The open access publication of this book was financially supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation.

This volume sheds new light on modern theories of natural law through the lens of the fragmented political contexts of Italy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the dramatic changes of the times. From the age of reforms, through revolution and the ‘Risorgimento’, the unification movement which ended with the creation of the unified Kingdom of Italy in 1861, we see a move from natural law and the law of nations to international law, whose teaching was introduced in Italian universities of the newly created Kingdom. The essays collected here show that natural law was not only the subject of a highly codified academic teaching, but also provided a broader conceptual and philosophical frame underlying the ‘science of man’. Natural law is also a language wherein reform programmes of education and of politics have taken form, affecting a variety of discourses and literary genres.

Contributors are: Alberto Clerici, Vittor Ivo Comparato, Giuseppina De Giudici, Frédéric Ieva, Girolamo Imbruglia, Francesca Iurlaro, Serena Luzzi, Elisabetta Fiocchi Malaspina, Emanuele Salerno, Gabriella Silvestrini, Antonio Trampus.