Abstract

After the new Constitution of 1848, the Council of State of the Kingdom of Sardinia had to rethink its role within the context of a new legal and political order. Focus of the article is a primary source, a document written around 1855 for internal use by this governmental body, regarding the consultative jurisprudence of the Council itself on religious and church matters. The document displays a remarkable effort to examine the history and the role of the body, which its anonymous author belonged to. Moreover, it includes a large number of legal opinions showing the specific perspective of the Council of State about the transition from the old legal order to the new one.