The volume authored by Oliviero Diliberto investigates the content and the context of a seminar organised by the Professor of Roman Law at the University of Turin Giovanni Pacchioni in the academic year 1911/12. Such as seminar, forged on the German debating model and rooted on the more ancient Latin rhetoric tradition, concerned the authenticity (or possible falsehood) of the XII Tables and marked the first meeting between Palmiro Togliatti, then Law student, and Antonio Gramsci, student of Humanities. The seminar indeed acted as the starting point of the lasting and complex relation between the two scholars and politicians. Through a detailed reconstruction of the Turin academic environment, with particular reference to the Classical studies, as well as an in-depth analysis of the university careers of the two young intellectuals, an episode of the philological discussion on the XII Tables is explored. The latter turns out to be a part of a wider historical debate on the first centuries of Rome and results in an overall reflection on the impact of the professors of the University of Turin on the formation of both Gramsci and Togliatti.
Keywords: Palmiro Togliatti; Antonio Gramsci; Giovanni Pacchioni; Twelve Tables; Ettore Pais; Gaetano De Sanctis; History of Roman Law; History of Classical Scholarship.
