RALLIS, GEORGIO ALESSANDRO. — Jurist and politician, born in Constantinople in 1804. He pursued higher studies in Vienna and Paris, where he also taught rhetoric. Returning to Greece, he was entrusted by his government with several political missions to Thebes and Athens.
He was twice rector of the University of the latter (1858, 1868) and held the chair of law. He also presided over the government ministries of Justice (1841, 1848, 1857), Finance (1841), and Foreign Affairs (1848). Upon being appointed director of the Areopagus (1850), he resumed his career as a teacher of law, which, with some interruptions, he continued until his death (1883), which occurred in Austria.
Many were the ordinances he issued and the juridical institutions established in Greece while he directed the Ministry of Justice, and very numerous were his valuable publications: for example, the Enchiridion of Roman law (Athens 1856), a work of his youth, and his more mature work on the draft law concerning mendicancy (ibid. 1878–79). In collaboration with Potlis M., he published Greek Codes (in Greek, ibid. 1844), with many subsequent editions; and the work of the two, Ordinatio sacrorum canonum Ecclesiae orthodoxiae orientalis (in Greek, ibid. 1852–56), has remained a classic.