1860 to 1865 · Civil codes

Teixeira de Freitas's Esboço (draft civil code)

Brazil

A very thorough draft civil code for Brazil by the jurist Augusto Teixeira de Freitas, with a General Part and a clear order of topics. It was never enacted in Brazil.

Why it matters

It became an influential model even though it was not adopted at home. The Argentine code, and later Paraguay's, borrowed heavily from it, and its General Part anticipated the German code.

Built on

1804

French Civil Code (Napoleonic Code)

France

started from the French code, but improved its structure

Went on to shape

1869 (in force 1871)

Argentine Civil Code (Vélez Sársfield)

Argentina

took many articles from Freitas's draft

1916 (in force 1917)

Brazilian Civil Code of 1916

Brazil

built on Freitas's earlier draft

Counting texts that borrowed from the texts that borrowed from this one, 3 later texts on this timeline trace back to it.

Countries in the Legal Families Atlas

Brazil

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TheLawToKnow Tools’s timeline lists links of influence only where the borrowing is widely documented. Historians sometimes disagree about how much one text shaped another. It is an educational overview, not legal advice.