GENERAL OBJECTIVES. The student is introduced to the study of the system of so-called sources of production and so-called sources of legal knowledge that developed from the origins of the city of Rome until Justinian’s death, then to the exegetical reading of some jurisprudential documents.
SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES. At the end of the course the student will have to demonstrate that he has acquired:
1) knowledge and ability to understand, i.e. that he, first of all, every act or fact from which, over a period of about thirteen centuries, the ius Romanorum was derived; then, of every ‘material’ which, by containing the norms themselves, allowed us to learn their forms and contents; finally, of the interpretative techniques and the argumentative method used by the Roman jurists in their activity as cavere, respondere and agere;
2) ability to apply knowledge and understanding, i.e. that he has known how to deal with the critical reading of juridical texts of the Roman era, grasping – with particular attention to the jurisprudential sources – the scientia and the consequent peritia aimed at adapting the complex of rules and principles was based to the different and ever-changing needs of the practice;
3) autonomy of judgment, i.e. that he has developed – through knowledge of the interpretative canons used by Roman jurists – maturity and independence of judgment in order to identify the exact meaning of an ancient text, to remove the authentic parts from the spurious ones, to reconstruct its organic structure and language;
4) communicative skills, i.e. that he has refined his dialectical and argumentative skills, in particular thanks to the assimilation of an appropriate legal vocabulary which is at the same time clear and linear, capable of transmitting the knowledge received even to those who are not experts in the subject;
5) learning ability, i.e. that he is able – through the investigation of the hermeneutical process adopted by the Roman prudentes – to move also in legal contexts different from those proposed within the course, so as to be able to deal with the examination of ancient sources different from those analyzed by the teacher, and the reading and analysis of contemporary jurisprudential texts.