11/12/2023 – Paola Chiarella, Genealogia dell’uomo contemporaneo: la letteratura antropologica di Italo Calvino. [Genealogy of contemporary man: the anthropological literature of Italo Calvino]
Italo Calvino explores the central themes of his time during the Cold War, which relate to modern man’s peculiar characteristics. Through an epic narrative, philosophical and existential questions are presented magically, while the problems are real and present. With his protagonists from previous eras, Italo Calvino shows something crucial about contemporary man, his neuroses, and his existential problems that are highly dependent on social bonds and legal claims.
26/06/2023 – Mariateresa Carbone,Una lex regia sulla verberatio parentis. Il contributo interpretativo delle fonti letterarie [A lex regia on the verberatio parentis. The interpretative contribution of the literary sources]
Festo’s work (De verborum significatu) refers, under the voice plorare, to the content of a lex regia at the basis of which the king Servio Tullio would have been punished with the sacertas, following the parent’s ploratio, the guy guilty of having lashed the parent. The truth about this disposition considered its extreme dating, is confirmed by numerous textual references, conserved in literary sources, that allow, in some cases, the clarification of interpretative doubts on the constitutive elements of the criminal case in point.
24/05/2023 – Paola Chiarella, Sul curioso paradosso di Bernard Mandeville: vizi privati, pubblici benefici [On the curious paradox of Bernard Mandeville: private vices, public benefits]
The fable of the bees by Bernand de Mandeville is a satirical poem in which vice is praised for its function in achieving economic, social, and moral prosperity. The large commercial companies of the modern era are forced to abandon the nostalgic references to the golden age in which simplicity, frugality, and individual virtues contributed to the collective well-being. The proliferation of needs and diffusion of vices guide economic and political action that prefers to observe men as they are rather than as they should be.
24/05/2023 – Giovanni Bombelli, Sulle fonti di ispirazione del giurista tra politica e diritto. Incursioni in narrazioni “altre” [On the Sources of Inspiration of the Jurist between Politics and Law. Insights in “other” narratives]
The paper focuses on the wide range of sources of inspiration underlying the work of the jurist between politics and law. Starting from the relevant role played by literature within the legal dimension, which has been put in light by the so-called orientation Law and Literature, the analysis deals with the reference to “other” narratives through some examples related to the modernity as well as to the recent and contemporary scenario. Concerning the first one, the ambiguity of Hobbes’ legal-political perspective paradigmatically emerges in order to understand the implementation of the modern political-legal model. In the same way, the current scenario is deepened both in light of some obscure or contradictory aspects of the National Socialism and of some aspects concerning the “case Dugin” closely connected to the conflict Russia-Ukraina. In conclusion, the contribution focuses on the modern conceptual architecture of the political-legal sphere: moving from the relevant role played by “other” narratives, it allows the rethinking of some fundamental legal categories dating back to the origins of modernity.
11/05/2023 – Alberto Scerbo, L’ultima Thule: un viaggio verso il fondamento del diritto [The last Thule: a journey towards the roots of the law]
The mythical geographical place of the last Thule has been reinterpreted in modern times from a nationalist perspective and, with the contribution of theosophy and occultist thought, has landed in the twentieth century to support the theses of the Aryan myth. The revival of the sources of antiquity makes it possible to reconstruct its authentic meaning and to glimpse in it an openness to otherness and the transcendent, indispensable conditions for the recovery of the foundation of law.
11/04/2023 – Rosa Palavera, La montagna e il diritto. Una lettura dell’archetipo tra scaturigine e conseguimento [The Mountain and the Law. A reading of the archetype between source and achievement]
Starting from the archetypal dimensions of the mountain and the law, the paper aims at a cursory review of the thematic areas of intersection, identifying five possible pathways. The mountain landscape, overcoming liquid law. The mountain border, overcoming horizontal law. The mountain experience, overcoming symmetrical law. The mountain identity, overcoming instantaneous law. The mountain narrative, overcoming cost-effective law. A path is traced to a complementary vision of justice: based on silence, hope, needs, patience and exertion. In conclusion, looking at the many declinations of the mountain view on the law, the archetype is recognized as a fruitful research method, and a collector of inspirations for the jurist. A way, above all, to mutual recognition in the common humanity: shared achievement, but also a source of possibilities.
