ANDREAS (John), a celebrated canonist in the 14th century, was born at Mugello, near Florence; and was professor of canon-law at Padua, Pisa, and afterwards at Bologna. It is said that he macerated his body with fasting; and lay upon the bare ground every night for 20 years together, covered only with the skin of a bear. This is attested by very good authors; but if the story which Poggius tells of him in his Jests be true, he must afterwards have relaxed much of this continency: "Joannem Andream, (says he), doctorem Bonnoniensem, cujus fama admodum vulgata est, subagitantem ancillam domesticam uxor deprehendit: re infueta stupefacta mulier in virum versa, Ubi nunc, ait, Joannes, est sapientia vestra? ille nil amplius locutus, In vulva istius, respondit, loco admodum sapientie accommodato." The French translation of this perhaps will not be displeasing.
Jean, dit André, fameux D'heur des Loix,
Fut pris un jour au péché d'amour: il
Il accolloit une jeune subrette.
Sa femme vint, fit un signe de croix.
Ho ho, dit elle, est ce vous? non je pense:
Vous, dont par tout on vante la prudence.
Qu'est devenu cet esprit si subtil?
Le bon André, pour suivant son négoce,
Honteux pourtant, ma foi, répondit-il,
Prudence, esprit, tout gist dans cette fosse.
Since it is agreed that John Andreas had a bastard, this story is at the bottom very probable; and it was perhaps with the mother of Banconius that his wife found him. Andreas had a beautiful daughter, named Novella, whom he loved extremely: and he is said to have instructed her so well in all parts of learning, that when he was engaged in any affair which hindered him from reading lectures to his scholars, he sent his daughter in his room; and left her beauty should prevent the
Andreas. attention of the hearers, she had a little curtain drawn before her. To perpetuate the memory of this daughter, he intitled his commentary upon the Decretals of Gregory IX. the Nouvelle. He married her to John Calderinus, a learned canonist. The first work of Andreas was his Glossa upon the Sixth Book of the Decretals, which he wrote when he was very young. He wrote also Glosses upon the Clementines; and a Commentary in regulas Sexti, which he intitled Mercuriales, because he either engaged in it on Wednesdays (diebus Mercurii), or because he inserted his Wednesdays disputes in it. He enlarged the Speculum of Durant, in the year 1347. This is all which Mr Bayle mentions of his writings, though he wrote many more. Andreas died of the plague at Bologna, in 1348, after he had been a professor 45 years; and was buried in the church of the Dominicans. Many eulogiums have been bestowed upon him. He has been called Archidocetor decretorum: In his epitaph, Rabbi doctorum; lux, censor normaque morum; "Rabbi of the doctors, the light, censor, and rule of manners." And it is said, that Pope Boniface called him lumen mundi, "the light of the world."