Contius (Le Conte), Antonius

CONTIUS (LE CONTE), ANTONIUS. - French jurist, b. at Moyon ca. 1526, d. at Bourges in 1577 (or 1586). Professor at Bourges and then at Orléans. He was particularly noted for his erudition. He devoted himself actively to the criticism of sources, to editorial work and to the history of civil and canon law.

He helped to correct Gratian's Decretum, and the critical edition he made of it was published in 1570. He showed, along with other scholars, the frauds of the centuriators of Magdeburg. In 1571 he arranged the Novellae omitted from the Collatio X. He was also the author of an edition of the Corpus iuris civilis, with important notes, which was published in Paris in 1562 in 7 vols. and in Lyon in 1571 in 15 vols. In his opinions he opposed Duarenus and Hotman, who belong to the more dogmatic tendency of the French school. His various writings were collected and reissued under the editorship of another professor of Bourges, Mérille, with the title: Antonii Conti, Opera omnia, collecta studio Edmundi Merillii (Paris 1616; Naples 1725).

Antonio Rota