Estate Planning in Renaissance Italy, Signed by a Judge, Who Issued a Complex Opinion on the Validity of a Bequest

Italy, Macerata, immediately before July 1486

8 leaves, wants first leaf else complete, with text written in single column of 26-28 unruled lines in a cursive humanistic hand, signed at the end by Bernardo Lippi, and with his seal, his hand also making a small number of corrections to the text, watermark of a horn similar to Piccard 119518 (Venice, 1470), 119522 (Naples 1467), 119525 (Fogliano, 1472), 119586 (Rome, 1468), small waterstain at foot and some small worm, else good condition; once bound within a larger sammelband (perhaps a bound family archive) and with last leaf here foliated ‘197’, now bound in marbled paper over pasteboards

A testament to the working of the law in Renaissance Italy – with Ancient Roman law being used to clarify a complex practical legal case by a renowned legal expert

This manuscript is a legal refutation of the validity of a donation added as a codicil in the will of a citizen of the town of Fermo, named Vannuccio, in favour of his nephew Antonio in the second half of the fifteenth century. The donation unexpectedly became a contentious issue following Antonio’s sudden death, as it was not clear whether the donation was still valid in view of the fact that his uncle was still alive and therefore could be legally considered part of Antonio’s succession to his heir Domenico and to his own mother, or should be declared null.

The document was signed by the lawyer Bernardo di Ser Niccolò Lippi of Arezzo (d. July 1486). Bernardo was a Doctor of Canon and Civil Law: he taught Civil Law at the University of Arezzo from 1463 to 1470, and served as Podestà (the highest judicial officer in medieval Italian towns) of Ancona in 1471, as lawyer in the General Curia of Ancona in 1474 and in the General Curia of Macerata from 1475 to 1485 (Ancona, Macerata and Fermo being all part of the Papal State at the time). He died in July 1486 and was buried in Arezzo.

Lippi established that the donation, having been stipulated through a codicil added to the will of the donor, was not as a donation between two living people (inter vivos) but would have only become effective with the death of the donor (causa mortis), and could therefore be revoked if the conditions changed. The sudden death of the recipient (Antonio) before the donor (Vannuccio), thus invalidated the donation and the recipient’s successor (Domenico) had to return to the donor the part of the inheritance that related to the said donation.

Lippi reached this conclusion by considering the matter through three main questions that he discusses on the basis of the Ancient Roman Civil Law (Corpus Juris Civilis and Authenticae) and commentaries on it by the principal medieval jurists such as Bartolus de Saxoferrato (1313-1357), Baldus de Ubaldis (1327-1400), Johannes de Imola (1370-1436) and others.

The loss of the first leaf deprives us of the date of the manuscript and its text and the full names for the donor (Vannuccio) and the recipient (Antonio). Lippi’s signature, though, provides some clues in regard to the dating of the document. Lippi was probably asked to deliberate as a neutral party on the matter of Vannuccio’s donation in Fermo while working in Ancona or Macerata and therefore between 1474 and 1485. For certain, the manuscript was written before Lippi’s own death in late July 1486; his writing is shaky at times, which may suggest that he was already rather old when he subscribed the document.