G. sets out to counter the position of those writers who hold that the 1917 Code is to he seen as a belated response by the Church to advances in the construction of civil Codes in Europe, especially that of Napoleon at the star! of the nineteenth century. He approaches this question with a lengthy survey of the antecedents to the work initiated hy St Pius X and completed under Pope Benedict XV. G. gives detailed consideration to the legai hackgrounds of hoth Popes in proof of the uniqueness of the 1917 Code.

In: Canon Law Abstracts, (2006/2), n. 96, 24.