DEVOTI, GIOVANNI. - Canon lawyer, b. in Rome on 11 July 1774 and d. there on 18 Sept. 1820. He held various offices in the Curia, was bishop of Anagni and then, from 1804, titular archbishop of Carthage; he accompanied Pio VII to Paris when the latter went there for the coronation of Napoleone.
He taught for twenty-six years at the Sapienza and wrote various works, among which the best known is Institutionum canonicarum libri IV (Rome 1785, last ed. Bologna 1838), very widely used in the last century and particularly praised for its clarity and historical information. In the Iuris canonici publici et privati libri V (Rome 1803 ff.; Augusta 1867), D. commented on the first three books of the Decretals; finally, he wrote De notissimis in iure legibus libri II (6th ed., Rome 1830).