism and modern state; from the notion of status to the notion of contract; law as synonime of statute law and expression of sovereign power; codifications in the ancién regime throughout the French revolution; the Enlightenment and the modern criminal law genesis: Cesare Beccaria and the “Leopoldina”; the relationship between law and revolution according to Santi Romano’s thought; the revolutionary legislation and the emergence of a proprietary anthropology; the Napoleonic Code: Portalis and the Discours preliminaire; the Napoleonic Code: his structure and contents; the École de l’ exégèse in France; his ‘fortune’ in Italy; the Exégèse as dominant legal doctrine and compulsory interpretation method in a state-centric perspective; reactions against codification in Europe: legal romanticism and Savigny’s school; the Italian codification: the 1865 civil law code and the 1889 criminal law code; commercial law and its authonomy from civil law; the turning-point in the late XIX century italian legal doctrine: the influence of german Pandectist movement; an abandoned path: the legal socialism; towards the XX century: a new codification or a new law?; the German BGB (1900) and the Swiss Code (1907): from the legal formalism to the legal realism; the decline of the XIX century liberal model: the first world war as a no turning back point in the history of european law;
Special part:
The current year investigation will focus on the anti-individualistic legal movements in France ( François Gény, Raymond Saleilles, Léon Duguit, Georges Ripert etc.) and on the law in totalitarian systems.