The “Ancient” Method in Italy: “Bartolism”
Beyond the small, often isolated, and ephemeral areas within which the few Italian jurists attracted by humanism and by the mosgullicus expressed themselves, the juridical scene in northern Italy was still largely dominated by a traditional method that recognized Bartolus of Saxoferrato as its figurehead; hence, those who continued Barto- lus’s work and shared his stance and his vision of the law, either out of interest or from conviction, were known as BartoEsts.
On the southern Italian mainland, in Sicily, and in Sardmia the scene was more varied and is even less well known. Aside from the ideas and cultivated curiosity of Lucas of Penna, the Diesgcniales of Alessandro d’Alessandro,[230] [231] and the modest collected works of Marino Freccia, few significant traces of legal humanism appeared in southern Italy. Furthermore, we need to consider how much those regions were affected (and precisely how) by Spanish innovations in methodology launched by Francisco de Vitoria, the “school” of Salamanca, and the “Secimda Scholastica,” a movement that was to dominate much of the European legal scene. We also need to see what role the “system” OfBartolist ius commune continued to play in those regions, since for centuries they had been closely connected to the great university schools of northern Italy, and their jurists usually had an early acquaintance with works of the doctrines of the ius commune? One example of a practical jurist who was also familiar with these works is a Palermo judge, Tommaso di Carbonito, who, as we know from a donation in 1328, owned a manuscript containing “leges commentatas super Digesto veteri” that included a copy of Cinus of Pistoia,s Dzwwz? Lectura, a recent work.[232] 6.