This book showcases the importance of studying the history of European Union law. By recovering, through careful biographical studies, the leading Italian figures involved in the development of European Union law, the book offers a new, groundbreaking understanding of how Italy helped to shape the European legal order and how it was in turn affected by it.

Morten Rasmussen, Associate Professor in history, University of Copenhagen

What does it mean to be at once Italian, male, and a member of the EU judiciary in the second half of the 20th century? Does the shared nationality of a subset of CJEU Judges and AGs imply any one thing in particular? Is there a distinctly Italian style, to quote John Henry Merryman, or some other thread that connects, epistemically, the biographies collected in this Volume? Much to their credit, the Editors refrain from feeding the reader a facile answer to such questions. An enjoyable read and an important contribution to legal sociology, history, and theory of adjudication.

Daniela Caruso, Professor of Law emerita, Boston University School of Law

Against the backdrop of the rich legal tapestry which EU law has become, this book provides a fascinating insight into the contribution of Italy's judicial pioneers during the first phases of the legal integration process.

Professor Síofra O'Leary, Former President, European Court of Human Rights

The Italian Influence on European Law is a splendid book that casts both light and scrutiny on the lives of the Italian judges at the European Court of Justice. Readers only familiar with the Court as an impersonal institution will read fascinating accounts of Pilotti, Mancini, Tesauro – and, above all, of Alberto Trabucchi, who contributed so much to the birth of the direct effect doctrine in the early 1960s. More profoundly, the book asks us to reflect on the ways that distinctively national approaches to law have had a profound effect on European law. The Italian Influence on European Law therefore sets new agendas by challenging researchers to take seriously both the individual and the national in that most anonymous and transnational of projects, the European legal order.

William Phelan, author of Great Judgments of the European Court of Justice