CALISSE, CARLO. — Legal historian, born in Civitavecchia on 29 January 1859, died on 23 April 1945. Deputy, senator, and honorary president of the Council of State. He taught at the Universities of Siena, Pisa, and Rome. Opposing the Germanist tendency of Schupfer, he emphasized the primary importance of Roman law and canon law in the historical formation of Italian law. He pointed to the transformation of Lombard law through the work of the Church. A proponent of the study of common law, he understood it as the confluence of three fundamental elements: Roman law, canon law, and feudal law. Yet, in his view, the convergence of these elements to form common law did not occur until the fourteenth century. From general common law, he distinguished pontifical common law, which he regarded as a particular form of common law, determined in the States of the Church by the prevailing efficacy of canonical equity.
His studies on the History of Civitavecchia (1898, new ed. 1936), on the History of the Sicilian Parliament (1887), on the Prefetti di Vico (1887), his lucid Corso di Storia del diritto italiano (1891), Le fonti (new ed. 1930), his Corso di diritto ecclesiastico (1892), his research on landed property in the Roman territory in the early Middle Ages (1884), and his study devoted to the Usi civici in the province of Rome (1906) constitute his principal contributions to historical knowledge. A fervent Christian and admirer of the work of St. Catherine, to whom he was particularly devoted, he worked with passionate moderation to improve relations between the Church and the Italian State. In the land question, he upheld, both as a scholar and as a politician, the social function of property.