While describing the history of the concept of Constitution, the author illustrates the meanings it has assumed over the centuries: an important form of conciliation, an instrument for representing, creating or defending political unity, a method for creating the ideal form of government, the legal instrument for regulating political and social relations, the manifestation of the sovereign people's constituent power, the legal instrument for limiting government powers and guaranteeing rights or even a project for the future having the aim of creating a more just society. This concept proves to be strongly related to the history of government powers as well political and social factors: from the Greek polis to the complex institutions of medieval and modern times right up to the constitutional democracies of the present-day.

Maurizio Fioravanti teaches History of Modern Constitutions at the Faculty of law of Florence University.