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 analyzes and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal education in law (a law degree) and often a Lawyer, legal prac ...

and writer. He is regarded as the founder of the French school of legal humanists.

Biography

Alciati was born in Alzate Brianza, near

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

, 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. Tacitus’ two major historical works, ''Annals'' ( ...

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 () 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 home meant many Scots seeking to ...

between 1529 and 1535. It was

Guillaume Budé Guillaume Budé (; Onomastic Latinisation, Latinized as Guilielmus Budaeus; January 26, 1467 – August 20, 1540) was a French scholar and humanist. He was involved in the founding of Collegium Trilingue, which later became the Collège de Fra ...

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. He is best known for his '' Historical and Critical Dictionary'', whose publication began in 1697. Many of the more controversial ideas ...

, 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 (, abbreviated Unibo) is a Public university, public research university in Bologna, Italy. Teaching began around 1088, with the university becoming organised as guilds of students () by the late 12th century. It is the ...

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 continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

and

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...

. Alciati died at

Pavia Pavia ( , ; ; ; ; ) is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, in Northern Italy, south of Milan on the lower Ticino (river), Ticino near its confluence with the Po (river), Po. It has a population of c. 73,086. The city was a major polit ...

in 1550. His heir, Francesco Alciati, commissioned a huge

mausoleum A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the burial chamber of a deceased person or people. A mausoleum without the person's remains is called a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be considered a type o ...

in the Church of S. Epifanio.

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 In Textual scholarship, textual and classical scholarship, the ''editio princeps'' (plural: ''editiones principes'') of a work is the first printed edition of the work, that previously had existed only in manuscripts. These had to be copied by han ...

'') * 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

Bibliography

* * Andrea Alciato, ''Il libro degli emblemi secondo le edizioni del 1531 e del 1534'', with Introduction, Italian translation and commentary by Mino Gabriele (Milan: Adelphi, 2009; second revised edition 2015) ISBN 978-88-459-2967-0 * William S. Heckscher, ''The Princeton Alciati Companion. A Glossary of Neo-Latin words and phrases used by Andrea Alciati and the emblem book writers of his time, including a bibliography of secondary sources relevant to the study of Alciati's emblems'' (New York: Garland, 1989) ISBN 0-8240-3715-4

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 writers in Latin 16th-century Italian historians 16th-century Italian male writers Italian male non-fiction writers Italian Renaissance humanists People from the Province of Como