Editing Andrea Alciato (section)

==Biography==
[[File:Andreas-Alciatus-Opera-omnia MG 0360.tif|thumb|Engraving of Andrea Alciato]]
Alciati was born in [[Alzate Brianza]], near [[Milan]], and settled in France in the early 16th century. He displayed great literary skill in his exposition of the laws, and was one of the first to interpret the [[civil law (common law)|civil law]] by the history, languages and literature of [[antiquities|antiquity]], and to substitute original research for the servile interpretations of the glossators.<ref name="EB1911">{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Alciati, Andrea|volume=1|page=522}}</ref> He published many legal works, and some annotations on [[Tacitus]] and accumulated a sylloge of Roman inscriptions from Milan and its territories, as part of his preparation for his history of Milan, written in 1504–05.<ref>Roberto Weiss, 1969. ''The Renaissance Discovery of Antiquity'', pp 152f.</ref>

Among his several appointments, Alciati taught law at the [[University of Bourges]] between 1529 and 1535. It was [[Guillaume Budé]] who encouraged the call to Bourges at the time.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jenny |first=Beat R. |title=Bonifacius Amerbach |publisher=Schwabe Verlag |year=1995 |isbn=9783796510083 |editor-last=Jacob-Friesen |editor-first=Holger |location=Basel |pages=54 |language=de |editor-last2=Jenny |editor-first2=Beat R.}}</ref> [[Pierre Bayle]], in his [[General Dictionary, Historical and Critical|General Dictionary]] (article "Alciat"), relates that he greatly increased his salary there, by the "stratagem" of arranging to get a job offer from the [[University of Bologna]] and using it as a negotiation point [https://books.google.com/books?id=PmZZAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA444].

Alciati is most famous for his ''[[Emblemata]],'' published in dozens of editions from 1531 onward. This collection of short [[Latin verse]] texts and accompanying woodcuts created an entire European genre, the [[emblem book]], which attained enormous popularity in continental [[Europe]] and [[Great Britain]].

Alciati died at [[Pavia]] in 1550.<ref name="EB1911"/> His heir, [[Francesco Alciati]], commissioned a huge [[mausoleum]] in the Church of S. Epifanio.