The Transformation of Eighteenth-Century Jus Gentium into Nineteenth- Century Law of Nations: An Italian Debate

This chapter surveys the nineteenth-century Italian debate on natural law through an analysis of the Venetian context and of the impact of the Venetian situation – after the death of the Republic (1797) – on the historical tradition of the law of nations as a political tool for legitimization of the European state system. The main argument is twofold: first, that in the Venetian Republic natural law was a tool supporting the role of the small state in the international system; second, that the disappearance of the Venetian Republic in the new post- Restoration European context transformed the use of natural law in university teaching and the very perception of natural law and the law of nations until it was reduced to an outdated source.