Antologia di Diritto Pubblico (ADP) (e-ISSN 2975-2191) is a biannual journal promoted by the Faculty of Law of the University of Trento and the Department of Economics and Business Studies of the UPO - Università del Piemonte Orientale. The journal offers insight into some relevant topics for the study of public law, also with a critical approach, building on the analysis of some of the classical texts of this discipline.
This contribution, in accordance with the Regulations of Antologia di Diritto Pubblico, inaugurates the biennial publication of special issues entitled “Classici in collana”. It serves as an introduction to the issue devoted to the interpretation of administrative acts, based on selected excerpts from the monograph by Massimo Severo Giannini, L’interpretazione dell’atto amministrativo e la teoria giuridica generale dell’interpretazione (Milan, Giuffrè, 1939).
Copyright (c) 2026 Fulvio Cortese, Mauro Renna, Vito Velluzzi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
L’interpretazione dell’atto amministrativo e la teoria giuridica generale dell’interpretazione
This is the reproduction of an excerpt from the study by Massimo Severo Giannini (1915–2000) on the interpretation of administrative acts, published in 1939 and republished in 2000. In particular, the contribution highlights the autonomy of the interpretation of administrative acts from the criteria applicable to other acts such as contracts and statutes.
Copyright (c) 2026 Antologia di Diritto Pubblico (for this edition) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Judicial Interpretation of Administrative Acts Between Flawed Analogies and the Search for Criteria
The essay aims to demonstrate the inadequacy of jurisprudential approaches that employ the criteria of contract interpretation (and sometimes those of the statutes) to interpret administrative acts. The paper highlights, mainly, the use of incomplete analogies by judges and the (consequent) need to identify autonomous tools for interpreting administrative acts.
Copyright (c) 2026 Vito Velluzzi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
The Interpretation of Non-Normative Administrative Acts
The paper examines the issue of the interpretation of non-normative administrative act, drawing on insights from Massimo Severo Giannini’s 1939 work L’interpretazione dell’atto amministrativo e la teoria giuridica generale dell’interpretazione. The essay focuses on several aspects of the interpretation of non-normative administrative acts that remain insufficiently systematized: their distinctive features in relation to the interpretative models of contract and statutes; the relationship between the administrative act as an expression of power and, at the same time, as an instrument for the implementation of the law within the framework of the rule of law; the role of administrative action as shaped by the factual context in which it operates; and the interpretative criteria applied by administrative courts.
Copyright (c) 2026 Sara Spuntarelli https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Rereading Giannini on the Role of «Judicial Practice» in Developing Criteria for the Interpretation of Administrative Acts
This paper re-examines Giannini’s fundamental contribution to studies on the interpretation of administrative acts and criticises the paradigm of borrowing the criteria referred to in Articles 1362-1371 of the Italian Civil Code, on which case law has been fossilised for over a century, highlighting how it lacks a solid foundation and is a source of contradictions and uncertainties.
Copyright (c) 2026 Massimo Monteduro https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
The Interpretation of the Administrative Measure from a Procedural Perspective
The essay examines the interpretation of administrative acts from the perspective of administrative judicial proceedings, highlighting the relationship between the judge’s hermeneutic activity and procedural rules. An analysis of the case law reveals two opposing trends: a “pervasive” approach, which leads the judge toward integrative or manipulative readings of the content of the act, and an “abstentionist” approach, which avoids classifying the administrative measure, thereby generating significant uncertainty in terms of judicial protection. A system-consistent interpretation, by contrast, should be grounded in the necessary reference to the administrative procedure, understood as the objective and transparent context within which the administrative act acquires meaning.
Copyright (c) 2026 Pasquale Cerbo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
The Criteria for the Interpretation of Administrative Acts
The paper provides an introduction to the classic – and yet constantly relevant – theme of the interpretation of administrative acts. The author outlines some essential aspects, including those emerging from recent research on the adaptation of administrative measures carried out in various Italian universities, and he focuses in particular on the fact that the legal system does not lay down specific rules for the interpretation of administrative acts, as well as on the criteria most frequently applied by the courts.
Copyright (c) 2026 Giovanni D’Angelo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Il saggio a cui è dedicato il numero – edito, per la prima volta, nel 1939 – offre una raffinata digressione teorica e storico‐dogmatica sul significato proprio del concetto di azione nel diritto processuale e affronta questo tema nella prospettiva del rapporto fra individuo e Stato. Il testo, improntato a un approccio lato sensu multidisciplinare, contiene riflessioni ancora oggi utili e valide ai fini della costruzione di una teoria generale dell’azione per ogni tipo di processo, compreso quello costituzionale.
