Pratica sportiva organizzata e danno. Dalla lex Aquilia alla responsabilità civile dell’atleta

This contribution – which reworks, with minimal annotations, the content of the lecture delivered in Bologna on 14 April 2026, at the kind invitation of Professor Gianni Santucci – examines liability for harm arising from organised sporting activity, tracing the legal tradition from its Roman foundations to the modern doctrine of assumed risk. The analysis centres on the structure of the actio legis Aquiliae – and specifically the requirement of iniuria – as applied to socially sanctioned and institutionally tolerated conduct. A close reading of the relevant Digest fragments (D. 9.2.9.4; D. 9.2.52.4; D. 9.2.7.4) reconstructs the Roman doctrine of sporting harm, articulated around the distinction between conduct performed iure and non iure and the normative significance of place and governing rules. The continuity of this tradition into the ius commune is illustrated through the 1780 ruling of the Rota Fiorentina (Fabronis v. Marradi Ball Players), where Vernaccini’s argument systematises the Roman principles with doctrinal precision. A comparative reading of Miller v. Jackson ([1977] 3 All ER 338) demonstrates the enduring vitality of these categories within the modern framework of interest-balancing.