Andrea Alciato

Andrea Alciato studied at University of Bologna. Training under Carlo Ruini, Filippo Decio and Giasone del Maino is recorded. Giulio Claro, Eguinaire Baron and Guido Panciroli are recorded as having studied under Andrea Alciato. The recorded working language is renaissance Latin, Italian and Latin. Employment is recorded with University of Bologna and University of Pavia. Works named in the authority record are Emblemata. Work by Andrea Alciato is recorded in the collections of Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes.

• Honorific Prefix — Doctor • Birth Name — Giovanni Andrea Alciato • Born — 8 May 1492 • Birthplace — Alzate Brianza, Duchy of Milan • Died — 12 January 1550 • Place of death — Pavia, Duchy of Milan • Occupation — Jurist, university teacher, lawyer, writer • Parents — Ambrogio Alciati and Margherita Alciati (née Landriani) • Relatives — Francesco Alciati • Alma Mater — * University of Pavia • University of Bologna • University of Ferrara • School Tradition — Mos gallicus iura docendi • Influences — Seneca, Tacitus, Tribonian, Bartolus de Saxoferrato, Erasmus • Discipline — Civilist, legal theorist, philosopher of law • Workplaces — * Avignon University • University of Bourges • University of Pavia • University of Bologna • University of Ferrara • Notable Students — Bonifacius Amerbach, Viglius, François Connan, Johannes Secundus, Antonio Agustín y Albanell, Giulio Claro • Notable Works — Emblemata (1531) • Influenced — French school of legal humanism • Resting Place — Chiesa di Sant'Epifanio

• Illustration — Engraving of Andrea Alciato Alciati was born in Alzate Brianza, near Milan, 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 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 between 1529 and 1535. It was Guillaume Budé who encouraged the call to Bourges at the time. Pierre Bayle, 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 and using it as a negotiation point. At this time, Alciato received a royal pension of 400 livres tournois. 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, which attained enormous popularity in continental Europe and Great Britain. Alciati died at Pavia in 1550. His heir, Francesco Alciati, commissioned a huge mausoleum in the Church of S. Epifanio.

• Illustration — Emblem 189: Mentem, non formam, plus pollere ("mind, not outward form, prevails") • 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 the region of Milan during Antiquity, written in 1504–05. • De formula Romani Imperii (Basilae: Ioannem Oporinum, 1559, editio princeps) * • Illustration — De ponderibus et mensuris, 1532 • Illustration — In Digestorum titulos aliquot commentaria, 1560