Abstract

The review examines the bibliographical features of the first complete Italian translation of Grotius’ magnum opus, _De iure belli ac pacis_ (IBP). This new Italian edition faithfully presents the entirety of Grotius’ text, based on the 1646 edition—the final version supervised by the author himself and the most comprehensive, as it includes the Annotata and all the supplementary materials from the 1642 IBP edition. Moreover, it adopts the division of paragraphs into sub-paragraphs, a structural refinement first introduced in the 1667 edition edited by Grotius’ son, Pieter. The translation is presented across three volumes, each corresponding to one of the three books of the IBP. In this new edition, the reader will encounter a translation that is both precise and sophisticated from a doctrinal perspective. The translators, all distinguished scholars, have meticulously avoided any anachronistic application of categories from legal-political philosophy that would be incongruous with Grotius’ theoretical and practical culture (cf. Antonio Del Vecchio and Carlo Galli, vol. I, pp. CXXVII-CXXXII). Indeed, the co-authors, editors, and translators have paid scrupulous attention to conceptual discontinuities within lexical continuity, following the exemplary methodological approach of the late Merio Scattola, to whose memory this translation is dedicated.