ROCCO, ARTURO. – Jurist, born in Naples on 26 December 1876, died in Rome on 1 April 1942. He was professor of criminal law and criminal procedural law at the Universities of Urbino (1900–1902), Ferrara (1902–1907), Cagliari (1907–1909), Sassari (1909–11), Siena (1911–16), Naples (1916–24), Milan (1924–29), and Rome (1929–42). Founder and director of the 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 versions of the criminal code.
R.’s principal merit lies in having been the first in Italy to establish, from the outset of the lecture course in criminal law and procedure delivered at the University of Sassari on 15 January 1910, the essential character of criminal-law science as a normative discipline—that is, one that analyzes the norms and principles of positive law. This program probably remained more an enunciation than something translated into concrete results: following in the footsteps of German doctrine, R. in fact developed, in later and more substantial works (especially in L’oggetto del reato), a conceptualism of distinctly German character, which justified, at least in part, the criticisms directed at him by some, namely that his liberation from the natural-law perspective was merely apparent. In any case, his thought exerted an extraordinary influence on Italian criminal-law doctrine for several decades.
R.’s legislative work faithfully reflects the motives of his scholarly work, almost to the point of confusing the two. Hence that constant concern with “scientificity” which, together with the meticulous casuistry to which it led, undoubtedly constitutes one of the principal defects of the criminal code currently in force.
Principal works: Amnistia, indulto e grazia nel dir. pen. rom., Torino 1899; La riparazione alle vittime di errori giudiziari, Napoli 1905; Tratt. della cosa giudicata come causa d'estinz. dell'azione penale, Modena 1909; Il problema e il metodo della scienza del d. pen., Milano 1910; L'oggetto del reato e della tutela giuridica penale, Torino
1913; Lezioni di dir. pen., Roma 1930–34; Le dottrine generali del dir. pen., therein 1934; Scienza ital. e scienza tedesca del dir. pen., Torino 1936. Marcello Gallo