Andrea Alciato (8 May 149212 January 1550), commonly known as Alciati (Andreas Alciatus), was an Italian
jurist
A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyses and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal qualification in law and often a legal practitioner. In the Uni ...
and writer. He is regarded as the founder of the French school of
legal humanists
The legal humanists were a group of scholars of Roman law, which arose in Italy during the Renaissance with the works of Lorenzo Valla and Andrea Alciato as a reaction against the Commentators. In the 16th century, the movement reached France ( ...
.
Biography
Alciati was born in
Alzate Brianza
Alzate Brianza ( Brianzöö: ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Como in the Italian region Lombardy, located about north of Milan and about southeast of Como
Como (, ; lmo, Còmm, label= Comasco , or ; lat, Novum Com ...
, near
Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
, and settled in France in the early 16th century. He displayed great literary skill in his exposition of the laws, and was one of the first to interpret the
civil law by the history, languages and literature of
antiquity, and to substitute original research for the servile interpretations of the glossators.
He published many legal works, and some annotations on
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historiography, Roman historians by modern scholars.
The surviving portions of his t ...
and accumulated a sylloge of Roman inscriptions from Milan and its territories, as part of his preparation for his history of Milan, written in 1504–05.
Among his several appointments, Alciati taught Law at the
University of Bourges
The University of Bourges (french: Université de Bourges) was a university located in Bourges, France. It was founded by Louis XI in 1463 and closed during the French Revolution.
Until the mid-17th century, lack of suitable legal training at hom ...
between 1529 and 1535. It was
Guillaume Budé
Guillaume Budé (; Latinized as Guilielmus Budaeus; 1468 – 1540) was a French scholar and humanist. He was involved in the founding of Collegium Trilingue, which later became the Collège de France.
Budé was also the first keeper of the ...
who encouraged the call to Bourges at the time.
Pierre Bayle
Pierre Bayle (; 18 November 1647 – 28 December 1706) was a French philosopher, author, and lexicographer. A Huguenot, Bayle fled to the Dutch Republic in 1681 because of religious persecution in France. He is best known for his '' Historica ...
, in his
General Dictionary (article "Alciat"), relates that he greatly increased his salary there, by the "stratagem" of arranging to get a job offer from the
University of Bologna
The University of Bologna ( it, Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, UNIBO) is a public research university in Bologna, Italy. Founded in 1088 by an organised guild of students (''studiorum''), it is the oldest university in continuo ...
and using it as a negotiation poin
Alciati is most famous for his ''
Emblemata
Usually known simply as the ''Emblemata'', the first emblem book appeared in Augsburg (Germany) in 1531 under the title ''Viri Clarissimi D. Andreae Alciati Iurisconsultiss. Mediol. Ad D. Chonradum Peutingerum Augustanum, Iurisconsultum Emblemat ...
,'' published in dozens of editions from 1531 onward. This collection of short
Latin verse texts and accompanying woodcuts created an entire European genre, the
emblem book
An emblem book is a book collecting emblems (allegorical illustrations) with accompanying explanatory text, typically morals or poems. This category of books was popular in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries.
Emblem books are collections ...
, which attained enormous popularity in continental
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
and
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...
.
Alciati died at
Pavia
Pavia (, , , ; la, Ticinum; Medieval Latin: ) is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy in northern Italy, south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It has a population of c. 73,086. The city was the capit ...
in 1550.
Works
* ''Annotationes in tres libros Codicis'' (1515)
* ''Emblematum libellus'' (1531)
*
* ''Opera omnia'' (Basel 1546–49)
* ''Rerum Patriae, seu Historiae Mediolanensis, Libri IV'' (Milan, 1625) a history of Milan, written in 1504–05.
* ''De formula Romani Imperii'' (Basilae: Ioannem Oporinum, 1559, ''editio princeps'')
*
File:Alciati, Andrea – De ponderibus et mensuris, 1532 – BEIC 13750776.jpg, ''De ponderibus et mensuris'', 1532
File:Alciati, Andrea – In Digestorum titulos aliquot commentaria, 1560 – BEIC 11135576.tif, ''In Digestorum titulos aliquot commentaria'', 1560
Quotation
References
External links
*
Alciato at Glasgow– Reproductions of 22 editions of Alciato's emblems from 1531 to 1621
Memorial University of Newfoundland
Latin text, Antwerp 1577, full digital facsimile, CAMENA Project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Alciato, Andrea
1492 births
1550 deaths
16th-century Italian jurists
16th-century Latin-language writers
16th-century Italian historians
Italian Renaissance humanists
People from the Province of Como