RIVISTA DI DIRITTO ECCLESIASTICO ITALIANO. – Founded in 1890 by the lawyer Serafino Giustiniani at the beginning of a new historical phase in relations between Church and State in Italy.
The Risorgimento legislation concerning ecclesiastical matters had by then completed its entire evolutionary cycle, and the slow movement that was to lead to the new settlement subsequently established by the Concordat of 1920 was already beginning to take shape. Even before this established new connections between the canonical legal order and that of the State, when the new canonical legislation and the reform of the Roman Curia had forced themselves upon the attention of the world, the R. di d. e. i., through the work of Prof. Mons. Cesare Badri, who directed it for many years together with the lawyer Michele Zacchi, introduced among its sections one devoted to canonical jurisprudence and legislation and to their commentary.
In 1908 the R. di d. e. i. assumed the title it still retains, Il diritto ecclesiastico, without changing its scholarly and practical orientation; it welcomed the contributions of the most distinguished scholars, of every tendency, while maintaining substantial adherence and fidelity to Catholic thought. Today (1952), published by the firm A. Giuffrè in quarterly issues, it is directed by Professors D'Avack, Petroncelli, and Scavo Lombardo, with the collaboration of almost all scholars of the subject, ecclesiastical and lay, Italian and foreign. Ermanno Graziani