A proposito di animo possidere

By discussing a recent Ferretti’s book (Animo possidere. Studisu ‘animus’ e ‘possessio’ nel pensiero giurisprudenziale classico, Torino,2017), this paper deals with the meaning and the role of animus inclassical Roman law of possession. Unlike Ferretti the authorargues that even before Paulus the animus was not a means topossess in the absence of a material availability of the thing andso a factor ‘externalʼ to the possession but an ‘internal’ elementof it. He also thinks that the animus possidendi took on different meanings according to the different concepts of possession inRoman law. Shortly: there were as many animi as possessiones.