La "testa di Medusa": il problema degli usi civici tra storia ed attualità

The civic uses – i.e. the ancient uses on the domains tolerated and in many cases recognized by the kings to ensure the survival of the inhabitants of towns and hamlets – with the napoleonic reforms were put into liquidation on behalf of the freehold and free of encumbrances. However, the process of freeing the land from civic uses has been slow and never fully realized, so that even in 1917 Giovanni Curis used the metaphor of the “Head of Medusa” to describe them, and even today, despite the unifying law of June 16, 1927 n. 1766, we continue to talk in some laws, according to a jurisprudence, have recognized to the civic uses an environmental dimension. This essay traces the history of civic uses in the South Italy where the ancient abuses committed by the feudatories on the royal domain against the inhabitants of the municipalities triggered, during the French decade, strong problems also in legal plan and prompted the government to intervene on the complex subject with decrees that, after more than a century, became the benchmark for the fascist lawmaker.