Giovanni Minnucci is Emeritus Professor of History of Medieval and Modern Law, a discipline in which he was Full Professor at the University of Siena for 25 years, from 1999 to 2024.
At our University, he has held numerous positions, including Deputy Rector, Dean of the Faculty of Political Sciences, Head of Department, elected member of the Academic Senate, President of the Council of the “Circolo Giuridico” Library, and President of the Teaching Committee.
He is the author of around 150 publications, including 15 monographs and critical editions of sources and works of medieval and modern legal literature. With particular reference to these historical periods, his research has focused on the following areas:
a) the history of universities, with particular reference to the University of Siena, including the edition of a substantial number of sources;
b) the legal status of women, with particular attention to their procedural status;
c) the history of canon law, with extensive studies devoted to legislative figures such as Innocent III and Boniface VIII, as well as to Raymond of Penyafort, Henry of Susa, Catherine and Bernardino of Siena, and other lesser-known figures; to Gratian’s Decretum in the modern age and canon law in Reformed contexts; to the relationship, from a historical-legal perspective, between dioceses and cities; and to the connections, concerning the election of the abbot, between a Novella of the Emperor Justinian, issued in 546, and chapter LXIV of the Rule of Benedict of Nursia;
d) the history of criminal and procedural law, including the critical edition of the Tractatus criminum — 12th century — and innovative studies on the legislation of Frederick I Barbarossa;
e) the history of marriage, from both a substantive and procedural perspective;
f) the life, works and thought of the Reformed jurist Alberico Gentili, Regius Professor of Civil Law at Oxford from 1587 to 1608 and one of the founding fathers of modern international law. Minnucci has published critical editions of numerous previously unpublished texts and works by Gentili preserved in Oxford, including De papatu romano Antichristo, his correspondence with the Puritan theologian John Rainolds from 1593 to 1594, and a commentary on the Lex Iulia de adulteriis.
He is the Editor-in-Chief of the series Quaderni del Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche e Internazionali. He is a member of scientific committees of journals, associations, summer schools, research institutes and academies in Italy and abroad. He has presented papers at numerous conferences in Italy and internationally, and has given many lectures and book presentations. He was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Medieval Canon Law and the Robbins Collection of the University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A., from 1982 to 1983. He also served as Associate Professor in his discipline at the Faculty of Law of the University of Perugia from 1992 to 1995, and at the Faculties of Law from 1995 to 1997 and Political Sciences from 1997 to 1999 of the University of Siena.
He has also held several external positions, all on a voluntary basis, including President of the “Conservatori femminili riuniti” — “Refugio” — of Siena from 1997 to 1998, President of the Istituto senese di studi cateriniani from 2001 to 2004, and Rector of the Opera della Metropolitana di Siena from 2022 to 2025: the historic institution, founded in 1190, responsible for the historical, artistic and museum heritage of the Monumental Complex of Siena Cathedral.
On 27 December 2024, the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, awarded him the honour of Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, by Presidential Decree, in recognition of his scientific contributions and his commitment to academic and cultural institutions. The honour was formally presented to him on 2 June 2025.
