Bartolus of Saxoferrato

The name of Bartolus de Saxoferrato (1313/1314–1357) is associated with late medieval legal theory and practice, although a tradition initiated by his pupil Baldus de Ubaldis (1327–1400) portrays him as a man devoted to practice more than to theory. Bartolus was a brilliant teacher and a prolific writer. Thanks to his critical insight, which pervades his commentaria, tractatus, quaestiones, and consilia, the hermeneutics of the Corpus Iuris Civilis became a science aimed at the solution of the practical problems of late medieval society. In the realm of law, two clusters of questions have been debated, one concerning Bartolus’ influence on the development of civil law and the other concerning the authorship of a number of writings attributed to him. Bartolus’ relevance to philosophy is negligible, even if his conceptions of jurisprudence and truth in legal reasoning correspond to a certain philosophy of law. His ideas are relevant in the perspective of Renaissance political philosophy: Bartolus paved the way for the modern conception of territorial sovereignty and for a rejection of tyranny on legal-theoretical grounds.