The essay deals with the relationship between private autonomy, contract and legal type and, in particular, between private autonomy, jurisprudential types and social types, highlighting the tendency of jurisprudence to the “classification” of atypical contracts. The research involves the theme of the classification of the contract, of the cause and of the type, passing from the cause as an economic-individual function to the concept of cause in concrete and to the problem of its control. Attention is paid on the freedom to conclude contracts that do not belong to the codified types and on the problem, with regard to atypical contracts, of the lawfulness of the causa. Further reflections concern: type and interpretation; the distinction between types and the classification of the contract according to the type. Moreover, the unitary perspective of the individualization of the type is critically investigated, focusing on the typological method, in order to highlight its limits and the main criticisms it has been subject to. Attention is then focused on the functions of the contractual type; the structure of the contractual type; the distinction between type and sub-type. The last part is dedicated to: the formal structure, the variations of the legal type and the elasticity of the formal scheme; private autonomy and economic functioning; the economic transaction as an ordering category of contract law; the economic transaction and its legislative typification.

Enrico Gabrielli - Causa, tipo y teoria del contrato