One of the first and most important Italian playwrights to move away from the commedia dell’arte tradition of improvisation, Carlo Goldoni (1707–1793) wrote more naturalistic “comedies of character” that featured the dialect and situations of everyday life in Venice.Five Comedies collects a selection of Goldoni’s finest plays, annotated and translated into English: The New House, The Coffee House, and “The Holiday Trilogy” (Off to the Country...

In the year of the bicentenary of the death of Carlo Goldoni, one of Italy’s most brilliant dramatists, two of his greatest comedies are brought to life in Ranjit Bolt’s vibrant translations.The Venetian Twins is a classic tale of mistaken identity and the ensuing confusion. The play was given its premiere at the Royal Shakespeare Company in a production directed by Michael Bogdanov which enjoyed huge success in Stratford and London.Mirandolina is one of Goldoni’s best know...

The Constitution in the Material Sense, first published in 1940, is a classic of constitutional thought of the 20th century, and it is widely considered to be the masterpiece of Constantino Mortati, a towering figure in Italian jurisprudence and one of the ‘founding fathers’ of the Italian constitution.The book, published here in English for the first time, puts forward a full-fledged theory of the legal order for the modern State. Mortati’s argument is based on a developm...

Despite a long and venerable tradition, the material constitution almost disappeared from constitutional scholarship after the Second World War. Its marginalisation saw the rise of a normative and legalistic style in constitutional law that neglected the role of social reality and political economy. This collection not only retrieves the history and development of the concept of the material constitution, but it tests its theoretical and practical relevance in the contemporary world. With ...

This book fills a major gap in the ever-increasing secondary literature on Hannah Arendt's political thought by providing a dedicated and coherent treatment of the many, various and interesting things which Arendt had to say about law. Often obscured by more pressing or more controversial aspects of her work, Arendt nonetheless had interesting insights into Greek and Roman concepts of law, human rights, constitutional design, legislation, sovereignty, international tribunals, judicial revi...

This Element aims to explore how the relation between societal organisation and legal orders – the question of materiality – has been investigated in philosophy of law. The starting point of the Element is that such relation has often been left invisible or thematised in poor and reductive terms. After having explained the main reasons behind this neglect, the Element provides an overview of the three main approaches to legal philosophy whose contributions, though not always effective, can...

Carlo Goldoni (1707 – 1793) was one of the most prolific and versatile playwrights of his century, even though most of his vast output deals with life confined to a few square miles of Northern Italy. This new edition contains two comedies about women surviving precariously in a man's world, but each taking a distinctly different approach to her problems. Mirandolina believes open dealing is essential; Valentina wants to have her cake and eat it, and uses intrigue to further her interests....

Drama Classics: The World's Great Plays at a Great Little PriceA classic Italian comedy that remains blisteringly hilarious and relevant, over two hundred and fifty years after it was written.Disguising herself as her dead brother, Beatrice travels to Venice to find Florindo, the man responsible for his death. However, her servant, Truffaldino, enters into the pay of Florindo, and struggles to keep his two lives and masters separate.Carlo Goldoni's ...

How should the state face the challenge of radical pluralism? How can constitutional orders be changed when they prove unable to regulate society? Santi Romano, Carl Schmitt, and Costantino Mortati, the leading figures of Continental legal institutionalism, provided three responses that deserve our full attention today. Mariano Croce and Marco Goldoni introduce and analyze these three towering figures for a modern audience. Romano thought pluralism to be an inherent feature of legality and...

Much has changed in European constitutional law after the Lisbon Treaty, not least the efforts to increase democratic legitimacy by engaging national legislatures and introducing a stricter subsidiary review process, namely the Early Warning Mechanism (EWM).This collection looks at how national parliaments have adapted to their new roles and looks at how the new system has impacted on relations between the EU legislative bodies and national parliaments. A team of experts from across...

Jurisprudence: Themes and Concepts offers an original introduction to, and critical analysis of, the central themes studied in jurisprudence courses.The book is organised in three parts: Part I sets out the key elements of modern law and their relation to political, economic, and social conditions. Part II presents competing accounts of the nature of legal validity, legality, legal reasoning, and justice. Both parts feature corresponding tutorial questions. Part III contai...

Leonardo da Vinci’s irreverent young apprentice delights in mischief and defying the aristocracy in this historical fiction middle grade novel from E.L. Konigsburg, the Newbery Medal–winning author of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.The mystery of the “Mona Lisa!”Why did Leonardo da Vinci, the greatest artist of his time, devote three years on a painting of the second wife of an unimportant merchant wh...