The decline of the commons and the reshaping of juridical-institutional and production systems in Terra di Bari after the Unification of Italy

The creation of small land-ownership and the consequent transformations in juridical, social and economic matters during the 1800s in Terra di Bari and, in general, in southern Italy, are inevitably intertwined with the so-called process of the decline of the commons. In the framework of methodologically updated studies, this article seeks to espouse the line of neo-institutionalism of the Mediterranean area, according to which it is necessary to investigate the ways of forming local ownership through the property deeds stipulated by notarial deeds and through the concept of conflict in order to better understand the processes of the modernization of society.