Filippo Foderà

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Filippo Foderà (1789–1837) was an Italian lawyer who wanted to reform Sicily’s laws. He was born in Girgenti (now Agrigento) to a modest farming family. He studied at the local Bishop's Seminary, then at the University of Palermo, where he trained in law. He argued that Sicily’s legal code mixed rules from many rulers—Romans, Normans, Spaniards and Austrians—and needed a clear, modern update. He was elected to the Sicilian parliament to represent Girgenti. Because Sicily didn’t have a constitution until the Bourbon rule ended, it’s hard to say how much reform happened. His main work was Principi della legislazione criminale e della riforma dei codici criminali, a large multi-volume study that compared legal systems in other countries to suggest reforms. Later he wrote on musical theory and some poetry. He died in Girgenti during the cholera epidemic of 1837.