What the Civil Code means to Vicente José Cardozo Ferreira da Costa: the portuguese and the Code

Abstract

The text seeks to recover the Luso-Brazilian jurist’s theoretical efforts, Vicente José Cardozo Ferreira da Costa, during the Portuguese codification time in the nineteenth century. Doctor Vicentinho, as he was known at the University of Coimbra, presented a Civil Code Draft based on naturalistic grounds, i.e., it was structured from the image of a tree. The draft was not chosen to be the new Civil Code, althoughit made important contributions to Portugal’s codification period. This study used the historical method, which tries to make up the text informative image through historical databases in order to establish a connection between exposed facts and historical data so as to disclose Cardozo da Costa´s legal concepts.