Today professor Skeel asked to help him for his next article about literature and Ialian law. We are already doing it by compiling our list of "Italian Fiction worth reading for Lawyers". So keep suggesting more titles, always with dates of first publication and date of birth and death of the authors.
In addiction, you can comment this post with the ideas you had about law by reading the Merchant of Venice, just to check if this piece of English literature can help also Italians to better understand law.
Manzoni: Dr. "Azzeccagarbugli"
Picture by Francesco Gonin, 1840 edition of Alessandro Manzoni's "I promessi sposi"
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5 commenti:
(I post again my comment here since it deals with MOV's connection to italian law)
I've been thinking about some good lessons that the MOV might have for italian law and I've found out 4 points:
1)Portia's decision gives us the chance to compare her reasoning with italian means of interpretation of law and contracts. As every good Private law professor teachs, interpretation is that complicate process to make a rule of law applicable and it's a duty any judge is called to comply with.
When a judge has to apply a rule of law, his complete duty is not only to give relevance to its literal meaning but to look at the whole system as well. And it's exactly what Portia (I think) did, as she refered to the "Laws of Venice".
2) What she didn't was an equal treatment of Antonio and Shylock. Her attitude was clearly "pro" Antonio. It would be in our system (and now in every legal system) a breach of impartiality and fairness that any judge has to respect (it's even in the Constitution,art.111)
3)As regards usurer interests, of course they are forbidden in italian civil code: interests in obligations cannot exceed a certain rate.
4)Finally "equity": it's not a usual mean for applying law or interpreting contracts in our system because it's provided as a "remaining mean" (in the sense that it's used only when expressly provided by rules of law, then when it's really necessary). Unlike our civil law system, Venice had a very peculiar legal framework. It had 3 main sources of law (as I learned during the course of "Storia del diritto medievale e moderno"): local statutes,customary law and EQUITY. So, maybe, that is why Shakespeare could set his play in Venice: equity was known and applied as it happened in London thanks to the Chancery Court.
Giulio Luciani
Today professor Skeel talked about the different uses of MOV and I'm referring especially to the second one, which underlines how MOV could be important to understand and to analyze the difficulties of cross-cultural exchange. About this aspect, I think that MOV could be useful to face the current problem of immigration in Italy. Infact, knowing the fundamental values and considering all the relevant aspects of a different culture is necessary to write and apply Italian law to foreign people in a proper way.
Good night!
Alessandra Simeoni
commento prova
Hi,
First of all I'd like to thank prof. Conte for the great opportunity he give us by organizing this course.I very appreciate the lecture about Shake spear's merchantof Venice. I never thought before that it deals with a lot of juridical problems (like the relation ship between law and equity , or the nature of obligations etc.).Now I understand the reasons why this play is one of the most studies by the law and literature moment. I particular the character of Portia is interesting.In my opinion She represent justice as a good compromise between law and moral.
See you tomorrow
Lorenzo Librandi
Hi,
In my opinion Portia is a feminist. In Shakespeare’ day, women were marginalized. In fact, Portia, Nerissa and Jessica are subject to Father and husband. Within this social framework they can act for themselves, and do. Feminist and women’s rights ideas have some beginnings here; Portia’s helps ‘Bassanio to choose the casket, she is believed to be a man, admired, respected and welcomed as one. Only Jessica acts instead of talking when she runs away to marry Lorenzo, bringing him her Father’s jewels and money as her dowry. In the “ring” scene, equal rights for women are strongly expressed.
See you tomorrow
Lorenzo Librandi
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