Corsi di Studio del Dipartimento di Giurisprudenza

The educational targets of this course, as referred to the degree course in Global Law and Transnational Legal Studies, consist in: 1) providing students with the basic notions of Roman law, also with reference to the technical terminology connected to them, as a necessary basis for studying all law systems belonging to Roman law tradition; 2) introducing students to the understanding of law as a historical phenomenon subjected to modifications, that is to say, to diachronic evolution; 3) related to the target mentioned under 2): introducing students to the juridical reasoning (with a main reference to civil law area) through examining the develop of the institutes and of the systematic aspects of Roman law in the thoughts of the ancient jurists.

At the end of the course, students should be able to explain Roman law basic notions using the necessary technical terminology in a correct way; they should have acquired historical and juridical skills, so that they can explain the institutes of Roman law in their diachronic evolution; they should demonstrate to have understood and to be able to express precisely the steps and stages of the process of juridical reasoning referring to each institute and to the systematic aspects of Roman law.

This course offers a wide survey, with a both systematic and historical approach, of the Roman private and procedural law, hemphasising its development from the monarchic period until the Justinian age. Lectures will focus on the following thematic sectors: 

1) Roman Institutions;

2) law sources;

3) law of persons;

4) law of property;

5) law of obligations;

6) law of actions (civil procedure).

Please take into account that the law of inheritance and the European ius commune are excluded from this course (see under in the textbook section).

Front lectures, to be held according to the ordinary timetable.

Students are highly encouraged to attend lectures live, so that they can interact with the teacher and ask him each question that should arise from the lecture itself; furthermore, live attendance of lectures might hopefully help students to better understand the many technicalities of this subject-matter.

All students are strongly required to register both to the course and into the Moodle section, as this is needed to access to teaching materials and to receive emails regarding the course (e.g. regarding lectures, teaching material, exams, etc).

However, lectures do not replace studying of the textbook, as they will cover only the most relevant aspects of Roman law. 

Exams will be divided in two parts.

The first part will consist in a computer based text with multiple choice consisting in 20 (twenty) questions, to be answered in 20 minutes. Each right answer will receive 1 point.

A minimum of 12 (twelve) points will be needed in order to access to the second part of the exam, which will be only oral and consist in a question related to the content of the course.  

Please notice that part III, chap. 8 (law of inheritance) and part V as a whole of the above mentioned textbook are excluded from this course. Students are allowed to skip also pp. 172 (from the bottom)-180, pp. 308 (from the bottom)-314, pp. 317 (since line 8)-319 (up to mid page), pp. 348 (since line 5)-351 (except the last 5 lines), pp. 354-356. Teaching material regarding the Roman institutions as well as the law of actions (civil procedure) will be uploaded on the Moodle and considered as mandatory part of this course.