What is it about?
This chapter explores a claim made by Venetian lawyers in the Middle Ages and early Renaissance. These lawyers invoked a property category developed in ancient Rome to assert the sovereign independence of their city. In so doing, they placed the city's inhabitants collectively into the position of the individual property owner of antiquity who bore the relevant rights.
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Why is it important?
This claim represents a fascinating reworking of previous legal ideas and sheds light on the development of notions of corporate personhood. It demonstrates the importance centuries later of the legal system that emerged in ancient Rome, which remains foundational today.
Perspectives
It was a pleasure to contribute this chapter within a volume honoring a great scholar to whom I am deeply indebted. I hope that this chapter prompts people to think differently about a unique city and the ideas that have informed its governance, and to wonder what other ideas have influenced the histories of the world's intriguing spaces.
Charles Bartlett
University of Miami
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Roman Property, Corporate Personhood, and the Politics of Natural Law in Medieval and Early Renaissance Italy: Venice, Baldus, and the res communes omnium, October 2024, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004710696_005.
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