ROCCO, ARTURO. Jurist, born in Naples on 26 Dec. 1876, died in Rome on 1 Apr. 1942. He was professor of criminal law and criminal procedure law at the Universities of Urbino (1900–1902), Ferrara (1902–1907), Cagliari (1907–1909), Sassari (1909–1911), Siena (1911–1916), Naples (1916–1924), Milan (1924–1929), and Rome (1929–1942). Founder and director of the Higher School of Advanced Studies in Criminal Law at the University of Rome; president of the Commission and member of the ministerial committee for drafting the preliminary and final drafts of the penal code.
Rocco’s chief merit lies in having been the first in Italy to give criminal law scholarship, from the very outset of his inaugural lecture on criminal law and procedure delivered at the University of Sassari on 15 Jan. 1910, its essential character as a normative discipline—i.e., one that analyzes the norms and principles of positive law. This program may have remained more a declaration than a concrete achievement: following in the footsteps of German doctrine, Rocco developed in later and more substantial works (notably *L’oggetto del reato*) a conceptualism of distinctly German stamp, which at least partly justified the criticism, voiced by some, that his liberation from the natural-law perspective was only apparent. Nevertheless, his thought exerted a remarkably strong influence on Italian criminal-law scholarship for several decades.
Rocco’s legislative work faithfully reflects the themes of his scholarly output, to the point of almost merging with II. Hence the constant concern for “scientific rigor,” which, along with the minute casuistry it fostered, constitutes one of the principal defects of the current penal code.
Principal works: *Amnistia, indulto e grazia nel d. pen. rom.*, Turin 1899; *La riparazione alle vittime di errori giudiziari*, Naples 1905; *Tratt. della cosa giudicata come causa d’estinzione dell’azione penale*, Modena 1909; *Il problema e il metodo della scienza del d. pen.*, Milan 1910; *L’oggetto del reato e della tutela giuridica penale*, Turin 1913; *Lesioni di dir. pen.*, Rome 1930–34; *Le dottrine generali del dir. pen.*, ibid. 1934; *Scienza ital. e scienza tedesca del dir. pen.*, Turin 1936.