BARTOLOMEI, Enrico (Henricus de Segusio or Segusia; Hostiensis). - Decretalist, b. at Susa (Turin), d. 25 Oct. 1271. He studied at Bologna, where he initially also followed courses in civil law. He in turn taught law at Paris. Consecrated first bishop of Sisteron, he was then archbishop of Embrun and subsequently, in 1261, appointed cardinal bishop of Ostia, whence the appellation Hostiensis, by which he is also known.
His Summa decretalium, based on the Decretals of Gregory IX, was called Aurea for the clarity and density of its scholarly information: in it, written around the middle of the 13th century and which went through several editions, one should note the introduction of the new method of expounding the text, by which was abandoned the old system of simple exegesis, which found concrete expression above all in the apposition of glossae or notulae to the text. The new method is described thus: « Primo ponendo casuni vel dicendo sensum litterae, secundo legendo litteram et exponendo et etiam construendo si difficilis appareat. Tertio inducendo similia. Quarto inducendo contraria, et solvendo et distinguendo. Quinto quaestiones faciendo et determinando. Sexto dicendo notabilia ad quae et qualiter induci debeat decretalis » (lib. V, tit. I, de magistris).
It should be noted that this same method had already been anticipated by the decretists and then passed into ordinary teaching practice in the German law schools in the first half of the 14th century (cf. G. Kauffmann, Geschichte der deutschen Universitäten, Stuttgart 1888-96, II, pp. 347-48). Taken up again in the Italian civil-law schools, it constituted the basis of the new orientation of the commentators or scholastics, which had in Bartolus its principal representative and became fixed in the distich « Praemitto, scindo, summo casumque figuro; perlego, do causas, connoto et obicio ».
The Summa of Hostiensis contains a notable recourse to civil-law theories and, in this respect too, is a precious source for the general reconstruction of the legal doctrine of the time. There may also be discerned in it a first direct attempt to modify the school of civil law by means of the equitable spirit of the time. B. has on the other hand been indicated as the head, within canonistic doctrine itself, of the orientation of equity as opposed to the more rigid current led instead by Sinibaldo dei Fieschi (later Pope Innocent IV), who stood for the rigorous interpretation of norms (cf. B. Kuhlmann, Der Gesetzesbegriff beim hl. Thomas von Aquin im Lichte des Rechtsstudiums seiner Zeit, Bonn 1912, p. 22). For his profound knowledge of both laws B. was called monarcha utriusque iuris. In his polemic with the civilians he particularly opposed the glossator Giovanni Bassiano and his disciple Niccolò Furioso.
He also wrote a Lectura on the same Gregorian decretals, composed with much erudition. The work is later than the Summa and appears to have been elaborated after 1268. His also is a Commentario on the Novellae constitutiones of Innocent IV, and finally a Tractatus super electione completed by Guglielmo de Mandagoto.