GENTILIS, ALBERICUS, a laborious jurisconsult of the sixteenth century, with more erudition than taste or judgment, was born in 1551 at Castello-di-San-Genesio, in the march of Ancona, and studied at Perugia, where he took the degree of doctor in civil law at the age of twenty-one. Soon afterwards he obtained the situation of judge in the city of Ascoli; but not having it in his power to profess there in security the Protestant religion, of which he was an ardent follower, he went to seek an asylum in Carniola, and ultimately in England. During his stay at London, where he continued for several years, he lived entirely on the bounty of some generous friends of the sciences. At length the Earl of Leicester, his protector, procured him, in 1587, the chair of law in the university of Oxford, of which he was chancellor. This place, with the appointment which Gentilis soon afterwards received of perpetual advocate of the subjects of the king of Spain, in all causes which they might have in England, enabled him to spend the remainder of his days in comfort. He died at the commencement of the year 1611. The labours of Albericus Gentilis in jurisprudence give him but small claims to our esteem. His views are often erroneous, and the sound doctrines which may be found in his works are buried in a mass of citations without end, from the philo-
phers, fathers, poets, historians, and jurisconsults. This enormous erudition betrayed him into inconsistencies in matters of importance; and hence has Bayle reproached him with having indirectly sanctioned Catholic opinions in some controverted points, although he was otherwise a zealous Protestant. But his treatises on the law of nations have rendered his name worthy of a place in the history of jurisprudence. His book De Jure Belli contains excellent views on a science which Aristotle and Cicero have not even touched on; and if the author has not sufficiently fathomed his subject, and too frequently decided by the precepts of religion and morality questions which are purely political, he has at least the merit of having furnished abundant materials to Grotius, who knew better how to use them. An exact list of his works may be found in the Memoires of Nicéron (tomes xv. and xx.); but it may be sufficient here to indicate the following: 1. Liber Conditionum, Wittemberg, 1580, 8vo; 2. De Juris Interpretis dialogi sex, London, 1600, 4to; 3. De injustitia bellica Romanorum actio, Oxford, 1590, 8vo; 4. De Jure Belli libri tres, Hanau, 1598, 8vo; 5. Disputationes duæ, prima actoribus et spectatoribus fabularum non notandis, secunda de abusu mendacii, Hanau, 1599, 8vo; 6. Ad Joannem Rainoldum de Ludis Scenicis epistolæ duæ, Middelburg, 1609, 4to; 7. Disputationes tres, prima de libris Juris Canonici, secunda de libris Juris Civilis, tertia de antiquitate veteris Bibliorum versionis male accusata, Hanau, 1604 and 1605, 8vo; 8. De Linguarum mixtura disputatione parergica, Hanau, 1604, 8vo. (A.)