Jurisdiction, Territory, Sovereignty: Giulio Pace and the Dominion of the Sea

Joshua Freed

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Chapter 6 Jurisdiction, Territory, Sovereignty: Giulio Pace and the Dominion of the Sea

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Joshua Freed

Joshua Freed
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 131–166

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004218628_007

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Abstract

The chapter sheds new light on the 1619 treatise by Giulio Pace, De dominio maris Hadriatici. In modern scholarship, despite of the date of publication, Pace’s work is usually thought to reflect a pre-Grotian Bartolist tradition of reasoning, recognizing Venetian rule over the Adriatic Sea in complete continuity with the tradition developed in the fifteenth-century legal commentary literature on the Digest concerning the division and occupation of property. By contrast Freed suggests that Pace, probably consciously bypassing Grotius’ 1608 Mare liberum, by concentrating, like Grotius, on the status of the sea as res, yet by introducing an innovative three-fold distinction, arguing that the sea was res nullius as a matter of property, res communis as a matter of use, and capable of someone’s dominium. The legal significance of Pace’s decision to classify the Adriatic as res nullius can be seen in the subsequent claims of occupatio that can be made over res nullius: The first occupant over unclaimed res nullius is entitled to a new title of dominium. In theory, Venice could own the Adriatic, either by occupation or by prescription of time, and exercise its jurisdiction. Pace could serve as Venetian answer to Grotius and as functional equivalent to John Selden’s Mare clausum option just by elegantly refining the old mos-italicus tradition.

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Sovereignty

European and Global Histories, 1400–1800

Series: Intersections, Volume: 93

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004218628

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 11 Sep 2024

Subjects
- History
- International Law
  - Legal History

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Part 1 European Sovereignties

Part 2 Global Sovereignties

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Chapter 6 Jurisdiction, Territory, Sovereignty: Giulio Pace and the Dominion of the Sea

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Sovereignty

European and Global Histories, 1400–1800

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