There are many ways to mark the anniversary of a civil code: one of them is to analyse the cultural messages it has produced, in order to understand not only by whom such messages have been received but also how, when and to what extent. The current volume is based on a dialogue between European (and, in particular, Italian) legal culture on the one hand, and Latin American legal culture on the other. The authors thus approach the question not by merely searching for the extent of the ‘Italianness’ within the civil codes of Latin America – which represents a culturally sterile and, indeed, methodologically inappropriate exercise – but in order to understand how legal culture in general, and the legal cultures of Latin America in particular, have been and continue to be in active dialogue with the Italian civil code.
