Keywords: Collective bodies; Council of State; Kingdom of Sardinia; Relations between State and Church; Religious minorities.
After the new Constitution of 1848, the Council of State of the Kingdom of Sardinia had
to rethink its role within the context of a new legal and political order. Focus of the article
is a primary source, a document written around 1855 for internal use by this governmental
body, regarding the consultative jurisprudence of the Council itself on religious and church
matters. The document displays a remarkable effort to examine the history and the role of
the body, which its anonymous author belonged to. Moreover, it includes a large number
of legal opinions showing the specific perspective of the Council of State about the transition
from the old legal order to the new one.