Abstract

Legal science and Rota case law reveal how, during the centuries of the ancient regime, the application of intestate succession was anything but marginal in the Italian context, generally competing with or integrating the main means of mortis causa devolution. As we know, Justinian legislation established full equality between males and females and between residual heirs and cognates with the famous Novella 118, and iura propria protected the pre-eminence of residual heirs and, within this group, males over females and the firstborn over younger siblings. As a result, interpretation of doctrine and case law intervened to mediate between opposing views, sometimes lessening the statutes’ rigour by way of derogation from Justinian legislation in the name of equity, and more often reflecting the values that specific laws promoted.