11/04/2023 – Francesco Serpico, Il processo. La storia. La memoria. Note su «La sentenza» di Giacomo Manzoni (1960) [Trial. History. Memory. Notes on La sentenza by Giacomo Manzoni (1960)]
Traditionally categorized as one of the first examples of musical theatre of the avant-garde post-Weber era in Italy, La sentenza by Giacomo Manzoni (1960) represents a characteristic demonstration of the path taken by the Milan composer to explore the thematic traditions of law and justice systems through research and experimental music. The interpretation taken from Foucault’s material – the idea of heterotopia seen as “another space” that suspends, neutralizes or inverts the relationship that it depicts – endeavouring to analyze some aspects of the opera’s musical dramaturgy by aiming to highlight the complex plot that connects the plurality of individual narratives to the “monopolistic truth” of the law and its foundation. The backdrop of La sentenza expressed the common need of an entire generation to leave behind the horrors of the Second World War and attribute an equal meaning to the anxiety of political renewal and democratic participation which began with the new constitutional order.
11/04/2023 – Maria Ausilia Simonelli, La concezione relativistica della devianza e della criminalità. Un racconto di Italo Calvino [The relativistic conception of deviance and criminality. A story by Italo Calvino]
In her paper, the Author takes a cue from a youthful story by Italo Calvino to illustrate the relativistic nature of the concepts of deviance and criminality: that is, there are no acts and behaviors considered deviant or criminal at all times and in all societies. Retracing classical and modern literature, the Author links the elaboration of these concepts to a social construction of them, in the sense that the societies themselves define what is deviant and what is not.
11/04/2023 – Cecilia Pedrazza Gorlero, Trasfigurazione storica ed esemplarità utopica ne L’Ile des Pingouins (1908) di Anatole France [Historical transfiguration and utopian exemplarity in L’Ile des Pingouins (1908) by Anatole France]
L’Ile des Pingouins is a singular diachronic utopia, created by the syncretic genius of Anatole France. A portrait of human nature, the novel illustrates the many adventures of the inhabitants of Pingouinie, from the medieval origins to the present day. Mistaken for men, and by mistake baptised by an almost blind monk, the penguins are transformed into men by divine decision to make up for the fatal error and to return the placid birds to the order of Creation. But once endowed with a soul and transformed into men, the penguins become aware of good and evil. The penguin society thus becomes a mirror of the vices and virtues of human society at all times: a compelling and irreverent portrait of a ‘never-ending story’.
28/03/2023 – Maria Novella Campagnoli, “Il destino di Gaetano”. Suggestioni narrative in tema di odio digitale [“Gaetano’s Destiny”. Narrative suggestions on the subject of digital hate]
Despite being a decidedly long-standing and controversial phenomenon, in recent times, hate speech has reappeared forcefully in the limelight, also due to the increased virulence conferred on it by the encounter with the Internet and – in particular – with Social Networks. Hence the need to reflect again on the issue of hate speech, in order to outline its contours, to underline its peculiarities and to envisage possible prevention and contrast strategies.
28/03/2023 – Massimo Farina, Gli “anime” verso la pedagogia dei diritti e dei valori fondamentali [The “anime” towards the pedagogy of fundamental rights and values]
In the mid-1970s, just as the Italian Constitutional Court was affirming the legitimacy of private television stations for the first time, the monopolist state television (Rai) included in its programming the animation works of Japanese production better known under the denomination “anime” (アニメ). Strongly criticized in the period of their first programming, due to the contents, according to some, not suitable for children, “anime” were subsequently accepted by most, albeit mainly confined to the context of entertainment. This report, briefly retracing the most compelling plots of the anime revolution of the 70s, pursues the intention of stimulating some reflections on the contents of greatest interest to the jurist and which can be placed in the pedagogy of fundamental rights and values.
28/03/2023 – Nicole Leite Morais, “Be embraced, Millions!”: The Right to Fraternity, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony
Can a song fill a legal gap? Or, more specifically, can Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony guide the interpretation to the point of filling the gap in the right to fraternity in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen? It can be seen that Beethoven, when using the poem An die Freude, by Schiller, in the composition of the fourth movement of the Ninth Symphony, conveyed the message contained in Schiller’s verses, that all men are brothers, in direct reference to the object of the present research, namely, the right to fraternity. In this sense, considering the exaltation of fraternity through Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the central objective of this research, therefore, is to analyze the possibility of bridging the gap in the right to fraternity in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen through Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The research reveals that the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the Coral, can function not only as a work of art, but also as an instrument to address the right to fraternity as a symbol of unity between peoples.
