Administering Justice. Muratori and the Defects of Jurisprudence

In addition to his degree in Philosophy and Arts (1692), L.A. Muratori also obtained a degree in Law in 1694. He never practiced any legal profession but, on several occasions, he had the chance to put his legal knowledge to use. For example, after Emperor Joseph I invaded Comacchio in 1708, he identified the legal foundations of the Emperor and the duke of Modena’s claims on a territory that the Church had annexed to its State since 1598 (Piena esposizione dei diritti imperiali ed estensi sopra la città di Comacchio, 1712). But the legal work with the greatest resonance was undoubtedly Dei difetti della giurisprudenza (1742), in which Muratori harshly criticized the legal culture of the time and, above all, the discretion of judges in the administration of justice. The amount of interpretations and opinions on the one hand and the gaps and contradictions of the law in force on the other, not only lengthened indefinitely the duration of trials, but made sentences unpredictable. The reform he proposed included the promulgation of «a small new code of laws» regarding the most controversial topics that a commission of jurists, appointed by the sovereign, had to draw up. Further reform proposals addressed to the sovereign are described in Muratori’s last work before his death, Della pubblica felicità, oggetto de’ buoni principi (1749).