FARINACCI, Prospero. — Italian penal jurist, b. in Rome on 30 Oct. 1554, d. there on 30 Oct. 1616. He studied law at the University of Padua, where he earned his doctorate, revealing even as a student a keen legal sense and particular skill in forensic dialectic. His name, together with that of Tiberio Deciani, is chiefly associated with the new science of criminal law, which, emerging from the early attempts of the post-glossators, rose to the status of an independent discipline grounded in Roman and canon law and enriched by the principal statutory provisions.
In the field of criminal doctrine, F. stood out for the great originality of his views, combined with a marked practicality. In his writings he displays a thorough knowledge of the theories developed up to his time, to which he regularly opposed his own opinions.
To the systematic development of the science of criminal procedure belongs chiefly his *Praxis et theoria criminalis* (Lyons 1616), which exercised a notable influence on foreign penal legislation down to the end of the 18th century. Among his other minor works are *De haeresi*, *De immunitate ecclesiae* and *De testibus*, the weighty collection of *Decisiones Romae romanae*, the treatises *De contractibus* and *De ultimis voluntatibus*, and the compilations of *Consilia* and *Decisiones*. As an advocate he gained particular renown for his defence in celebrated trials such as that of Beatrice Cenci.