CARUSI, Evaristo. — Eminent Romanist and Orientalist, advocate of the Roman Rota, born at Celano (Abruzzo) on 21 March 1866, died in Rome on 13 April 1940.
A pupil of Vittorio Scialoja, he graduated in law in 1888 and made his debut the following year with an extensive and profound study on *L'azione publiciana in diritto romano* (Rome 1889). He continued his studies in Roman law until 1907, when he turned to the study of Muslim law and the Mediterranean Oriental laws, engaging in lively controversies with distinguished Orientalist philologists (cf. especially his volume *Diritto e filologia* [Bologna 1925]). He taught Roman law at the University of Innsbruck (1894), then at those of Perugia (1896) and Cagliari (1898).
In 1898 he resigned from teaching at state universities to take up the chair of Roman law at the Pontifical Athenaeum of the Apollinare, now the Pontifical Institute *Utriusque Iuris*. In 1920, by reason of his eminence, he was appointed full professor of Mediterranean Oriental laws at the University of Rome, where he also taught Muslim law and common law until 1936, when he retired due to age limits. From 1931 he had resumed teaching common law at the Pontifical Lateran Athenaeum, a position he held until his death.