ALCIATI, ANDREA. — Jurist and humanist, b. at Alzate near Como on 8 May 1492, d. at Pavia on 12 Jan. 1550. He took his doctorate at Bologna in 1514 and practiced law in Milan for about four years; then he taught law at Avignon, Bourges, Pavia, Bologna, and Ferrara. Highly honored by King Francis I, who summoned him to France and took pleasure in attending his lectures, he was made an apostolic protonotary by Paul III.
A. is celebrated as the founder of a new method in the study of law, which he sought to harmoniously connect with the humanist movement of his time.
His juridical works, collected in four volumes and published at Basel in 1582, include monographs on canon law, commentaries on the Digest, and academic orations. A. also left some literary and historical writings, among which the famous Emblemata (a collection of moral allegories) are particularly noteworthy. A critical edition of his correspondence is in preparation. One of his works, Contra vitam monasticam ad collegam olim suum, qui transierat ad Franciscanos, Bernardum Mattium Epistola, in which, to dissuade his friend from entering the religious life, he vividly describes the abuses and disorders of monastic life, was placed on the Index on 23 March 1700. He, however, did not intend it for publication; it was instead published, along with other writings not his own, by Antonio Mattio (Leiden 1605).