«Cooperazione splendida di diverse scienze, a servizio del vero, onde nasce e si svolge il diritto progressivo». A proposito di un saggio di Mariano D’Amelio

This work deals with the relationship between law and technological innovation from a legal-historical perspective. Starting from the concepts of innovation and transition, which are considered valid methodological and heuristic tools to fully understand the processes of legal change, continuity and rupture, the investigation focuses in particular on the 19th century, during which jurists were faced with increasingly sudden social and technological transformations that led them to question the adequacy of the code, an instrument of certainty and stability, to adapt to such change. Starting from a paper by Mariano D’Amelio on the use of photography as a means of proof in civil proceedings, an attempt was therefore made to understand what the attitude of the lawmakers was; they, faced with the need to regulate social change, continued to look to the code to revitalise its features, emphasising the hermeneutic role of jurisprudence to which was entrusted the task of conditioning the content of the law, making it capable of responding to changes in society. The innovation of law that passed through the valorisation of the jurisprudential moment therefore always took place within a legalistic framework.