[[Image:Emblema CLXXXIX.gif|right|180px|thumb|Emblema CLXXXIX stating ''Mentem, non formam, plus pollere''.]]
'''Andrea Alciato''', commonly known as '''Alciati''' ('''Andreas Alciatus''') ([[January 12]], [[1492]] - [[1550]]), was an Italian [[jurist]] and writer. He is regarded as the founder of the French school of [[legal humanists]].

==Biography==
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 antiquity, and to substitute original research for the servile interpretations of the glossators. He published many legal works, and some annotations on [[Tacitus]]. 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]].

==Works==

* ''Annotationes in tres libros Codicis'' (1515)
* ''Emblematum libellus'' (1522)
* ''Opera omnia'' (Basel 1546-49)
* ''Rerum Patriae, seu Historiae Mediolanensis, Libri IV'' (Milan, 1625) a history of [[Milan]],

==References==
{{1911}}
==External links==
*[http://www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/alciato/ Alciato at Glasgow] - Reproductions of 22 editions of Alciato's emblems from 1531 to 1621
*[http://www.mun.ca/alciato/index.html Description, Reproduction and translation] Memorial University of Newfoundland

[[Category:1492 births|Alciato, Andrea]]
[[Category:1550 deaths|Alciato, Andrea]]
[[Category:People from the Province of Como|Alciato, Andrea]]
[[Category:Roman law|Alciato, Andrea]]
[[Category:Italian legal writers|Alciato, Andrea]]
[[Category:Italian historians|Alciato, Andrea]]
[[Category:Italian Renaissance humanists|Alciato, Andrea]]
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