Piero Calamandrei e la genesi dei diritti sociali

The paper analyses the genesis of social rights in the Italian legal system and examines the complex debate on the social question, which was animated by different awareness. The debate was inspired by Santi Romano’s crucial reflections in the early 1900s and continued throughout the century thanks to the contribution of important jurists, including Piero Calamandrei. The Florentine jurist is credited with having clearly outlined the different legal structure and political function of social rights compared to the traditional rights of freedom. A special attention is therefore paid to Cala- mandrei’s interventions during the Constituent Assembly debates, which resulted in the full recog- nition of social rights in the 1948 Republican Constitution.