by Antonio Padoa-Schioppa
It is with great satisfaction that I acknowledge the joint initiative for the digital platform MILHIS.
In particular, I would like to express my appreciation for your commitment to establishing a forum in which the Milanese legal-historical tradition can engage meaningfully with the contemporary world. And this for several reasons.
Law is changing rapidly, reshaped by new methods, new content, and new technologies. Therefore, I believe its historical dimension is more essential than ever in legal education: for students, young researchers and lawyers understanding the roots of law is the only way to avoid empty innovations and to develop responses that are adequate to contemporary challenges.
Within this framework, MILHIS is most welcome as it serves as a platform for encounters, exchanges, and collaborations.
It will enhance existing research pathways, make them visible, and connect them with one another.
It can host initiatives both internal and external to the University, welcome contributions from Italian and international scholars, and foster the circulation of ideas among professors, researchers, fellows, doctoral candidates, and students.
Alongside its global perspective, MILHIS also pays attention to local specificities. Milan—its territory, and its legal tradition in doctrine, legislation, jurisdiction, and customary practices—represents a heritage that deserves to be recovered and valued. Yet legal history today cannot remain confined to a local viewpoint: it must operate across multiple integrated levels, from the municipal to the regional, national, European, and global.
The legal historians of the University of Milan have demonstrated a particular sensitivity to innovation – one that, since the work of Giulio Vismara – from early microfilm experiments to the most recent digitalisation projects and new systems for managing sources.
This new project requires strong commitment, continuity, and a spirit of collaboration. But it also represents an opportunity: to create a shared space in which a scientific community can grow, exchange ideas, and collectively build the future of legal-historical studies.
It is to Milhis that I offer my most sincere wishes.
Antonio Padoa-Schioppa
Video interview coming soon
📍 University of Milan
📅 January 2026