The Italian statutory legislation: manuscript tradition and methodological specificities (XIIth to XIVth century)

• Grant number: 13/07721-5
• Support type: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Master's degree
• Effective date (Start): January 03, 2014
• Effective date (End): July 02, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - Ancient and Medieval History
• Principal researcher: Marcelo Cândido da Silva
• Grantee: Edward Dettmam Loss
• Supervisor abroad: Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli
• Home Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Research place: Università di Bologna, Italy
• Associated to the scholarship: 12/16475-5 - The role of Embassies in the Italian communal statutory legislation and in the Cronicle of Salimbene of Adam (XIIth- XIVth centuries), BP.MS

Abstract

Fruit of an initiative of written sistematization of legal procedures, policies of public affairs and local customs, the Italian communal statutes are known as one of greatest innovations introduced by the northern cities of the Italian Peninsula during the so called Communal Age, from the XIIth to XIVth centuries. These texts of extraordinary thematic variety were an almost exclusive research object of legal professionals and jurists during the XIXth and the biggest part of the XXth century, raising the interest of historians in general in the last few decades, when Political History regained its prestige. Even though it is possible to perceive a renewed interest in this type of documentation lately, the Italian communal statutes are in their majority still unpublished. The small number of editions that do exist neglect important aspects of the manuscripts, such as the presence of images, textual interventions and glosses. In regard to the specificities of this type of source, its massive use by jurists and legal specialists still marks the treatment of the statutes as a medieval equivalent to the modern national constitutions. A methodological position that has been intensely debated by Italian statutory Law specialists lately. Therefore, this internship project aims to increase our knowledge of this specific type of documentation, through visiting the archives in which the manuscripts of the Italian statutory legislation are located; participating in study groups composed by specialists in this type of source and through the contact with specific methodologies of work with the statutes in specialized libraries and law study centers that exist in Bologna. (AU)