Luigi de Magistris on Naples as a Commons Laboratory

Source

French-language article in

• Article: Naples, laboratoire des biens communs. Entretien avec Luigi de Magistris, maire de Naples (2011-2021). Acosta Alvadaro, AS,. Coriat, B. & Orsi, F. EnCommuns. Article mis en ligne le 14 octobre 2026.

URL = https://www.encommuns.net/articles/2026-10-14-naples-laboratoire-des-biens-communs/

"Luigi de Magistris est un ancien magistrat qui fut juge avant de devenir maire de Naples (de 2011 à 2021). C'est sous sa mandature que le statut de biens communs a été reconnu pour la première fois en Italie. Expérience unique en la matière, les "beni comuni" de Naples sont aujourd'hui une référence en Europe et dans le monde. Luigi de Magistris était à Paris en mars 2025 pour une rencontre publique organisée par l'Université des biens communs et la revue EnCommuns sur "La révolution des communs à Naples". Un entretien a été conduit à cette occasion par Ana Sofía Acosta Alvarado, Benjamin Coriat et Fabienne Orsi pour la revue."

Excerpts

Z.ai translated:

The Commons in the Italian Constitution: A Dynamic Interpretation

Article 41 and Beyond:

* "EnCommuns: Perhaps we can now draw the connection between your conception of the Constitution "in general" and the way you have approached the question of the commons through the lens of the Italian Constitution.

LDM: The commons appear above all in the entire first part of the Italian Constitution, that is to say, in the fundamental principles. The fundamental principles form a detailed list of primary goods. However, when — together with the Naples City Council — we drafted and adopted the administrative acts (delibere) on the commons (and Naples was the only city in Italy to have passed administrative acts on the subject of the commons), I worked hard to give them a firm legal foundation. I found that foundation in the articles dealing with property. These are mainly Article 41 and the articles that follow in the Constitution, which concern public and private property. By interpreting the Constitution in a dynamic manner, I found a pathway to give the question of the commons a legal basis. Then I worked on what jurists call a "systematic" interpretation — between the Constitution and the norms. This led to the discussion on the question of usi civici (civic uses) that we spoke about yesterday."

(https://www.encommuns.net/articles/2026-10-14-naples-laboratoire-des-biens-communs/)

The Rodota Commission's Constitutional Reform

* "EnCommuns: What is your connection to the Rodotà Commission? And to the fact of taking up this reform project in order to include a legal status for the commons within it? Because the creation of this legal status is also a genuine legal revolution. It clearly inspired what you did in Naples.

LDM: In Italy, over the last 20–25 years, there has been a very significant theoretical and legal debate on the commons. Different positions have been expressed. It is in this way, among other initiatives, that we saw the formation of the Rodotà Observatory. I knew Stefano Rodotà very well. We also had proposals from other jurists, partly divergent, such as those of Professor Paolo Maddalena. At the Naples municipal administration, we drew on the positions of Alberto Lucarelli, Ugo Mattei, and others. I listened and read a great deal. And then the truly "Neapolitan" novelty was to move from theory to practice — that is, to see how to embed the theory of the commons within municipal deliberations (administrative acts), and how to back proposals that explicitly inscribe the notion of the commons into the constitution."

On the Civic Uses of the Commons and the Common Good

* What would it mean to design commons whose vocation is to address major societal issues, such as education or security?

LDM: In my view—and I am very clear on this point—commons have from the beginning played an important role in questions of urban security, especially given their commitment to social cohesion. Commons have helped to establish security, dialogue, encounter, and well-being in the territory. They have provided assistance to people who would otherwise have been abandoned. They have given refuge to young people who previously lived on the street, exposed to multiple risks and dangers. Commons have therefore been and still are a means of combating insecurity and the deterioration of living conditions, in a completely different way from what official policy in Italy does, at both national and local level—policy that deals with security in an often brutal and authoritarian administrative manner, through evictions and the use of the baton, considering and treating the excluded and the poor as a factor in environmental degradation.

In fact, I was very isolated in these battles, particularly with regard to ordinances I issued, as well as in debates I led within the National Association of Italian Municipalities (ANCI), because my fellow mayors could not understand the point of view I was defending. The lack of understanding was not only on the part of elected officials aligned with Meloni or Salvini. Law-and-order thinking was and unfortunately still is dominant in the “mainstream” political forces that are majoritarian in our country."