The Police and the People in Liberal Italy 1860–90

Abstract

The legislation that governed the administration of justice and the policing of the Liberal state with little modification down to the First World War was established between 1859 and 1865, and mainly under the terms of the emergency powers conferred on the Piedmontese government during the war of 1859. The new Civil Law Code was published in 1865 after only the briefest parliamentary scrutiny and was based largely on the Savoyard civil code of 1837, updated in the light of the French Civil Code of Napoelon III by a select commission of Piedmontese and Lombard jurists. The criminal law again proved more difficult to standardise, although the Piedmontese Criminal Laws of 1859 were in 1863 extended by decree to the annexed states except Tuscany, and remain provisionally in force until a revised Code was introduced in 1889 by Zanardelli. But this too was no more than a revision of the Piedmontese Code, and despite the fact that the severity of the Piedmontese laws in contrast with those of many of the other former states was widely criticised, the only major concession was over the death penalty, which in deference to the Tuscan Code was suspended. The Code of Criminal Law Procedure was taken directly from Piedmont and was revised more frequently, while the Piedmontese Public Security Regulations of 1859 were immediately extended to all annexed territories at the time of Unification and were thereafter subject to constant revisions and additions.¹