Andrea Alciato

Andrea Alciato, commonly known as Alciati (Andreas Alciatus) (January 12, 1492 - 1550), was an Italian jurist and writer. He is regarded as the founder of the French school of legal humanists.

Biography

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. 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.

Works

* "Annotationes in tres libros Codicis" (1515)
* "Emblematum libellus" (1522)
* "Opera omnia" (Basel 1546-49)
* "Rerum Patriae, seu Historiae Mediolanensis, Libri IV" (Milan, 1625) a history of Milan,

References

External links

* [http://www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/alciato/ Alciato at Glasgow] - Reproductions of 22 editions of Alciato's emblems from 1531 to 1621
* [http://www.mun.ca/alciato/index.html Description, Reproduction and translation] Memorial University of Newfoundland