REALTA', MITI, FINZIONI IN SANTI ROMANO. OSSERVAZIONI 'FRAMMENTARIE' DI UN ROMANISTA

In this essay it is emphasized that Santi Romano’s thought is particularly suitable to understand the plurality of systems which, for a long part of its historical course, has been characterizing Roman law. Some remarks are made on the diversity of Greek and Latin words used to indicate truth and reality. The limits set by the scholar to the so-called legal reality are taken into account trying to verify this conception by referring it to the cases offered by Roman law. In particular the rigour with which Santi Romano delimits the notion of juridical fiction is compared to the one offered in philosophy by Vaihinger and, in the legal sphere, by Hans Kelsen. Some affinities are hilighted with some cases expressly qualified as fictiones in the Roman legal sources. The essay ends with a fictum colloquium involving Romano, Kelsen, the philosopher Vaihinger and jurist Gaius about the phenomena that deserve the qualification of fiction.