Editio actionis e ritualità processuale. Per una semiotica dell'accesso alla giustizia in diritto romano.

Access to justice in Roman private law depended on ‘pre-trial’ procedures such as the editio actionis and the in ius vocatio that modern scholars generally do not consider to be part of the trial itself. This study questions the value of such assumptions, employing as an investigative criterion the ritual and symbolic aspects of these ‘pre-trial’ procedures in order to attempt a reevaluation of the role they played in the context of the trial. When also viewed in the light of methodological approaches drawn from the field of semiology, the relevant sources yield a new set of conclusions on this important topic.