Il ‘militare’ nella formazione dello Stato moderno: primi spunti di riflessione

The modern European state is the result of a construction that began in the last centuries of the Middle Ages and was consolidated during the Modern Age. It was formed earlier in territorial and political contexts of monarchical character, basing its constituent elements on the sovereign power, on the people to which sovereignty is exercised and on an area within whose borders it’s applied. These fundamental ingredients must also be accompanied by the 'military', understood as a complex of functions organized and coordinated by the public power that have as their core the exercise of war. The establishment of permanent armies, the formation of offices for their management, the establishment of authorities for the exercise of military justice under the control of sovereign authority and the production of specific state-originated law are among the distinctive features of this area, which distinguishes the development of the modern state. This is accompanied by the drafting, from the 16th century onwards, of a legal treatise De re militari et de bello and a technical-practical treatise oriented to the organization of modern European armies.