The volume offers both a general overview and selected details of Italian private law and its transition from early 20th century legal tradition to a modern legal system based on constitutional values and geared towards European integration.
Among the areas presented are family law, succession, legal persons, businesses and companies, property, contract, and tort. The volume takes into account not only the legislative system, starting from the 1942 Civil Code and highlighting the many and significant changes that have been made in the past six decades, but also the profound influence of case-law and legal scholarship.
The authors emphasise the eclectic but systematically solid foundations of Italian private law, which has been able to blend successfully the best of the diverse continental legal traditions and adapt itself to the ever growing pressure of EU legislation.
The volume is addressed to legal scholars, practitioners and students who wish to gain first hand knowledge of Italian private law in their research, professional or academic activity.
About the Author: Guido Alpa, FBA, is Professor of Civil Law at the University of Rome 'La Sapienza.' He is presently the Chairman of the Italian Law Society (Consiglio Nazionale Forense) and has been a member of numerous government committees on legislative reform. He is a member of European Civil Code Steering Committee and serves on the boards of a number of European law reform groups and commissions. He has authored or edited over one hundred books, case-books, treatises, and hand-books on practically all aspects of private law and many topics of legal theory. Among his latest publications is the Introduction to European Private Law (with Mads Andenas, Giuffrè 2006)
Vincenzo Zeno-Zencovich is Professor of Comparative Law in the University of Roma Tre. He has written extensively in the fields of European private law, torts, consumer law, media and ICT law. Among his latest publications is a book on freedom of expression (Il Mulino 2004) and commentaries on the Privacy Code (edited with F. Cardarelli and R. Sica, Giuffrè 2005) and digital television (edited with A. Frignani and E. Poddighe, Giuffrè 2006).
