Andrea Alciato, the Humanist and the Teacher

The attention given to Alciato in recent years has been concerned mostly with his “Emblemata”. This term, used originally as the title of a compilation of epigrams describing personal devices, became very soon the name of a new genre of poem and illustration widely used in architectural and artistic ornamentation. In his lifetime however Alciato was better known in Italy and France as a jurist and philologist who, equipped with an extraordinary knowledge of classical literature, questioned the interpretations of his predecessors, the commentators and glossators. At the same time he was famous as a teacher who attracted great numbers of students by the clarity and concision of his delivery. This book, which offers a view of his personnality, his method, and his place as a teacher of the law between mos italicus and mos gallicus, is based on a reading of works not always accessible to specialists of the emblems.