UGUCCIONE da PISA. — Medieval decretist and lexicographer, born in Pisa in the first half of the 12th century, died at Ferrara on 30 April 1210.
At the Studium of Bologna, where, after obtaining his doctorate, he taught canon law from 1178 to 1190, he distinguished himself as the most celebrated magister decretorum of his century. Among his disciples, Lorario dei Conti di Segni, the future Pope Innocenzo III, stood out; he always retained esteem and regard for him, as is shown by the decretal letters that he dedicated and sent to him, as pope, later collected in Gregory IX’s Liber Decretalium. In 1190 he was appointed bishop of Ferrara. From 1197 to 1201, by order of the Pope, he devoted himself at Nonantola to the reorganization of the celebrated abbey.
He is the author of a very celebrated Summa Decretorum (still unpublished), composed between 1187 and 1190, the most extensive, most original, and at the same time most important work of its kind, which extended his influence as a supreme master throughout the entire Middle Ages. For causes XXIII–XXVI, which U. left without commentary, the work received several anonymous continuations: the principal one was made by Giovanni di Dio (around 1240). Numerous important glosses on the Decretum are also by U.; they were later incorporated into the Glossa ordinaria on the Decretum itself.
U. was also a distinguished student of grammar and lexicography. In this field, his principal work is the Derivationes (unpublished), a kind of etymological dictionary modeled on the analogous work of Papias. Although not free from the defects of the period, it enjoyed wide diffusion and great authority in the Middle Ages and was Dante’s dictionary. In the field of grammar he also wrote De dubio accento, the Rosarium, and the Summa artis grammaticae, discovered by Grabmann.