Salvatore Riccobono tra il ‘genio di Roma’ e il fascismo. Parte I

Riccobono’s studies on Roman private law and its evolution fed the fascist myth of ‘romanità’ on which Mussolini founded his culture of consensus. Riccobono thus contributed to building and to strengthening the regime’s ideology by providing a scientific basis for its legal culture. He validated the idea that the law of fascist Italy was directly linked to the tradition of ancient Roman law as contained in Justinian’s Corpus iuris ciuilis, which was not contaminated by elements of Eastern juridical customs and always preserved its Roman character even after being permeated by Christian ethics.