«Una alea lecita ed onesta». I contratti differenziali tra effettività del mercato e legalità normativa nell’Italia liberale

Legal history studies, for decades now, have highlighted continuity and ruptures of the civil and commercial codification process in liberal Italy. In the shadow of the codes which had been promulgated, a number of important ‘special’ laws came into force, among others Law n. 1971/1874 and Law n. 3326/1876, both relating to the taxation of Stock Exchange contracts. On the pretext of regulating the taxation system, Minghetti and Depretis governments offered an institutional response to the social and economic pressures that demanded stricter rules for ‘contract for differences’. This paper has tried to investigate the long path towards the conquest of legality undertaken from the introduction of this still controversial typology of contract, through the study of the normative, doctrinal and judicial material, which is spread within the national territory before and after the Italian unification.