GIOVANNI da FAENZA (Ioannes Faventinus). — One of the greatest glossators of Gratian’s Decretum, d. after 1220. His dates of birth and death are unknown. He was a professor at Bologna, where he probably also studied, until 1174, and then a canon at Faenza, not, in fact, bishop of that place; this is the view of Argnani, contrary to the earlier tradition, inferred from the register of the capitular decisions of that cathedral church, in which G. da F. signs as a priest. He supported the imperial party of Frederick Barbarossa, together with his bishop Giovanni II, who died while accompanying the Emperor in Palestine (1191).
After 1171 he wrote one of the best-known Summae on Gratian’s Decretum, modeled on that of the master Rufinus and of Stefano Tornacense; this Summa is still unpublished.
More important are his glosses on the Decretum itself, written subsequently to the Summa.
He has also been credited, though the attribution is uncertain, with some Quæstiones and glosses on the Appendix Concilii Lateranensis. His influence on later authors was considerable.
The date of his death was formerly placed around 1190, but Argnani, on the basis of several subscriptions by a certain Giovanni, an expert in canon law, found in the Capitular Archive of Bologna, moves the date of his death to after 1220.