Copyright (c) 1939 Piero Calamandrei https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Il concetto di azione nella giustizia costituzionale
The notion of action within constitutional justice has been developed by procedural theorists as if it were possible to conceive of a subjective legal position abstractly related to the constitutional legitimacy of acts subject to the Constitution, or, alternatively, as if a constitutional process of liberties could be constructed around the category of prejudiciality. The rationale of a system of constitutional justice lies in determining the degree of movement permitted to a rigid constitution: for a constitution that were perfectly rigid would also be entirely immobile, and would therefore require a merely negative, yet pervasively omnipotent, form of review. In the Italian system, the procedural mechanisms of access and the rules governing constitutional adjudication define both the limit and the foundation of constitutional rigidity. A constitutional court that recognises no constraint other than its own prudence risks encroaching upon the sphere of constituent sovereignty. The concept of action, therefore, cannot be understood as the procedural projection of an individual will be safeguarded by the constitutional order through constitutional justice. Rather, the modalities of access represent the techniques through which the constitutional order contains the potentially boundless expansion of constitutional adjudication. In actions of direct challenge, the Constitutional Court assumes a pivotal role as a means of continuous — and dynamic — verification of the proper alignment between the form of government and the form of state, a relationship that the crisis of political representation has brought into sharp relief. The emergence of a contentious democracy thus links incidental proceedings with direct actions, delineating a dynamic in which the demands for political justice — no longer mediated by ideology or manageable through representative institutions — are channelled into the sphere of constitutional justice. Through this process, such demands are synthesised within a framework that performs a function of nomopoiesis — the creation of legal norms through adjudication. It may appear unsettling, even paradoxical, that the constitutional body entrusted with ensuring that the majority principle, as expressed through representative mechanisms, does not transgress the limits inherent in the form of the state, should find itself performing a (vigilant, reluctant, yet conscious) function of substitution. Such a function arguably betrays the Court’s foundational mission, yet also reflects the current condition of constitutional democracy.
Copyright (c) 2025 Gian Luca Conti https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Dalla relatività del concetto di azione alla relatività della giustizia amministrativa
This paper revisits the longstanding dilemma concerning the objective or subjective function of the administrative process, underscoring how Calamandrei’s relativistic perspective encounters the “absolutes” codified in constitutional principles, which require the jurisdictional function to be oriented toward the protection of individual legal positions. Despite some resistance to fully aligning administrative process with the constitutional model — as suggested by the persistence of the term giustizia amministrativa and by enduring objectivist traits in jurisprudence and scholarly reconstructions — the analysis proposed here calls for emphasizing the bidirectional character of the principle whereby procedural mechanisms serve substantive law. The recognition that individual legal interests in relations with the public administration are protected only when they are recognized by the legal system — according to the legal regulation of public power — makes it possible to capture the specific features of administrative law without subordinating the process either to the protection of the public interest or to a generic interest in objective legality. From this perspective, even the ex officio powers of the administrative judge are aimed at ensuring procedural equality between the parties, and therefore can be fully integrated within a general procedural model that preserves a subjective orientation.
Copyright (c) 2025 Chiara Cudia https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Rileggendo Piero Calamandrei: “interesse pubblico” nel processo amministrativo e non relatività del principio dell’imparzialità del giudice
The paper starts from some initial ideas offered by Piero Calamandrei’s essay “La relatività del concetto di azione” of 1939. It analyses some current profiles of the administrative judicial proceeding, focusing in particular on one of the possible problematic issues, the impartiality of the judge as a fundamental component of due process (art. 111 of the Constitution). Among the various stimuli arising from recent trends in jurisprudence, following the issuance of the 2010 Code, two seem very significant regarding the “role” of the administrative judge in the process; they are situated at different levels: the judge’s decision-making power and the procedural investigation. The author’s opinion is that the impartiality of the judge identifies a principle co-essential to the exercise of the judicial function, which also involves the overcoming of any conception that attributes “special” protection to the public interest within the administrative judicial proceeding.
Copyright (c) 2025 Giovanni D’Angelo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Editoriale: Istruzioni per l’uso dei principi di ogni “nuovo” ordine giuridico - E. Betti, “Sui principi generali del nuovo ordine giuridico”
L'editoriale, a cura della Prof.ssa Silvia Niccolai, anticipa il tema del prossimo numero della Rivista ADP. In particolare, il contributo si propone di analizzare le riflessioni svolte in E. Betti, Sui principi generali del nuovo ordine giuridico, contenuto in Studi sui principi generali dell’ordinamento giuridico fascista, Pacini Mariotti, Pisa, 1943, pp. 321-331.
Copyright (c) 2025 Silvia Niccolai https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Editoriale – P. Calamandrei “La relatività del concetto d’azione”
The editorial, authored by Professor Marco Magri, offers a preview of the theme of the upcoming issue of Rivista ADP. It focuses in particular on an analysis of the reflections developed by Piero Calamandrei in La relatività del concetto d’azione, in Riv. dir. proc. civ., 1939, ora anche in Id., Studi sul processo civile. Volume quinto - Teoria generale e metodo. Questioni di dottrina e di giurisprudenza. Legislazione comparata (1938-1943), Padova, Cedam, 1947, pp. 1-26.
Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Notes towards Vittorio Emanuele Orlando’s legal theory of political representation
The contribution is dedicated to the Vittorio Emanuele Orlando’s legal theory of political representation, as presented in the essay De la nature juridique de la représentation politique, published in the Revue de Droit Public et de la Science Politique in 1895. In this perspective, the essay analyzes the main passages through which the critique of the theory of the political mandate and the principle of popular sovereignty is developed by Orlando; in doing so, the paper dwells on his conception of the political representation - intended as an act of designation - by investigating its relationship with the legal doctrine of the 19th and 20th centuries and, then, by highlighting its limits in front of the democratic principle claimed by the Italian Constitution.
The everlasting crisis of political representation
Vittorio Emanuele Orlando's writing that is commented on here still presents, 130 years later, insights of great interest. Orlando traces the legal foundation of representation in the function of the electoral body to select - and thus elect - the best candidates, understood as the most capable. In this sense, representation appears, at first glance, perfectly homogeneous with the dynamics of the mono-class State of liberal imprint; however, it is Orlando himself who recognises that the role of the emerging political parties is not secondary and that the ideological orientation of the electorate overlaps with, and complements, the choice of the best on the basis of a parameter of ability. If representation does not respond to this function of selecting the most capable, it is destined to enter a crisis without being able to fulfil the premises on which it is founded .
The legal basis of political representation: revisiting Orlando in the XXI century
The contribution, starting from Vittorio Emanuele Orlando’s essay on the legal foundation of political representation, critically retraces the author’s thought. It highlights, in particular, how the aristocratic conception of representation presented in Orlando’s work is not compatible with the 1948 Italian Constitution and, indeed, is clearly rejected by it.
Del fondamento giuridico della rappresentanza politica
The contribution of Vittorio Emanuele Orlando offers a critical analysis of the theory of the political mandate as the legal foundation of representation. The author rejects the conception of the relationship between voter and elected representative in private law terms, according to the mandate model, asserting that political representation does not stem from a delegation of power from the voters to the elected, but rather from an institutional function governed by the Constitution.
Rappresentanza “fiduciaria” e rappresentanza “in campo politico”: osservazioni su un saggio di V.E. Orlando – V.E. Orlando, “Del fondamento giuridico della rappresentanza politica”
The essay, edited by Prof. Fulco Lanchester, foretastes the theme of the next issue of the Journal and aims to analyze the reflections carried out in V.E. Orlando,V.E. Orlando, Del fondamento giuridico della rappresentanza politica, in Id., Scritti vari di Diritto pubblico generale (1881-1940), coordinati in sistema, Milan, Giuffrè, 1940, unaltered reprint 1954, pp. 417-456
Copyright (c) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Fra “dottrina pura del diritto” e storia giuridica. Kelsen e la presunta “antitesi” di diritto pubblico e privato
This paper proposes a historical-juridical reading of Kelsen’s essay on public and private law, in a double sense: as a reconstruction of the meaning that this distinction had in the first decades of the 20th century, and as an analysis of its disputed origins, not only in the context of Roman law but also in the Greek legal culture.
Diritto pubblico e diritto privato: elogio dell’inattualità kelseniana
This contribution aims to reflect on both the usefulness and inactuality of Kelsen's thought, delivered in the 1924 essay on public law and private law, moving from the specific perspective of comparative private law. After noting the importance of the Kelsenian critique with respect to the thesis of the ontological separation of public and private law, which is strongly rooted in European-Continental culture but absent in other experiences, the article reflects on the anti-ideological scope of Kelsenian thought, studying its implications for private law theory. In the last part, the contribution reasons about the changing contexts, which on the one hand make the “grand partition” increasingly and on the other hand attract the attention on the transformations of the concept of democracy – as originally employed by Kelsen – relevant for the analysis of private law relationships.
Diritto pubblico e privato: distingue frequenter
The journal has chosen to present readers with an essay of undeniable significance. First and foremost, this is due to its author, Hans Kelsen, a remarkable thinker of the twentieth century and beyond. The discussion will focus on three key aspects of Kelsen’s reasoning: his critique of the use of the public-private law antithesis, his conception of administration as law execution, and his related theory of administrative acts. Additionally, it will evaluate certain arguments Kelsen does not address, which pertain to the tools administrations utilize to achieve the interests assigned to their oversight.
Il saggio dell’A. analizza la distinzione tra diritto pubblico e diritto privato, ponendo in discussione la tradizionale contrapposizione tra le due categorie e sottolineando come possa ritenersi incerto l’oggetto di tale partizione. Nell’argomentazione, l’A. confronta le due sfere, esaminando le tradizionali concezioni delle nozioni di diritto pubblico e diritto privato in relazione ai concetti di ordinamento giuridico e Stato di diritto.
