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Abstract

This paper condenses legal thought elaborated during the late Middle Ages by law doctors regarding rules to be observed during the plague. What they thought about this problem was scattered through wide commentaries on Roman and Canon law. Those hints were gathered by three Italian jurists working at the beginning of the XVI century, at the time of a strong, new epidemic wave (1522-1523). Italy showed again its primacy in the growth of the peculiar Continental common law. In the first part of this work we present the legal rules dealing with prevention, i.e. what lawyers could learn concerning good government of a city from old texts. This is interesting because this teaching gave a model referred to public powers all over Europe. In this way old teachings were transferred to modern governors, who had the opportunity to select the alternatives offered by ancient wisdom and its recent interpretations. The three 'tractatus' we refer to were written at the same time independently of each other. However, we shall see that they have many common conclusions, because they derive from the same cultural environment. The three authors worked in Bologna, Avignon and Pisa, but with the same legal sources which were at that time the same all over Continental Europe. From these works it is possible to understand how wise the different provisions issued by the local government were. In the second and final part of this work regulations during the plague for private business will be illustrated.