En los orígenes de la moderna hermenéutica contractual: la doctrina del 'status causae' legal 'scriptum/voluntas'. Una reflexión entre retórica y derecho

This investigation takes its cue from the renewed interest of the Italian legal profession and, at the same time, of the international scientific community of Roman law in the study and teaching of argumentative techniques that find their matrix in classical Greco-Roman rhetoric, understood as a veritable ars (in the sense of technical discipline, which responds to precise theoretical rules). With particular regard to the doctrine of status causae legales, the contribution proposes to read the modern provisions of literal and subjective contractual hermeneutics in the light of the oratorical opposition between scriptum (literal tenor of the text) and voluntas (real intention of the writer) in the analysis of a normative or negotiation text, in order to verify the possible use by the modern practical jurist ( first and foremost, the lawyer) of a well-defined and tested “topics” for the development of the adversarial process.