Roman Law

This textbook aims to be a “vademecum”, a companion in one of the most complex (and, not infrequently, scary, for students) disciplines that the first-year law student must study. The challenge involved in writing a textbook for students is therefore multiplied in terms of the subject matter.

The parts related to the historical framework, to the Law of the Twelve Tables, to the sources, to the legislative systematization of Justinian are exposed in extenso, precisely because their degree of complexity requires a deeper reading in order to be properly understood. Also, in terms of contracts, the paper deals with the extensive sales contract, one of the pillars of the development of trade relations and the Roman economy, summarizing the other contracts. All this, while keeping a subtle hope that first-year students will understand the character of the legal alphabet that Roman law has, without which the understanding of any other branch of law is difficult, without which the very normative gear of European Union law may seem a hard maze decipherable.

Although it is aimed primarily at first-year students, the textbook can be an aide-memoire for anyone in the law practice who wishes to deepen the origins of the continental legal system and the reasons behind the legal constructions that define it.