1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Alciati, Andrea

ALCIATI, ANDREA (1492–1550), Italian jurist, was born at Alzano, near Milan, on the 12th of January 1492. He displayed great literary skill in his exposition of the laws, and was one of the first to interpret the civil law by the history, languages and literature of antiquity, and to substitute original research for the servile interpretations of the glossators. He published many legal works, and some annotations on Tacitus. His Emblems, a collection of moral sayings in Latin verse, has been greatly admired, and translated into French, Italian and Spanish. Alciati’s history of Milan, under the title Rerum Patriae, seu Historiae Mediolanensis, Libri IV., was published posthumously at Milan in 1625. He died at Pavia in 1550.