SCHUPFER, FRANCESCO. - Historian of law, b. at Chioggia on 5 Jan. 1833, d. at Rome on 8 Aug. 1925.
Directed towards legal studies by the milieu of Vienna, where he had followed his father, who had been transferred there to the Court of Cassation, S. enrolled at the University of Innsbruck (1850), then went to Heidelberg and again to Vienna, where he took his degree. After a period of advanced study at Göttingen (1858), he became a privatdozent at Padua (1860). Extraordinary professor at Innsbruck (1864), he returned to Padua for Roman Law (1866), Pertile (v.), who taught the History of Law there, and took part in local administrative struggles. The anticlerical tendency manifested on that occasion, together with his scholarly competence, led the government to invite him as a counterweight to the pontifical academics: he accepted the invitation and moved to Rome (1878). S. left a profound mark in the field of legal history; his work, uninterrupted for sixty-two years, lively and highly individual but uneven, reflects the influence of the Germanist school, whose conclusions he too often accepts, and seeks to demonstrate the general infiltration of Germanic customs into every part of Italy. Nevertheless, in many respects it remains fundamental even today, inaugurating, together with the contemporary works of Pertile and Del Giudice, modern historical research into Italian law.