Andrea Alciato (8 May 149212 January 1550), commonly known as Alciati (Andreas Alciatus), was an Italian jurist 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, 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 historians by modern scholars. The surviving portions of his two major works—the ...

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 of France, Louis XI in 1463 and closed during the French Revolution. Until the mid-17th century, lack of suitable le ...

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 '' Histori ...

, 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 continu ...

and using it as a negotiation poin

Alciati is most famous for his '' Emblemata,'' 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 collection ...

, 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 subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

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 i ...

. 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 cap ...

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