di Federica Paletti

This essay aims the focus on the contribution by the scientia juris of the early modern age, especially by the jurisconsult Jacopo Menochio (1532-1607), in the construction of the legal identity of the beggar. In Europe, in a time of legal proliferation aimed at limiting and suppressing the cases of beggary, the council activity of the doctores offers valuable arguments for the matter and discipline in civilibus et in criminalibus. Who can validly ask for alms? To whom is it forbidden? When does the beggar’s conduct become punishable? Jacopo Menochio gives an answer to these and other questions in a case published in his collection of questions De arbitrariis iudicum quaestionibus et causis, anchoring himself in the legal tradition but with a particularly focus to the present and the most updated literature on the subject.

Keywords: beggars – legal status – Jacopo Menochio – 16^Th Century.

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