Un'ipotesi sull'origine del non usus

The author reproposes a conjecture of Giuseppe Grosso about the origin of the iura praediorum rusticorum’s loss by non-use and tries to show its ground in the sources. According to such a view the oldest rustic servitudes (iter, actus, via, aquae ductus) ended in ancient roman law, if the owner of the dominant estate abstained from exercising them for two years, by an usucapio in favour of the servient owner. Only when these rights – originally conceived as property’s forms – were regarded as iura in re aliena their non-use became an autonomous method of extinction and was extended to the other rustic servitudes and to the usufruct.