«Iurisconsultus principia iuris […] trahit a principiis naturae»: la riflessione sulla natura in Alberico da Rosate e Baldo degli Ubaldi

Several mediaeval jurists turned their attention not to natural law but to nature itself, addressing the tradition of classical and Christian philosophical and theological thought. We consulted the “entries” nature in the Dictionarium iuris of Alberico da Rosate (c. 1290-1360) and additio of Baldo degli Ubaldi in § Ius naturale (D.1,1,1,3), a famous passage by Ulpianus quoted at the beginning of the Digest. Two of the most prominent 14th-century jurists thus consciously expressed the widespread but unvoiced opinion of the doctores iuris of their time. As Alberico says, «Natura sumitur multis modis»; this makes it difficult to confine matter within the technical coordinates of law but gives great potential to the jurist’s work of creative interpretatio. Secondly, there emerges the awareness of the primary inevitable link between law and nature, since nature is able to create law and to shape the legal system as a whole: it is up to the jurist to recognise and appreciate this connection.