Un’unificazione centrifuga. La legislazione forestale dall’Unità d’Italia al primo Novecento

The article analyses the development of forestry legislation from the drafting of the first forestry law in 1877 to the adoption of the next one in 1910, interpreting the evolution through the lens of the relationship between centre and periphery, and thus between centripetal and centrifugal forces. To this end, it takes into account the parliamentary debates and the documentation that flowed from the territories to the Chamber of Deputies during the drafting of the bills. The aim is to recover the plurality of laws that were drafted and sometimes adopted on forestry matters. Contrary to the prevailing historiographical interpretation, legislative unification did not take place through the adoption of a single law, the «Forestry Law» of 1877, but through several laws dealing with different aspects, forming a complex mosaic. Thus, far from establishing a single framework, the new legislation had to interact with pre-unification legal traditions of a different nature, as well as with ownership structures that, after unification, profoundly differentiated the Italian provinces.