Ordinare il caos. Parte I: Cormenin e la nascita del diritto amministrativo

Abstract

Although the figure of Louis-Marie de la Haye de Cormenin, along with Louis-Antoine Macarel, Louis-Firmin-Julien Laferrière, Joseph-Marie Gérando and Émile-Victor Foucart, one of the founders of French administrative law, is not unknown, there is a lack of reflection in the scholarly literature, not only in Italy, that restores it in its entirety. The complexity of his figure as a jurist and the multiplicity of his interests have prompted an analysis of his work in a broader and more comprehensive perspective. Jurist, militant intellectual, restless critic of the customs of his time, he also adhered, not without contradictions, to the cause of Italian independence. This essay, therefore, in the first part will focus on his contribution, not entirely known to the Italian reader in particular, to the formation of administrative law and a coherent theory of sovereignty and centralization, while in the second part it will delve into more unknown aspects such as his reflections on the process of Italian unification, the self-determination of peoples, the principle of nationality, popular sovereignty and the government of local communities, as well as his unpublished constitutional projects for a federal Italy under the aegis of Pius IX.