The legal institute of guardianship intended for the protection of interests of minors without the father’s or parental care was created already in the past. In more than a thousand years, along with the progress of socio-economic relations, Romans had improved the institute of guardianship. Later on, with the help of medieval science, Roman law marked the development of this institute throughout Europe. Most of the modern regulation of the protection of interests of minors without parental care can be seen as the result of the reception of Roman law. As an illustrative example of the early reception this contribution analyses the provisions on guardianship in the Statute of Izola (1360).