SCHUPPER, FRANCESCO. - Legal historian, born in Chioggia on 5 January 1833, died in Rome on 8 August 1925.
Guided towards legal studies by the environment of Vienna, where he had followed his father, who had moved there to work at the Court of Cassation, Schupper enrolled at the University of Innsbruck (1850), then went on to Heidelberg and later to Vienna, where he graduated. After a period of advanced study in Göttingen (1858), he became a *libero docente* in Padua (1860). He was appointed associate professor in Innsbruck (1864), returned to Padua to teach Roman Law (1866), and soon found himself in conflict with the Party (v.) that taught the History of Law there, participating in local administrative struggles. The anticlerical stance he displayed on that occasion, combined with his scholarly competence, led the government to invite him to counter the pontifical academics: he accepted and moved to Rome (1878). Schupper left a deep mark in the field of legal history; his work, uninterrupted for sixty-two years, vigorous and highly personal though uneven, bears the influence of the Germanist school, whose conclusions he too often accepted, and aims to demonstrate the general infiltration of Germanic customs into every part of Italy. Nevertheless, it remains fundamental in many respects even today, initiating with the contemporary works of the Party and Del Giudice the modern historical research into Italian law.