Historical Profile

 

Those of Notary is an institution that was born in Italy and has ancient origins.

The term “notaries” dates back to the Roman Republic: in diritto romano classico the notarii were slaves who were entrusted by private to write documents with abbreviations, although only during the decline of the Roman Empire their role starts to line up closer to the current, because at the Notary become collaborator of Emperor and then editor of writings between the parties.

There are reports of similar figures among the Jews, who tasked the scribes or Secretaries of receiving contracts with public seal and among the Greeks, who employed scribes to receive and store contracts as evidence of the conclusion of agreements.

But the figure which is closer to those of current Notary is that of tabelliones (so called because they used to write on wax tablets) which reported private writings taking care of their legal form, although their acts didn’t hold public faith. yet

After the decline of the Roman Empire the tabelliones continued to carry out their activities and organized in scholae, but only with Charlemagne (Capitolare De scriviis et notariis dell’anno 805) came to merging into a single Office of tabellione and of notarius: notarial acts acquired the same strength and the same effect as a judgment res judicata.

In the middle ages, between 11th and 12th century, with the attribution of “fides publica” those of Notary came to be regarded as a noble profession but only during the era of French Revolution begins to emerge the figure of modern Notary, which in Italy will be governed for the first time by the law No. 2786, of July 25th 1875 followed by Royal Decree No. 4900 of May 25th 1879, later replaced by law No. 89 February 16th 1913, still in force.

The figure of the Latin style Notary currently exists in 76 countries out of 192. Conditions and the notarial regulations vary from country to country but increasingly there is approaching this Latin style notary to study and imitate him, given the results and guarantees that characterize it, to protect both the citizen and the State.