From telegraph to telephone: an exemplary transitional space in the legal discipline of technical innovations (1877-1903)
| Autor | Francesca Martello |
| Páginas | 273-304 |
From telegraph to telephone: an exemplary transitional space
in the legal discipline of technical innovations (1877-1903)
Francesca Martello
1. The hint of transition in the legal world: the telephone, an exemplary case with
uncertain contours; 2. The intuitive similarity between telegraph and telephone:
considering analogy, fragmentation and incompatibility; 3. The precarious bal-
ance between academic and jurisprudential solutions and legislative attempts; 4.
1. The hint of transition in the legal world: the telephone, an exemplary
case with uncertain contours
On the theme of the interweaving of law and technical innovation, there
are numerous spaces of transition that usually emerge, chronologically speak-
ad hoc legislative discipline capable of regulating, if not all of them, at least
It becomes interesting therefore to analyze what happens in this framework
and which contingent legal strategies are adopted to face new forms of rela-
tionships generated by the apparatus responsible. This investigation is not
intended to be a mere survey of provisional solutions, but an attempt to re-
construct the most salient features of an exemplary transient period which,
-
sience as an autonomous object of study.
Beside the awareness of progress,1 there emerges explicitly from most of the
essays and monographs on technical innovations, the perception of the transi-
tory nature of the legal situation at that time. More voices manifest the realiza-
tion that, in the face of a “sun of progress”2 that is seen to constantly “change and
1 For the different elaborations on the concept of “progress” see Testoni (1976); Sasso
(1980); Sasso (1984); Papa (1985). The latter’s conception is used by Giuseppe Speciale
to distinguish between an Enlightenment conception, where progress is not a necessary
character of human history but depends on man’s ability, and a historical conception ac-
cording to which progress is a necessary and absolute character of human evolution. Spe-
ciale (2001). For sources see Miceli (1911).
2 Cogliolo (1917).
273
FRANCESCA MARTELLO
274
evolve”3 into an “unceasing movement that transforms, and transforming ev-
erything improves (...), wraps around everything, penetrates everything”,4 “the
science of law and law itself are not stationary but should be the constant mir-
ror of the moral and economic conditions of a people”.5
reverberates in the progress of law. However, this passage is never linear and
immediate: one perceives the surprise in the words of Camerano who idealizes
photography as a wind that “penetrates suddenly, knowing no obstacles, not
stopping in front of barriers”.6 At the same time, they are openings determined
by sociological development which, as the “basis of inorganic, organic and so-
cial evolution”7 is ineluctable, even if in the period between the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries it experienced a singular peak marked by “cluster innova-
tions”.8 Then, most of the innovations, at the dawn of their introduction, fol-
lowed an “uncertain and changing technical trend” without developing “except
rather poorly”.9 This was true for the telegraph and the telephone,10 but also for
“the appearance of railway tracks, and cars that were greeted with hostility”.11
In practice, it opens up, “transition periods”12 in which “science, and, even more
they in perfect harmony with them”.13 The work of the legislator is, therefore,
-
viously unknown or unsanctioned rules of law or promulgates new rules (...)
replacing the force of the law with the arbitrariness of legislation”.14
3 Cogliolo (1891).
4 Chironi (1882).
5 Giampietro (1918).
6 Camerano (1902).
7 Chironi (1886).
8 Ciriacono (2000).
9 Nitti (1897).
10 Nitti (1897).
palloni, gli aeroplani e i dirigibili sono stati accolti sempre festosamente, anzi con entusia-
fu in altri tempi accolta ostilmente”. Meili (1910).
12 Giampietro (1918).
13 Giampietro (1918).
-
venzione è all’inizio, bastano generalmente o si fanno bastare le norme giuridiche esistenti
si sente la necessità di nuove apposite regole che ne determinino il funzionamento che
INNOVATION AND TRANSITION IN LAW
275
The collection of characteristics incidentally attributed by 19th and 20th
century jurists to transitional phenomenon, outlines some essential traits
unpre-
dictability is one with its inevitability, which align it very closely to anoth-
er theme of becoming, namely, the crisis;15 the uncertainty and instability
that characterize its evolutionary process but also a certain circumscription,
disconnection
between transitional solutions and the needs of reality. Essential characteris-
in the legal system opened by technical innovations.
For a more in-depth analysis of these aspects and their peculiarities, the
choice, for various reasons, falls on the transitional space generated by the
of all, an exemplary case, deeply representative of the sudden legal vacuum
that a novelty can generate. Several contributions to legal doctrine16 intro-
duce the issues related to telephony starting precisely from the “problems
and complaints”17 raised by an unregulated use of the device, with reference
-
bles on private property, public safety and episodes of interference between
several telephone lines and between the latter and telegraph lines. However,
coherent legal framework. Cesare Norsa’s18 words make us fully understand
limitino i rapporti pubblici e privati da essa nascenti, che ne stabiliscano particolarmente
le funzioni”. Foligno (1912-1916). Of the same tenor also Rivalta when reviewing Rava:
-
mensi progressi, non progrediva del pari il lavoro del legislatore” Rivalta (1900).
15 See Canullo (2017).
16 Norsa (1883); Cavalieri/Persico (1908); Rava (1900).
17 Norsa (1883).
18 Cesare Norsa, was a lawyer expert in international law, representative of the Mil-
anese Lawyers’ Association, as well as a member of various associations that led him to
have numerous contacts with foreign law and legal literature. In particular, he was a corre-
spondent member of the Royal Lombard Institute of Science and Letters, a correspondent
member of the Veneto University, the Academy of Legislation in Madrid, the Society of
-
Tacchi (2002); Liva (1991). Cf. also the subheading on the front cover Norsa (1883).
Para continuar leyendo
Solicita tu prueba