The revival of Romanistic scholarship between the 19th and 20th centuries as a «centralising force» in European legal history - The masterpieces of German Pandectist literature revised by Italian translators

This article analyses the connections between German and Italian scholars, as leading authorities of Roman law between the 19th and 20th centuries, by examining Italian translations of German Pandectist literature. It applies a comparative legal historical approach, in order to appreciate similarities and differences between these models. Particular attention is paid to the translation of Bernhard Windscheid’s Lehrbuch des Pandektenrechts carried out by Carlo Fadda and Paolo Emilio Bensa, as it significantly contributed to the development of a ‘General Part’ of Italian private law. Furthermore, their translation is compared to the one by Filippo Serafini of the Lehrbuch der Pandekten by Karl Ludwig Arndts. The analysis of the marginal notes in the translation by Fadda and Bensa on the matter of interpretation of Italian law and the relative tasks of the interpreter shows the influence that German Pandectist literature had on the way of conceiving the role of the Italian jurist in that time period.