Retorica e diritto nelle opere dei Glossatori civilisti: i proemi allegorici

The rebirth of scientia iuris in the 12th Century, thanks to the Bologna law school, born of Irnerius’ teachings in the Digesto, did not eclipse the knowledge of rhetoric within the cultural heritage of the new doctores legum. On the contrary, they continued to treasure the ars rhetorica and had not yet developed the idea that legal science should not only be independent but completely self-sufficient and totally separate from the traditional literary-philosophical culture. The allegorical preambles we can read in Quaestiones de iuris subtilitatibus and in Anselmo dell’Orto’s Iuris civilis instrumentum, in Piacentino’s Summa Cum essem Mantuae or in Pillio da Medicina’s Summa cum essem Mutine, all works from the12th Century, are proof of the persistent links between iurisprudentia and artes liberales and of a tendency towards integration of different forms of knowledge, which would then be successfully combatted by Azo at Bologna in the early 13th Century.