“Something More Lively and Animated Than the Law”: Institutionalism and Formalism in Santi Romano’s Jurisprudence

The essay analyses the relation, and possibly the tension, between institutionalism and formalism in Romano’s jurisprudence, that is, the “duplicity” of Romano’s work, which responds, as Maurizio Fioravanti put it, both to the needs for methodological “purity” and to the demands for opening to the “social” and “effective” dimension of the law. The essay also investigates Romano’s formalist institutionalism with regard to his contributions to international law and to his disciples’ contributions to European law. The at-first-sight paradoxical relation between institutionalism and formalism is one of the distinguishing features, and possibly unresolved questions, of Romano’s approach to jurisprudence.