28/03/2023 – Jessica Mazzuca, Women in Law. Un’eccezione alla regola. Il diritto negato di Lidia Poët, e non solo [Women in Law. An exception to the rule]
In the legal context, history, literature and art give us an opportunity to talk about the progress of women in the legal professions, their opposed entry, the difficulties of a correct meritocratic and non-discriminatory selection. While the debut of women judges has a precise date, the descent into the field in the forensic arena was more bumpy. The virulence invective of Valerio Massimo against the impudent Caia Afrania, the toga “denied” to Lidia Poët are some examples of an aspiration not shared, judged as an elusive utopia, fraught with dangers for the social order of those times.
28/03/2023 – Francesco Zini, Law and literature: il fondamento personalistico della storia del burattino Pinocchio di Carlo Lorenzini (Collodi) [Law and literature: the personalistic foundation of the story of the Pinocchio puppet by Carlo Lorenzini (Collodi)]
The novel “Le Avventure di Pinocchio” constitutes an unavoidable reference in the narrative of the formation of the modern Italian national state and an in-depth analysis of the political and legal philosophical plan makes it possible to bring out the essential characteristics of a personalistic foundation in the evolution of the narrative figure of the puppet Pinocchio. The birth and maturation of his personal history is intertwined with the convictions and biography of his author, prefiguring a novel of national education that lays the foundations for further reflection on Mazzini’s work on the duties of man.
20/03/2023 – Antonella Massaro, La “giustizia cinematografica”: un’alternativa al processo mediatico? [“Cinematographic Justice”: an Alternative to Trial by Media?]
The concept of “cinematographic justice” refers to films, not so numerous, that tell stories about criminal proceedings that are still in progress. These are films which, at least under certain conditions, can influence public opinion and, through it, the dynamics of the proceedings. Although there are critical points, starting from the presumption of innocence, the impression is that the “elegance” of the cinema can be a partial alternative to the noisy mobilization of public opinion through the trial by media, especially in those cases where the distance between Law and Justice becomes macroscopic and intolerable.
20/03/2023 – Mario Riberi, L’eredità dei giusti. Falcone, il tempo sospeso del volo di Nicola Sani e Falcone e Borsellino di Marco Tutino [The Legacy of the Good Men. Falcone, il tempo sospeso del volo by Nicola Sani and Falcone e Borsellino by Marco Tutino]
The essay examines two recent operatic works: Falcone e Borsellino. L’eredità dei giusti by Marco Tutino and Falcone, il tempo sospeso del volo by Nicola Sani. These operas represent two different examples of a “musical theatre of memory” that, bringing on stage two protagonists of Italian history, interrogate the audience about the legacy left by these two pivotal figures, who paid with their life their desire of justice.
20/03/2023 – Salvatore Prisco, La guerra, la pace, il compito del giurista. Voci dalla grande letteratura russa dell’Ottocento [War, peace and the role of the jurist. Voices from the great Russian literature of the 19th century]
The essay identifies in the opposite attitude of the main characters of Dostoevskij’s The legend of the Grand Inquisitor the models of realism and utopianism respectively in the relationship between man and power. It brings back into this scheme the opposing positions of Schmitt and Kelsen related to international law in the years following the First World War, identifying the task of the democratic jurist, after the end of the Second World War, in the research and construction of institutions and stages in order to progressively approach, in a solid and concrete way, the goal of global peace looking at the principles without rhetoric and without any illusion of an easy and definitive implementation.
20/03/2023 – Orlando Roselli, Humanities e l’interrogativo di cosa si intenda per diritto. L’orizzonte del giurista oltre la ‘parzialità’ del diritto positive [Humanities and the question of what is meant by law. The horizon of the jurist beyond the “partiality” of positive law]
The meritorious IX National Conference of ISLL, through the specific view of narrative dimensions, stimulates a reflection on what should be understood by “law”: such a not surprisingly “recurring” question (Hart) is constantly reiterated with reference to various historical periods and different latitudes. In its “different perspectives”, the Law and Humanities binomial goes far beyond a mere cultural exercise: it compels us to reflect on the multifaceted variability and mutability of the constitutive factors of the “legal dimension” (syntagma dear to Paolo Grossi), which go beyond the sole provisions’ implementation. The varied artistic and narrative manifestations represent instruments to understand the human condition with which the law must relate. Multidisciplinarity and attention to artistic expression are a must for a contemporary jurist. The jurist can only be a Siddhartha, a seeker (Hesse) who is not afraid to discover uncharted lands and can sail bravely through the sea storm of unsatisfied orderly needs.
