Giustizia e lavoro nelle Summae di Antonino da Firenze, Angelo da Chivasso e Giovanni Battista Trovamala

The Summae confessorum have been often neglected, until today, by legal historians. Nevertheless, such a literature, from the XIIIth cent. onwards, provides materials of great interest, just connecting legal, moral and economic appreciations strictly interwoven in human concrete life. While a sort of monastic culture was initially suspicious of secular labour, mendicants orders, well inserted in urban milieu, made a decisive change of route. The most relevant author was Antonino Pierozzi, bishop of Florence (1389-1459). In his Summa he strongly raises the problem of justice between capitalist employers and subordinate workers, frequently exploited in many ways.