Early Italian Scholars of Ius Gentium

Between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries several issues led jurists to rethink the international legal order established in the Roman Empire and the Early Middle Ages. The first was the need to update the list of the law of nations legitimate subjects after the birth of the commune that had not been accounted for in Roman-law sources. The second was to recreate a superior and universally shared set of ‘public’ law rules for international relations to counteract the tendency of communal and monarchical governments to consider the law inter gentes as a form of internal law. In order to address this issue Bartolus of Sassoferrato adapted the Roman category of ius gentium to the features of the medieval geopolitical context. Other topics focused on defining the enemy, freedom of peoples, and treaties among unequal subjects, while the theory of ius gentium of Alberico Gentili was fully rooted in the medieval and early modern legal tradition.

La ricerca verte su temi e questioni di diritto internazionale affrontati dai giuristi italiani tra medioevo e età moderna, a partire dalla tradizione altomedievale, fino alla fondazione del ius gentium come disciplina autonoma da parte di Alberico Gentili. I temi della guerra, della pace e dei trattati internazionali sono analizzati attraverso i frammenti dell'interpretazione del diritto romano, i consilia e i trattati.