STORIA DEL DIRITTO

The course aims to provide students with a solid grounding in European legal history and the methodological tools necessary to identify patterns of continuity and rupture from the medieval period through to the modern and contemporary ages. By engaging with legal and historiographical sources, students will learn to critically analyze legal phenomena within their specific historical contexts and to assess their variations across different temporalities and geographies. This involves examining the political, social, and economic factors that underpin the formation of legal sources - be they legislative, jurisprudential, contractual, or doctrinal. By developing a refined understanding of these dynamics, students will strengthen their analytical and linguistic competencies, essential for both academic inquiry and professional practice.

Adequate english knowledge (B2 at least).

The course introduces students to the key themes and methodological approaches in European legal history over the longue durée, tracing the interrelation among the multiple components of legal culture: legal discourse, legislation, judicial systems, and legal practices. Applying knowledge and understanding: The students will be able to: - Analyze legal phenomena from a historical-legal point of view; - Develop a comparative legal history approach; - Be accustomed to concepts useful to understand in a better way current legal trends and changes (global and transnational law, pluralistic legal mind etc.) Making judgements: The student will be able to analyze in-depth legal phenomena developing a critical understanding The student will be able to reflect and to discuss legal-historical key concepts. Communications Skills: The student will understand major terms and concepts in order to communicate appropriately their ideas, proposals, analysis and critical reasoning in the field of legal history and legal culture. Learning skills: The student will have some critical tools to understand a bit better why and how contemporay societies are marked by legal issues.

Opening with the foundation of medieval universities, particular emphasis is placed on the Roman law textual tradition and the formation of the ius commune, the divergence between civil law and common law systems and the multiple trajectories of early modern legal scholarship. The course further examines the intellectual roots of legal modernity, the nineteenth century alternative between code and system, and the emergence of legal specialisms around the turn of the twentieth century. Throughout, it addresses the role of jurists and intellectual and institutional actors, the circulation of legal knowledge across national borders, and the migration of legal concepts across time and space.

Students attending lectures are required to study Antonio Padoa-Schioppa, A History of Law in Europe: From the Early Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2017, pp. 71 to 293, 342 to 616; António Manuel Hespanha, “Is There Place for a Separated Legal History?” Quaderni Fiorentini per la Storia del Pensiero Giuridico Moderno 48 (2019): 13–34; Cristina Vano, “Migrating Legal Texts: Notes on Interpretative Categories and Juridical Translations in the Nineteenth Century.” História do Direito 4, no. 7 (2023): 62-84. Additional or alternative materials and texts may be suggested during the course. Students not attending lectures are required to study Antonio Padoa-Schioppa, A History of Law in Europe: From the Early Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2017.

The course adopts a teaching method that emphasizes student participation and the creation of structured moments of discussion, with the aim of fostering autonomy in theoretical reasoning and improving oral communication skills. The topics will be addressed through selected texts—legal sources and historiographical literature—indicated by the professor, and developed through students’ interpretative contributions. Traditional lectures will be integrated with interdisciplinary seminar sessions.

For attending students: active engagement in lectures and discussions and a final oral examination assessing comprehension of course contents, acquisition of technical legal vocabulary, and the ability to critically interpret sources in legal history. For not attending students: oral examination evaluating understanding of course materials and the capacity to critically engage with legal-historical concepts. The following evaluation criteria will be taken into account to assign the final grade, expressed in thirtieths: - knowledge and understanding of the notions and concepts of the matter and ability to use them to build up a basic legal discusssion (75%); appropriate use of English as means of communication and legal vocabulary, ability to analyze and evaluate relevant sources and acquisition of the study method (25%).

The topic must be related to the themes addressed in the course or otherwise agreed upon with the professor