Editoriale – H. Kelsen “Diritto pubblico e privato”
The article previews the theme of the upcoming issue of the ADP Review. Specifically, it aims to illustrate the relevance of the reflection carried out by Hans Kelsen (1881-1973) in the well-known essay on public and private law, translated into Italian and published in 1924 within the International Journal of Philosophy of Law.
Federal models of government in the constitutional framework of the Regional State
The essay traces the essential steps of Italian regionalism. In particular, he dwells on the relationship between federalism and regionalism and concludes that the regional state model can find its fulfilment in a federal government policy.
Some reflections on the development of our regionalism, starting from Gaspare Ambrosini’s regional model
The essay recognizes the fundamental role of Gaspare Ambrosini in the adoption of the regional model by the Italian Constitution of 1948. The author points out, however, that it is not certain that it was the weakness of this model itself, or the Constitutional reform of 2001, with its inclusion of "federal-inspired" characters, that caused the lackluster results of the regional experience as a whole, due rather to the way in which "Italian-style federalism" was implemented. A solution could be represented by the definitive transition of our system into a cooperative regionalism, which, however, is now threatened by the process of differentiated autonomy inspired by a model of asymmetric regionalism that the 2001 reform opened up also to ordinary regions, but which risks, if not implemented in a balanced way, to increase inequalities.
The Regional State of Gaspare Ambrosini: considerations of merit and method
The paper dedicates some reflections to the well-known 1933 essay in which Gaspare Ambrosini on one hand outlines the creation of a new State model and on the other provides some useful methodological indications for the study of State forms. With regard to the first aspect, referring to the solutions offered by two European systems, the author proposes an intermediate model of State between the unitary and the federal State, setting out some firm points but at the same time leaving open several questions that still engage Italian politicians and scholars today. As to the second aspect, he urges scholars to always place the analysis of institutions in the space-time dimension in which they are inserted and, more generally, not to give up in the sometimes complex attempt to proceed with classifications. In both aspects mentioned above, Ambrosini's words are characterized by their enduring relevance.
Un tipo intermedio di Stato tra l'unitario e il federale caratterizzato dall'autonomia regionale
The Author argues that the system of regional autonomy gives rise to the establishment of a type of state different from the unitary and federal. Demonstrating the assumption, differentiating the concept of "decentralization" from that of "autonomy", and on the basis of the constitutions of the ceased Austrian monarchy and the current Spanish republic, the Author highlights how "autonomous regions" differ from both the "provinces" of the unitary state and the "member states" of the federal state.
Editoriale - G. Ambrosini, “Un tipo intermedio di stato tra l’unitario e il federale caratterizzato dall’autonomia regionale”
The article anticipates the subject of the ADP Review's next issue. In particular, it aims to illustrate the current relevance of the reflection carried out by Gaspare Ambrosini (1886-1985) in his well-known 1933 essay on the regional state.
Copyright (c) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
TEACHING PARLIAMENTARY LAW, TODAY, IN LIGHT OF SANTI ROMANO’S MONOGRAPH
Although the thesis supported in it is now clearly recessive, the re-reading of Santi Romano’s monograph of 1906 dedicated to the legal nature of parliamentary rules of procedure offers a series of useful reflections on the method of study and teaching, today, of parliamentary law. Santi Romano, in fact, succeeds in identifying what were – and for the most part still remain – the main methodological and conceptual nodes, relating above all to the system of sources of law, of a discipline that precisely in that timeframe began to arise. In particular, reference is made to the weight of unwritten sources of law, to the question of internal or external effects of the parliamentary rules of procedure (both in the major and minor ones); or to problems relating to the identifiability and incisiveness of forms of judicial control that adopt parliamentary rules of procedure as parameters or as objects. The contribution is articulated around these nodes, obviously also in light of the several innovations that have occurred in the meantime, up to the most recent years, in order precisely to show the persistent usefulness of dedicating specific and in-depth attention to these issues in the courses of parliamentary law held today.
SANTI ROMANO AND THE ESSAY CONCERNING “THE NATURE OF THE PARLIAMENTARY RULES OF PROCEDURES”: SOME READING KEYS
The work analyzes the essay of Santi Romano published in Modena in 1906 concerning “The nature of the Parliamentary Rules of Procedures”. The essay of Romano – a landmark in the Italian Parliamentary studies – is divided in two parts. In the first part, Romano has denied the legal nature of the Parliamentary Rules of Procedures (paragraphs 1-33). In the second part, he pointed out the impact of the Parliamentary Rules of Procedures on the interpretation and informal evolution of Constitutional law (paragraphs 34-38). The work aims to highlight the close connections between these two theses.