For many years the Istituto di Teoria e Tecniche dell'Informazione Giuridica (ITTIG) of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche has studied the evolution of legal language, creating databases for documentation and digital retrieval of law texts. The ITTIG is attending to document legal language through information technology in order to provide as wide an access as possible to its findings. The Institute has recently created an on-line digital database that includes the full text of the most important Italian laws (Codes and Constitutions) from the 16th to the 20th century. The ITTIG is also in the process of preparing another database made up of contexts from the original 10th to the 20th century legal sources.