Table of contents

1. Introduction - 2. Historical overview - 3. The five Courts of Cassation and the civil courts: centralisation policy, jurisprudential fragmentation and ideological constraints - 4. The parliamentary projects on the introduction of civil marriage. The weight of the 'Risorgimento' conception of the marriage bond on the jurisprudential orientations. Cenni - 5. A summary review of the decisions of the High Courts of the Kingdom of Italy (Civil Tribunals and Cassations), which apply or temporarily refer to canonical provisions. Orientations and contrasts: a) The five-year period 1865-1869 - 6. b) The decade 1870-1879 - 7. c) The decade 1880-1889 - 8. d) The decade at the end of the century - 9. Post-concordat jurisprudence and doctrine on the subject of religious marriages. Cenni - 10. Re-emergence of the pre-concordat system of referral to "competing" canonical norms in some recent matrimonial decisions. The interminable Penelope's web

Keywords

Kingdom of Italy; transitional law; matrimonial nullity cases; criteria and norms of canon law