20/03/2023 – Simone Scagliarini, La fantascienza al servizio del diritto: l’esperienza del Red Team [Science Fiction in the service of the Law: the experience of the Red Team]
The contribution of literature and of the overall field of the humanities is functional to jurists not only in order to interpret the law, but also in its planning and drafting phase. The reflection on legal drafting and on the stakeholders’ participation in the elaboration of public policies and regulatory acts has long been mature, but, so far, it has neglected the opportunity of gathering inputs from actors engaged in these sectors, even outside the disciplines in which they are directly concerned. Especially interesting, in this connection, is the contribution that science fiction can provide, in a society characterized by swift technological developments and in which artificial intelligence is extending its possible applications to every area of activity. And indeed, science fiction often allows to imagine future scenarios that should be considered on time. Very significant, in this perspective, is the French government’s experience that, through the Red Team project, involved writers, screenwriters and science fiction designers for the elaboration of military policy for the next decades. An example that could well also be used in other contexts of legislative drafting, where the contribution of the arts could be useful not only in the moment of application of the law, to define the terms of the scenarios in which the operator carries out his activity, but also in the initial stage of the law.
20/03/2023 – Giovanni Rossi, Storie esemplari ed istruttive nelle Intercenali di Leon Battista Alberti, tra letteratura e diritto [Exemplary and instructive stories in Leon Battista Alberti’s Intercenals, between literature and law]
Leon Battista Alberti in the Intercenales makes original and creative use of the Aesopic model and proposes, between the serious and the facetious, stories that contain a political moral and offer the reader some reflections on the rules for running the state. The narration of the vicissitudes of a variegated bestiary, anthropomorphic in its passions and weaknesses, offers us a penetrating glimpse into the internal dynamics of the civitas, the use of power and the mechanisms that determine the succession of political regimes. In this context, laws must remain unchanged, to ensure the preservation of tradition against the temptation to innovate without criteria and with often disastrous results. Thus, some principles of a philosophical matrix emerge from Alberti’s histories, ready to be translated into positive laws, in the conviction that law can give order and stability to the restless and conflicting becoming of social relations, with a view to achieving the common good of the res publica.
14/03/2023 – Giovanna Stanzione, La donna tra rappresentanza e rappresentazione nel diritto e nell’arte [Women in art and law: image and representation].
This paper investigates the normative role that the artistic, social, and literary representation of women has had on the juridical concept of female representation. The paper highlights a fil rouge that links all the different topics covered: Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality, the poetic controversies between the poet Ecouchard Lebrun and the poetess Constance De Salm, the ban on women from representing the nude in fine arts academies, the exclusion of women from the legal professions, the elaboration of the Italian legal category of infirmitas sexus, the meaningful history of the creative constitutional process of the art. 51 cost. it.
13/03/2023 – Stefano Guerra, Sirio Zolea, Berlin Alexanderplatz: paradigma narrativo della crisi costituzionale di Weimar [Berlin Alexanderplatz: narrative paradigm of the constitutional crisis of Weimar].
Berlin Alexanderplatz deeply reveals the landscape of the human society from where this novel originates, with its anxieties, ambitions and deceptions, but, at the same time, it expresses universal contents, capable of surviving its own time and becoming an admonishment for the next generations and a source of inspiration for the jurists of our time. Our paper explores the relationship between social crisis and constitutional crisis of Weimar, scrutinizing narration and law on the trail of Döblin and highlighting how the literary legacy of this author shows all its newness in the current time of accelerated transformations, encouraging the interpretative sensibility of the jurist in the direction of an aware defense of constitutional solidarity as an antidote to the new threat of an imminent barbarity.
13/03/2023 – Roberto Bartoli, L’arte come ispirazione del limite per il giurista [Art as the inspiration of the limit for the jurist].
Law, above all criminal law, needs limits and art, above all that which deals directly with law (but perhaps it would be better to say with justice), through its unveiling force through contemplation educates to the awareness and sensitivity of this need for limit, helping to forge the ethics of jurists.
13/03/2023 – Elena Di Maria, Tra diritto e narrazione. Peruonto e La Palomma ne Lo cunto de li cunti di Basile [Between Law and Narrative.Peruonto e La palomma in Lo cunto de li cunti by Basile].
