Che cosa è cambiato, che cosa abbiamo appreso?

The article tries to answer two questions: what has actually changed in the past decades in the special discipline of “constitutional history” and what consequences the scientific community has drawn from it. It draws the development of constitutional history in the last few decades pointing out some specific features. In particular the historical comparison of constitutions has assumed world format but it raises a wealth of methodological questions if such a historical comparison is to go beyond a superficial comparison of texts or any citation of “passages”. In view of the different country histories and national cultures, the different methodological approaches and previous understandings, a comparative constitutional history can only achieve the goal of a fair and meaningful comparison if it is based on concrete questions. Otherwise it operates with unverifiable assumptions.