PREOCCUPAZIONI CULTURALI E CONCEZIONE GIURIDICA IN GIANVINCENZO GRAVINA

Abstract

This essay examines the role taken on by Gianvincenzo Gravina in the cultural context of his times. So, a complex and eclectic character emerges, as he tried to find answers adequate to problems and to propose solutions to the cultural and social matters of a turmoiled period like the one Italy was living, with particular reference to the South of Italy, between the seventeenth and eighteenth century. The juridicial studies, which Gravina was strongly imbued with, were used to deepen both in theory and in practice, the contests of the new concept about knowledge which, on the one hand, had its origins in the classical culture, on the other took into consideration the theories of modern science, too. Gravina attributed a great importance to the study of Roman Law and, through it, also analysed history and language, but above all, the Calabrian philosopher suggested a reading of Roman Law that could be an example to the contemporary social and political world. This essay also deals with the forms of government studied by Gravina in which he, anticipating Montesquieu, reached the conclusion according to which the best form had to consider the substantial presence of jurists, seen among other things, as the members of the emerging middle classes, who could be in control of the same sovereign, able to avoid the danger of an authoritarian and tyrannical drift.