La costituzione delle differenze. Giusnaturalismo e codificazione del diritto civile nella Prussia del '700

The book goes through the philosophical and theoretical origins of private law codification in Prussia, which ends with the promulgation of the Allgemeines Landrechte für die Preußischen Staaten of 1794. The Prussian codification movement seems to be very interesting from the point of view of historiography: it shows the attempt to conjugate the universality of positive law, as an expression of the unity of the State, with the particularity of the different social-economic characteristics of the German status society at the end XVIIIth century. First of all the Author analyses the origins of this movement in the practical philosophy of Ch. Wolff, father of the preussisches Neturrecht. Wolff works out a theory of society and civil relationships based on the concept of status: he identifies rights and duties of individuals starting from their particular actions fields within the society, working for common purpose. Wolff’s work underlines, therefore, the persisting in the German XVIIIth century of the influence of Aristotelian social philosophy, throughout the typical mathematic method of modern Jurisprudence. The Author then, analyses the revision of juridical and political Wolffian’s philosophy within his School (Darjes, Nettelblad, Svarez, Klein): here the Aristotelian tradition is joined together with the principles of modern natural Law (Hobbes and Pufendorf), and with the concept of sovereignty: the particularity or the rights and duties, which belongs to every personal status, becomes a product of the sovereign’s will, in which everybody recognises his owns. This assumption opens to a new conception of civil order, in which the universality of law integrates with the particularity of personal conditions. The movement for civil rights carried out by German Enlightment before French Revolution, doesn’t involve the suppression of the ancient status society, but his integration within the administration of the State. Another chapter of the book deals with the transformations of roman law tradition in the XVIIIth century, which gave to the scientia iuris civilis his basic categories. The roman law tradition contributes in particular to create the normative instruments for the realization of this social and political project. In the last chapter the Author analyses the structure of the Allgemeines Landrecht für die Preußischen Staaten of 1794, showing how the principles of Preußisches Naturrecht became normative instruments and the differences between this code and the other European codification experiences