[5][6] After unification the family moved to Florence, the new capital for a new kingdom, where Vittorio spent the second half of his childhood, attending the prestigious Liceo ginnasio Dante [it] secondary school.
It was common at this time for Italian students of Jurisprudence, especially where the focus was on Roman Law, to spend a period of study in a German university, but Vittorio Scialoja, confident in his own intellectual rigour and inherent autodidacticism, stayed in Italy.
Growing up as the son of Antonio Scialoja, Vittorio was on the receiving end of sound advice from a number of the leading politicians of the day, who were regular guests in the family home.
In the Roman/Italian law mindset of mainland Europe in the late nineteenth century, Equity could only be properly invoked where it could be directly translated into the provisions of the legal systems.
Scialoja's voice was raised not in opposition to "equità comune", expressive of a shared popular aspiration in favour of a certain "common sense" justice, and a will that reaches a level of intensity deserving recognition through a force external to the legal code.
His academic reputation was well established by the end of just a year as a professor or Camerino, but he was nevertheless unusual among his professional colleagues/rivals in not having received any post graduate degree.
He insisted on allowing ample scope for the analysis, both of sources, and of connections and associations, some of which reached beyond the confines of the traditional syllabus.
Promoted to a full professorship in 1883/84, he taught several students who went on to achieve notability on their own account, including the jurist and Roman Law specialist Carlo Manenti [it] and the lawyer-pianist Dante Caporali.
[4][14] Candidates were ranked through competitive process, and he found himself competing directly for the appointment with several of the later Serafini's most eminent and influential pupils.
Along with his involvement, after 1904, as a senator, he accepted membership of numerous advisory councils and public committees concerned with legal and educational institutions and their interactions with society more broadly, frequently taking a leading role.
Lando Landucci was a leading representative of the "Serafini [it] school" of Roman Law, and had himself been a contender for the Rome professorship at the time of Scialoja's appointment.
Directly after establishing the institute, in 1888, Scialoja launched the "Bullettino dell’Istituto di diritto romano", a specialist periodical dedicated to Roman Law, which has acquired a life of its own, and is still published annually.
[1][2][15] In terms of building up the university law school Scialoja displayed an exceptional ability, not merely through his rare teaching talents, but also in his selection and training of young scholars.
The extent to which his students subsequently achieved notability as leading legal academics meant that Scialoja's impact on the application and development of The Law in Italy was enduring and profound.
Those whom he taught and/or powerfully influenced included Roman Law professors such as Pietro Bonfante [it] (1864-1932), Gino Segrè (1864–1942), Salvatore Riccobono (1864–1958), Carlo Longo (1869–1938), Sirio Solazzi [it] (1875-1957)]] and Vincenzo Arangio-Ruiz (1884-1964).
[1][17] Scialoja accordingly tried to resist any wide-ranging redefinition of "private law", which at that time could only have been viewed as a fundamental distortion of an established structure, with a liberal impetus which would have served only to encourage and hasten the already pervasive infiltration of totalitarian, corporatist and interventionist principles that was a feature of Mussolini's Italy.
Such considerations lay behind the "incorrigible scepticism" (invincibile scetticismo) with which Scialoja was reproached by the Fascist Foreign Minister Dino Grandi (with whom he was evidently on at least moderately cordial terms) when, during the course of this process, the two men found themselves on opposite sides of the argument over the still unresolved question of whether or not the justice system should be clearly separated from politics.
Three years later it turned out that Italy had backed the winning side, and the decision to particate had also secured for the Italian government a position of some influence at the Versailles Peace Conference, intended by the victorious Great Powers to redraw the map of Europe for the twentieth century, just as the Congress of Vienna had set out to define nineteenth century Europe back in 1815.
Senator Scialoja attended the peace conference as a member of the little Italian delegation under the leadership of Foreign Minister Sidney Sonnino.
[4][20] He then served between 1921 and 1932 as Italy's principal delegate to the League of Nations (to the "covenant" of which he had himself contributed) in Geneva, winning plaudits from colleagues and commentators for the quickness of intellect, legal rigour and breadth of knowledge that he brought to the role.
Sources differ over precise timelines, but in around November 1919 Vittorio Scialoja, who was already a key member of the little Italian delegation at Versailles, took over the Foreign Affairs portfolio, serving till 15 June 1920, following the collapse of the short-lived and terminally divided Nitti government.
[4][24] Vittorio Scialoja acquired a number of honorary professorships within Italy and abroad, and was also a member of various learned societies and associations.