BULGARUS. - He is the most illustrious of the so-called four Bolognese doctors whom tradition holds to have been disciples of Irnerius, the founder of the Studium.

First mentioned in 1154, he took part in 1158 in the Diet of Roncaglia at the invitation of Barbarossa to define the imperial regalia and the communal rights; he perhaps died in 1166 and is buried in the church of St. Proculus in Bologna.

Very well known to the glossators who followed, to Azo and Accursius among others, B. represents in the history of the Bolognese Studium the scientific tendency that had its followers precisely in the Bulgarists, as opposed to the other one initiated by his contemporary and colleague in teaching Martinus Gosia and followed by the Gosians: B. seems to remain more faithful and more closely adherent in his activity as an interpreter to the letter of the law, whereas Martinus on the contrary displays the tendency to interpret the texts with greater freedom, making extensive use of criteria of equity, at times perhaps even capriciously; he is thus the representative of the conservative school as opposed to the innovative one of Martinus.

His vast juridical culture, his critical acumen and his elegant diction earned him the epithet of os aureum; he had illustrious disciples such as Rogerius, Albericus and Johannes Bassianus; various glosses of his have come down to us, an apparatus on the title De diversis regulis iuris and a procedural treatise De iudiciis.

Bibliography6 works

BIBL.: Editions: De diversis regulis iuris antiqui, ed. A. Lecomte, Paris 1567; Bulgari ad Digestorum titulum «de diversis regulis iuris antiqui» commentarius, ed. F. G. C. Beckhans, Bonn 1856; De iudiciis, in A. Wunderlich, Anecdota quae processum civilem spectant, Gottling 1841; Di Questiones che si dico diutipatate alla scuola di B., in A. Gaudenzi, Bibl. iurid. medii aevi, II, Bologna 1892, edited by F. Patetta. - Studies: F. C. de Savigny, Storia del diritto romano nel medioevo, Italian trans. E. Bollati, II, Turin 1857, pp. 50-73; G. F. Haenel, Zum Bulgarus-Commentar des Pandekten-titels: De regulis iuris, in Ber. u. Verhandl. d. Sächs. Ges. d. Wiss., Leipzig 1875; P. Torelli, Glosse preaccursiane alle Istituzioni. Nota seconda: glosse di B., in Riv. di storia del dir. ital., 15 (1942), pp. 3-71.

Giuseppe Ermini

@incollection{ec3_bulgaro, author = {Ermini, Giuseppe}, title = {Bulgaro}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {III}, pages = {205--206}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1949}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/bulgaro} }

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