This paper aims to investigate the relations between legal and literary word, starting from Lo cunto de li cunti (The Tale of Tales) by Giambattista Basile, a popular collection of fairy tales, short stories, eclogues, and songs, written in Neapolitan dialect of the seventeenth century. The ambition is especially to approach the relevance of “magic word” in narrative and legal discourse, exploring the iastemma (curse) working as a law sanction in two short stories: Peruonto and La palomma.
13/03/2023 – Emil Mazzoleni, Le radici giuridiche della fiaba popolare [The Legal Roots of Folktale].
The analysis of normative representations in literary texts is one of the main lines of the studies in the context of the relationship between Law and Literature. In this area of research, the folktale is certainly one of the richest narrative forms for the original legal motifs, precisely because of its historical origins in the oral tradition. Over the centuries the folktale has consequently become a pedagogical model of legal communication, assuming the social function of transmitting to the new generations the founding rules of civil living. In this sense, the possible legal canons in the folktales are not just fantastic elements, but also real folkloric rules and, specifically, a historical legacy of realistic normative phenomena (both substantive and procedural). The purpose of this paper is therefore to show how the folktales collected by the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm can be interpreted as a hermeneutic guide to modern Law.
06/03/2023 – Alessandra Valastro, Diritto e letteratura autobiografica: un infinito tornare a «esperienza giuridica» [Law and autobiographical literature: an infinite return to «legal experience»].
The essay reflects on the relationship between law and a particular field of literature, the autobiographical one, to investigate its long-neglected links. Moving fromg the theory of Capograssi on «legal experience», the core content of the essay is that there is a physiological relationship between legal reflection and the narration of experiences, and that today the ability to open up to the autobiographical perspective is one of the main opportunities for legal credibility. Indeed, in autobiographical literature, law and life are forced to dialogue, especially when the autobiographical register is used by scholars, and the questions that emerge recall the more delicate issues that underlie contemporary legal thought and constitutionalism. Autobiographical literature can bring the law back to its most authentic being, that is “legal experience”. By emancipating the story of experiences from the private dimension and turning it into public reasoning, it offers precious horizons for verifying the state of health of democracy and its rules.
06/03/2023 – Marcilio Toscano Franca Filho, Guerra, musica, pace e diritto internazionale. Un saggio sul potere delle sonorità [War, Music Peace and International Law].
Volodymyr Zelensky delivered a speech during the Grammy Award 2022, in which he said that the war in Ukraine had brought a horrible silence of death. War, however, is not just silence. War has a sound. And it’s not just the sound of bombs, the screams, the anti-aircraft sirens or the shots. There are also martial hymns, trumpets, drums, the cadence of the march, and battle chants that encourage troops and frighten enemies. This has been the tragic, thunderous melody of war for many centuries. The article explores the sounds and silences of war, not just in Ukraine, and speculates on the role of music in peacemaking, peacekeeping, peacebuilding and peace enforcement processes.
01/03/2023 – Roberto Garetto, Violetta, l’eroina carnascialesca che abbatté il tiranno in nome di un superiore diritto naturale [Violetta, the carnival heroine who brought down the tyrant in the name of a higher natural right].
Violetta is the central character of the centuries-old tradition of the ‘historic’ Carnival of Ivrea. The origin of the legend that features her as a protagonist is subsequent to the French revolutionary and Napoleonic additions that have been documented in written form since 1808 and that enriched the previous carnival celebrations in Ivrea. It was only in 1858 that the ‘Canzone del Carnovale’ was composed by Ferdinando Bosio, celebrating the exploits of the ‘daughter of a miller’. In a romantic atmosphere that mixes patriotism and neo-Gothic aesthetics Violetta, as a new Antigone, claims justice before the law, rejecting the exercise of a ius primae noctis that is referred to with prudery rather than historical rigour. Yet Violetta as well embodies the conflict between natural law and positive law. Conflict resolved in favour of the former, with the violent death of the tyrant and the celebration of the popular heroine who, like Judith, shrewdly annihilates him. If any moral concerns about the violent gesture are averted by the implicit but clear biblical citation, coherence with the spirit of the Italian Risorgimento is guaranteed by the libertarian expectations of Violetta’s action, indebted – also in symbolic terms – to the Jacobin tradition of the Piedmont area.
01/03/2023 – M. Paola Mittica, Davanti all’Altro. Ancora su diritto e pudore [In front of the Other. Again on Law and modesty].
