"Law is not a theoretical science but an organic and natural process". A new perspective for the legal history in Italy during the 19th century

This paper is focused on the complex intermingling between “science” and “policy” that characterized the first steps of Italian legal history as an autonomous discipline. During the Risorgimento period, the legal rhetoric – focused on alleged historical unity of the Italian law – elaborated refined argumentative strategies in order to deny the image of a completely new state legislation imposed by the political authority, thus contributing to consolidate and legitimate the weak structure of the unitary State. Although this operation was permeated by considerable political motivations, this circumstance has not prevented the creation of a scientific “method” which led to the formation of an autonomous discipline, and to the creation of the so called critical school of Italian legal history. Consequently, the history of Italian law became an independent science.