ARCHEOLOGIA E DIRITTO ROMANO IN DIALOGO IL PRECEDENTE ALLA VILLA DEL GIURISTA: JOHANN JAKOB BACHOFEN (1815-1887) A VILLA PAMPHILJ

Abstract

Following his visit to Villa Doria Pamphilj and Rome, Bachofen reverses his perspective as a historian of Roman law: for him archaeological
finds and works of art acquire value not because they can be traced back to legal notions (such as those of res sanctae or di res religiosae) but
as symbols of primordial religions, to which law is closely connected in its historical genesis. The Romanistic legal subject is no longer a starting
point, but becomes the arrival point of ancient civilizations. Thus Bachofen is somehow forerunner of the modern method of multidisciplinary
research and socially and historically contextualizes the juridical phenomenon: it is symptomatic that this happens in Rome in an ancient villa he
visited, which makes him perceive the importance of direct knowledge of the materials for historical reconstruction, which up to that moment
had privileged legal and literary sources, as well as now the identification of the Villa dei Mucii Scaevolae on the Aniene river reproposes the
need for a multidisciplinary methodological approach (archaeological, architectural, artistic, epigraphic and papyrological, legal and jurisprudential)
to fully understand the ‘message’ that the clients of the Villa wanted represent and communicate.