SOLMI, ARRIGO. - Legal historian, b. at Finale Emilia on 27 Jan. 1873, d. at Rome on 5 March 1944.
A supporter of the sociological approach with a praised and debated youthful study on the Associations (1898), he then tackled, with the work on State and Church from Charlemagne to the Concordat of Worms, the problem of the medieval religious essence and of the relations between man and the State. His mastery of legal history was to become apparent with his Manuale di Storia del diritto italiano (1st ed. Milan 1907; 3rd ed. ibid. 1930): one of the most complete and concise surveys of the history of law in Italy. With the rediscovery of the Honorantiæ civitatis Papiae, to which he devoted a rich critical edition, he took up again the theme of the continuity of the ancient civil institutions in Italy, which, encouraged by the work of Mayer, led him to seek a reconciliation with the points of contrast in his youthful pages: to the approach of this second period belong various minor studies, the Discorsi sulla Storia d'Italia and the posthumous work on the Roman Senate. He founded and directed the Archivio storico della Svizzera italiana, was Minister of Justice and a senator of the Kingdom; he helped to initiate relations with the Vatican for the Lateran Agreements, of which he was the rapporteur in the Chamber in 1929. From his numerous political writings, even in their adherence to the approach of the period, the nationalist idea from which he came emerges in their structure. He worked on the drafting of the new Civil Code, which was brought to completion by Minister Grandi, called to succeed him. An exalter of the historical values of the nation, a recurring motif in almost all his writings, he remained faithful to them until his last days, in which the drama of Rome and of Italy was also drawing to a close.
Bibliography2 works
As regards the confessor who solicits, the absolution follows the usual norms for absolution from censures, but the rehabilitation is slow, and never complete. On the part of the false denouncer, for absolution from the censure there is further required the formal retraction of the calumny and reparation, within the limits of what is possible, of the damages caused. These conditions are always required; even in danger of death. The retraction must be formal. Whenever there presents itself and of the method of the historiography of Italian law, in Riv. di stor. del dir. ital., 17-20 (1944-47), pp. 171-99.; E. Besta, Commemoraz., in Rendic. Accad. Lincei, cl. Sc. morali, stor. e filol., 8th series, 3 (1948), pp. 269-73.
Fulvio Crosara