AMMORTIZZAZIONE. - In current commercial language, this word has various meanings, all denoting the extinction, for the most part gradual, of a debt or of an annuity or pension and the like (in this sense it is used in CIC, can. 536 § 5); or the replacement, ordinarily gradual and progressive, of capital. In several senses the term ammortamento is more up to date.
In medieval language the word a. served to signify the transfer or holding of the ownership of real property in the hands of juridical persons or corporations, especially ecclesiastical ones, called manomorta (v.), insofar as such property was withdrawn from the exactions of princes and from free circulation, since its alienation was forbidden or rendered extremely difficult by law or by factual circumstances. Subsequently, the payment of the indemnity which princes imposed when authorizing the establishment of mortmain was called the price or right of a. Thus, opposed to mortmain laws were the laws of a., more or less just and legitimate with regard to the Church, according as they were promulgated and applied with the express or tacit consent of the competent ecclesiastical authority, or without II.
Later this right was imposed and collected by means of actual taxes of a. (or also mortmain taxes or duties), intended to compensate the treasury for the alleged damages caused by mortmain. Aentangelo da Langasco