L'interprete, il diritto, la vita : osservazioni a margine di una raccolta lombarda di allegationes (18.-19. secolo)

The collection of Allegationes kept by the Department of Private Law and Legal History of the University of Milan offers an outstanding means of capturing the characteristic features of the development of law in Lombardy. The sources allow to detect a gradual change of law thanks to the intelligent and sometimes creative work of the lawyer following the evolution of law as well as that of the juridical culture, recording these changes in legal proceedings. In doing so, the lawyer conforms to the development of society during periods of marked dynamism literally as they happened, especially between the 18 th and 19th centuries. With a cursory glance at various legal proceedings, particularly criminal, evidences the lawyer's work describing facts in legal terms and arguing on the basis of both evidences ancient and more recent laws and legal literature, now more reasonably ordered. The lawyer is a witness to his age, representing the wheels of progress and the resulting conservative reactions, seeking a balance between conflicting interests.