JOHN OF ANDREA. - Italian lay canonist, b. around 1270 at Rifredo in the Mugello, d. at Bologna on 7 July 1348. His father Andrea and his mother Novella were not joined in marriage. Even before the age of ten he began the study of the Decretals. His teachers in Roman law were Martino Sillimano and Riccardo Malombra, and in canon law Egidio and the archdeacon Guido da Baisio. The latter conferred the doctorate on him, as he says, using a good deceit, inasmuch as he would have declared to him that legal studies would have pleased him once childhood was past (Novella in sextum, proemium). He taught at Bologna, where he lectured on the Decretum (1303), then at Padua (1307), and then again at Bologna (1309), where he remained until the end of his life.
The commune of Bologna conferred many public offices on him. He was a friend of Petrarch, of Calderini and of Hugh king of Cyprus and Jerusalem.
Still living, he was able to enjoy a well-deserved fame. His writings were much sought after, and his notable historical erudition makes them, even today, for this part of their information, very precious. In this respect particularly noteworthy are the Additiones which he made to the Speculum of Durandus and which he finished toward the end of his life (1346); in these, with abundant direct information from manuscripts and reasoned historical criticism, he points out the sources of legal literature, for the most part Italian, from which the French proceduralist drew largely, and sometimes literally.
From what Baldo degli Ubaldi nevertheless indicates in his subsequent Additiones to the Speculum (l. 40, tit. de concessione praebendae), not even G. d'A. could escape the affectation of the age of sometimes appropriating the writings of others, especially those of Oldrado; and Baldo affirms in that place, with particular reference to the writings of Oldrado, « insignis fur aliorum laborum Ioh. Andrese fuerit ».
Nevertheless the historical information that G. d'A. offers is the original fruit of his marked critical tendency which makes him the father of historical canonistic and civilistic literature. But also his particular versatility in legal interpretation made his writings most precious. He was called by his contemporaries fons et tuba iuris.
With G. d'A. the so-called classical period of canon law comes to a close. He can be considered also the summarizer of previous canonistic legal thought, on account of the ample reference he makes to the best doctrines of others and the often successful attempt at a general picture of canonistic legal science, for the various subjects, up to his own times. Where he expresses his own thesis, he reinforces it with strong intellect and great diligence.
His output unfolds above all through commentaries on the various collections of the Decretals.
His first commentary he composed on the Liber Sextus of Boniface VIII, and it was a youthful work which he himself corrected with successive additions, and the definitive redaction seems to have been completed before the death of Boniface VIII (1303). This commentary passed as the ordinary gloss to the Liber Sextus, being preferred to the other commentaries written on the same text.
Second, in order of time, are his Commentaria novella on the Decretals of Gregory IX, compiled not before 1338: an important work in which he reports many opinions of doctors and proposes with fine intellect his own resolutions. To the same Gregorian Decretales he added his Casus breves. Then he wrote his Lectura in librum sextum decretalium, a work which he did not finish before 1339. To him is owed also the first Glossa in Clementinas. Noteworthy too are his Quaestiones Mercuriales, in which, however, true originality is not always perceptible. On the other hand, among his writings there is no lack of works dedicated to particular subjects, such as his Lectura super arboribus consanguinitatis et adimitatis, which had wide fortune in the Middle Ages, and the Summa de sponsalibus et matrimonio, a reworking with additions of the work of Giovanni di Cesena or of Anguissola.
There are also ascribed to him Tractatus varii: De interdicto, De consuetudine (referred to in the Commentaria novella) and a Tractatus de renuntiatione beneficiorum.
Bibliography3 works
Antonio Rota