Law and rights have their roots in the Otherness. Modesty (as pudor) is the revelatory feeling of the authentic encounter with the Other. Modesty is a form of subtraction in “relating to” so that an openness to the Other can be maintained: it is a resource of relationship since it implies mutual measuring and respect. Only in the open distance from Otherness the respect for the Other and responsibility for the Other can exist, as a duty guided by compassion in the horizon of the possible being-in-common. Due to the impoverishment of relationality caused by the new digital media, the notion of modesty must be recovered, and in this perspective literary and humanistic cultures assume a central value. We invite, therefore, the reading of Silvio D’Arzo’s short story, Casa d’altri, which allows us to penetrate the feeling of modesty and understand its significance. As we shall see, in the increasing relationship between the two protagonists, the compassion as closeness, even in the permanence of their difference, and the feeling of responsibility for the Other allow the emergence of the measure of a silent justice.
01/03/2023 – Gustavo Adolfo Nobile Mattei, Eliseo Danza. L’immaginario creativo di un giurista barocco [Eliseo Danza. The creative imagination of a baroque jurist].
Usually, Law and Literature studies focus on the presence of legal elements in literary invention. In this contribution, we intend to reverse this perspective by taking the literary datum present in the legal work as the object of observation. Before legal positivism technicalised the discipline, jurists did not disdain spicing up their writings with elements taken from theatre, poetry and stories. Eliseo Danza, a famous jurist of viceregal Naples, reflected in his writings the antiquarian and anecdotal taste typical of his era. In De pugna doctorum, before distinguishing the actio de pauperie from crimen homicidii, he dwells on certain legends featuring dragons and basilisk.
27/02/2023 – Alessandro Campo, Literature as law. Un accostamento istituzionalistico-letterario dal “mezzo” [Literature as law. A literary-institutionalist approach from the “middle”].
The link between law and literature can be addressed from different perspectives. In this paper, I analyze the link from a specific point of view, attempting to argue how the two forms of knowledge behave similarly with respect to their foundation. Law and literature, albeit differently from each other, proceed as if they were true or grounded. This “as if” is crucial. The paper reflects on the fact that it constitutes the non-avoidable outcome of an interrogation on the foundation carried out by the “middle” and analyses what consequences this “middle” produces in a philosophical-literary-legal-anthropological sense and leads in the direction of a “literary” institution of law.
27/02/2023 – Claudia Di Fonzo, Canone interpretativo e «dantismo giuridico» del Trecento: Pietro Alighieri, Alberico da Rosciate e Bartolo da Sassoferrato [Interpretive canon and “Legal Danteism” in the 14th century. Pietro Alighieri, Alberico da Rosciate and Bartolo da Sassoferrato].
The contribution is dedicated to that sector of the centuries-old commentary on Dante Alighieri’s Comedy entrusted to jurists and called juridical dantism. The interest of jurists for Dante has its roots in the very nature of his poetry which is of a doctrinal nature, an outcome of the legal, philosophical and theological debates of the time.
27/02/2023 – Vincenzo Ferrari, Un rapporto di servitù con mansioni promiscue. Rileggendo La Nomina del Cappellan di Carlo Porta [A servitude with promiscuous tasks. Re-reading Carlo Porta’s La nomina del cappellan (The chaplain’s appointment)].
According to Attilio Momigliano, Carlo Porta was the Milanese poet who collected together the legacies of the bosin, Lombardy’s traditional storytellers, but “elevated their soul and united their trends in a form of art incomparably higher than in the tired old tales”. As an admirable example of such art, La nomina del cappellan (The Chaplain’s Appointment, 1819) describes how a high-born Milanese lady takes a new domestic chaplain into her service. Always ironic and quite often very funny, this poem offers a devastating critique of the pompous, decaying nobility, as well as of the sad fate of priests in search of a “living” that would save them from misery. Both the environmental context and the characters, among others, offer abundant evidence of the legal conditions imposed in a typical master-and-servant relationship, the imbalance between concessions granted but reversible and non-negotiable, promiscuous duties of all kinds.
24/02/2023 – Paolo Ciocia, Contaminazioni e degrado del linguaggio giuridico: riflessi su principio di affidamento, certezza del diritto e partecipazione democratica [Contamination and degradation of legal language: reflections on the principle of trust, legal certainty and democratic participation].
The legal text must clearly communicate the legal rule. The ease of understanding of the rule by citizens is the condition for its effectiveness and legal certainty. The primary assumption of comprehensibility is the existence of a strong link with the matrix of common language. In Italy the legal language, for many reasons, is complex, imprecise, full of terms of other languages, increasingly distant from common language. A clear legal rule allows the citizen’s understanding, certainty and participation in democratic life.