This volume is the result of a research lasting over ten years and gives - from the Italian context - an overview of the history of international relations based on comparative analysis of the genesis of European constitution and of political and institutional patterns in the eighteenth century. The research focuses on the debates and on events that accompanied the birth of the constitutions of Corsica (1755 and 1794), Tuscany (1778), USA (1787), France (1791, 1793, 1795) and of the Italian Republican period (1796-1799). The aim of the study is to demonstrate that Italian culture, and particularly in the Neapolitan context of the eighteenth century, was the basic process of creation of modern constitutionalism, founded on the primacy of written law and recognition of human rights. This culture, particularly the texts of Antonio Genovesi (1766) and Gaetano Filangieri (1780), played an important role in American, French and German constitutional debate. This research and thus the structure of the book is developed around some major themes of political and legal framework on which the men and the different constitutional experiences confronted themselves in an effort to define the modern constitutionalism. Among them: 1) the function of the legislator, his public image and the problem of the creation of a constituting power, 2) the changes in the Italian, French, German and English political lexicon, 3) the shape and the writing of constitutions as documents of a pedagogical nature and as a means of guaranteeing rights, 4) the changes of natural law and the intertwining of morality and law, including the right to happiness, 5) the political problem of recognition of rights and duties of man and the development of remedies for their protection, from the reform of criminal procedure to the invention of the judicial review. The book shows how these innovations were made possible even before the French Revolution of 1789 through a system of relations and international relations characterized not only by the system of alliances between states, but also by a broad movement of ideas, from the comparison of different constitutional systems and from the gradual emergence of a new culture. The modern constitutionalism developed thanks the birth of the modern sociability, the literary societies and the Masonic lodges, the use of new communication tools such as journals and popular literature. The results of this work documents that the Italian and European culture of the eighteenth century produce the political laboratory of modernity and the conditions to overcome the Old Regime and the emergence of a culture of good governance based on a new relationship between politics and law, and create a spirit inspired by principles of public accountability and participation in political decisions. The birth of modern public opinion sanctioned definitively this process: constitutions are cultural products, a political phenomenon and a response to the needs of the historical context, even before than technical solutions.

Storia del costituzionalismo italiano nell'età dei Lumi

TRAMPUS, Antonio
2009-01-01

Abstract

This volume is the result of a research lasting over ten years and gives - from the Italian context - an overview of the history of international relations based on comparative analysis of the genesis of European constitution and of political and institutional patterns in the eighteenth century. The research focuses on the debates and on events that accompanied the birth of the constitutions of Corsica (1755 and 1794), Tuscany (1778), USA (1787), France (1791, 1793, 1795) and of the Italian Republican period (1796-1799). The aim of the study is to demonstrate that Italian culture, and particularly in the Neapolitan context of the eighteenth century, was the basic process of creation of modern constitutionalism, founded on the primacy of written law and recognition of human rights. This culture, particularly the texts of Antonio Genovesi (1766) and Gaetano Filangieri (1780), played an important role in American, French and German constitutional debate. This research and thus the structure of the book is developed around some major themes of political and legal framework on which the men and the different constitutional experiences confronted themselves in an effort to define the modern constitutionalism. Among them: 1) the function of the legislator, his public image and the problem of the creation of a constituting power, 2) the changes in the Italian, French, German and English political lexicon, 3) the shape and the writing of constitutions as documents of a pedagogical nature and as a means of guaranteeing rights, 4) the changes of natural law and the intertwining of morality and law, including the right to happiness, 5) the political problem of recognition of rights and duties of man and the development of remedies for their protection, from the reform of criminal procedure to the invention of the judicial review. The book shows how these innovations were made possible even before the French Revolution of 1789 through a system of relations and international relations characterized not only by the system of alliances between states, but also by a broad movement of ideas, from the comparison of different constitutional systems and from the gradual emergence of a new culture. The modern constitutionalism developed thanks the birth of the modern sociability, the literary societies and the Masonic lodges, the use of new communication tools such as journals and popular literature. The results of this work documents that the Italian and European culture of the eighteenth century produce the political laboratory of modernity and the conditions to overcome the Old Regime and the emergence of a culture of good governance based on a new relationship between politics and law, and create a spirit inspired by principles of public accountability and participation in political decisions. The birth of modern public opinion sanctioned definitively this process: constitutions are cultural products, a political phenomenon and a response to the needs of the historical context, even before than technical solutions.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10278/21895
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