Abstract
This chapter focuses on the most famous book by the Italian legal philosopher Antonio Pigliaru, La vendetta barbaricina come ordinamento giuridico, first published in 1959. The book collects Pigliaru’s investigations on the Barbagian code and describes the social dynamics of an ancestral folk law that emerged in the territory of Barbagia, located in a central area of Sardinia, on the Gennargentu chain. Pigliaru observes a persistent and widespread practice of vendetta in Barbagia and places it within the set of legal systems that virtually coexist with the state. An empirical analysis of the behavior of Sardinian shepherds, conducted through interviews, confirms the original hypothesis that, in that community, revenge is not an instinct but an institution. Pigliaru proposed a technical legal codification, where he formalized the unwritten Barbagian folk law. The work of Pigliaru is inspiring for studies on the interaction between state law and folk law and the philosophical analysis of vendetta.
This article is the joint work of three authors. Sections 1 and 3, 4 were written by Paolo Di Lucia, while Sections 2, 5, 6.2 and 6.1, 7 were authored by Giuseppe Lorini and Olimpia G. Loddo respectively. The authors assume responsibility for the statements made.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Cf. Di Lucia (2015).
- 3.
Pigliaru’s code is an example of nomographic codification, i.e., a codification by declarative deontic sentences. A declarative deontic sentence is one that ascertains the subsistence of an already existing norm, a “subsistent norm.” See Conte ([1990]2019), p. 27.
- 4.
http://web.tiscali.it/Banditismo/Codice%20barbaricino.htm (last accessed 22.02.2020).
- 5.
On “desire-independent reason for action,” see Searle (2001), pp. 167–213.
- 6.
Kelsen (1941), p. 77. See §3.
- 7.
Ehrlich (1922), pp. 99–100.
- 8.
Pigliaru ([1959]1970).
- 9.
Sacco (1995).
- 10.
Antonio Pigliaru’s book La vendetta barbaricina come ordinamento giuridico was relevant for the anthropology of law as evidenced by the inclusion of this work in the first major bibliography of anthropology of law by Nader et al. (1966).
- 11.
Lorini and Masia (2015), pp. x–xi.
- 12.
The meta-institutional concepts are concepts that go beyond (Greek: metá) the institutions whereof they are conditions of possibility. An example of a meta-institutional concept is that of game. In a culture that does not have the concept of game, we could move chessmen according to the rules of chess, and we could also perform a castling, but it would be impossible to play chess. On meta-institutional concepts, see Lorini (2014) and Miller (1981).
- 13.
Reiner (1956).
- 14.
Scheler ([1912] 1994), p. 140.
- 15.
- 16.
Cf. Kelsen (1941). On Kelsen’s theory of revenge, see the chapter by Di Lucia and Passerini Glazel in this volume.
- 17.
Kelsen (1926).
- 18.
- 19.
- 20.
On the non-assimilability of the rules of the Barbagian vendetta into the rules of the game of sanction, Amedeo Giovanni Conte speaks of “incommensurability.” See also Terradas Saborit (2019). Although the “Barbagian vendetta game” is not comparable with the “sanction game,” the Barbagian vendetta code is written by Pigliaru in 23 articles in the form, and with the literal tenor, of a penal code.
- 21.
- 22.
Gaillard (1992), p. 186.
- 23.
- 24.
“No se parte del autor del daño o delito con su pena y, secundariamente, con su obligación de resarcir o reparar. Se parte del reconocimiento social (cultural si se quiere) del daño o perjuicio ocasionado en la víctima y, consecuentemente, se establece la obligación de su reparación o, alternativamente, según la gravedad de la ofensa, la autorización de la venganza o el castigo del talión.” Terradas Saborit (2019), p. 36. According to Terradas Saborit, in vindicatory systems, vendetta is always authorized by a judicial authority. Cf. Terradas Saborit (2008, 2019).
- 25.
Cf. Verdier (1980).
- 26.
See Sacco (2007).
- 27.
Sacco (2007), p. 18.
- 28.
Ruggiu (2019), p. 200.
- 29.
- 30.
Dundes Renteln (2015), p. 492.
- 31.
Pigliaru ([1959]1970), p. 125.
- 32.
Reinach (1989).
- 33.
Bréhier (1917), p. 357.
- 34.
Lorini (2000), p. 184.
- 35.
Lorini and Loddo (2018), pp. 217–218.
- 36.
On vendetta as a diapraxic act, see Lorini and Loddo (2018), pp. 216–218.
- 37.
- 38.
Conte (2011), pp. 71–72.
- 39.
Conte ([1990]2019).
- 40.
Loddo (2015).
- 41.
Pigliaru ([1959]1970), p. 17.
- 42.
Rouland (1988), p. 278.
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Di Lucia, P., Lorini, G., Loddo, O.G. (2022). Antonio Pigliaru. In: Márquez Porras, R., Mazzola, R., Terradas Saborit, I. (eds) Vindicatory Justice. Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice, vol 93. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79595-5_6
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