'Absentia rei' e furtività

In some fragments of the Digest appears the ‘lemma’ res abest and its related forms. It was carefully esamine in a famous essay by Generoso Melillo, in which the Neapolitan scholar had identified the foundation in the absence of the element pretium for objects in different ways had undergone alterations, such as not being able to do more a precise economic assessment. In this article the ‘lemma’ is reconsidered in light of conseguences of the theft : in the fragments in question the theft seems to be one of the possible cause that prevents the well being specifically valued in economic terms. In fact, the theft generates a defect – a vitium- that limits the perfect marketability of the res furtiva. It can not be acquired in property by anyone, as long as it does not fall within the potestas of the robbed. That the hypothesis of stolen res had been present in depth to the attention of the jurists is then demonstrated by a series of fragments in which we can observe a broad and ongoing debate on the point.