La giurisprudenza pontificale della Roma antica, la segretezza pontificale

The Pontifical Jurisprudence of Archaic Rome: Pontifical Secret This doctoral thesis investigates pontifical jurisprudence in Archaic Rome through the concept of pontifical secrecy as the organising principle of legal knowledge. It argues that early Roman law cannot be understood through modern distinctions between law, religion, and politics, but as a unified normative order in which these dimensions were inseparable. Drawing on legal, historical, and literary sources, this research demonstrates that the College of Pontiffs exercised normative authority through its control of ritual formulas, legal procedures, and the religious and judicial calendar. Pontifical secrecy emerges not merely as a means of preserving knowledge, but as the institutional mechanism through which legal authority was produced, legitimised, and transmitted. The analysis of the legis actiones, the leges regiae, the dies fasti and nefasti, and the traditions concerning Numa Pompilius shows that Roman legal formalism reflected a sacred conception of normativity centred on the preservation of the pax deorum. The gradual disclosure of legal knowledge, particularly through Gnaeus Flavius, transformed the exercise of legal authority while preserving the religious foundations of Roman law. Pontifical jurisprudence thus provides a new framework for understanding the relationship between knowledge, authority, and power in the formation of the Western legal tradition.