IACOPO di PORTA RAVEGNANA. – Bolognese jurist, born in an uncertain year, already holding the chair before 1140, died in Bologna on 11 Oct. 1178.
He was one of the four doctors, immediate disciples of Irnerius, who, summoned by Barbarossa, took part at Roncaglia in 1158 in the definition of imperial regalia: the least known of them all, since only a certain number of glosses survive (marked I., Je., Iac., Iaco.), to which may perhaps be added some writings of disputed attribution, among them a Tractatus criminum; yet he may have been the most highly esteemed by his contemporaries, if the legend (interpolated in the chronicle of Otto Morena) could arise according to which, on his deathbed, Irnerius, choosing among the four, designated him as his successor and praised him highly with the famous couplet:
Bulgarus os aureum, Martinus copia legum,
mens legum est Ugo, Jacopus id quod ego.