Andrea Alciato was born at Alzate near Milan in 1492, studied at Pavia and Bologna, in 1518 was called to teach at Avignon, went to Milan in 1520, to Bourges in 1528, was afterwards at Pavia, Bologna and Ferrara, died at Pavia in 1550 (Pertile, _Storia del diritto italiano_, ed. 2, vol. II. (2), p. 428). Ulrich Zäsi was born in 1461, studied at Tübingen and at Freiburg where he became town-clerk and afterwards professor of law, died in 1535. See Stintzing, _Ulrich Zasius_, Basel, 1857, where (pp. 162-216) the intercourse between Erasmus, Zäsi, Alciato and Budé is described. The early Italian humanists had looked on jurisprudence with disdain and disgust. See Geiger, _Renaissance und Humanismus_, 1882, pp. 500-503; Voigt, _Die Wiederbelebung des classischen Alterthums_, ed. 3, vol. II., pp. 477-484. Gradually, so I understand, philologians such as Budé (d. 1540) began to discover that there was matter interesting to them in the Corpus Juris, and a few jurists turned towards the new classical learning. See Tilley, _Humanism under Francis I._, in _English Historical Review_, vol. XV., pp. 456 ff. In 1520 Zäsi, writing to Alciato, said ‘All sciences have put off their dirty clothes: only jurisprudence remains in her rags.’ (Stintzing, _Ulrich Zasius_, p. 107.)
[Sidenote: _Rabelais and the commentators._]
[7] Rabelais, _Pantagruel_, liv. II., ch. X.: ‘Sottes et desraisonnables raisons et ineptes opinions de Accurse, Balde, Bartole, de Castro, de Imola, Hippolytus, Panorme, Bertachin, Alexander, Curtius et ces autres vieux mastins, qui jamais n’entendirent la moindre loy des Pandectes, et n’estoient que gros veaulx de disme, ignorans de tout ce qu’est necessaire à l’intelligence des loix. Car (comme il est tout certain) ilz n’avoient cognoissance de langue ny grecque, ny latine, mais seulement de gothique et barbare.… Davantage, veu que les loix sont extirpées du milieu de philosophie morale et naturelle, comment l’entendront ces folz, qui ont par Dieu moins estudié en philosophie que ma mulle. Au regard des lettres d’humanité et cognoissance des antiquités et histoires ilz en estoient chargés comme un crapaud de plumes, et en usent comme un crucifix d’un pifre, dont toutesfois les droits sont tous pleins, et sans ce ne peuvent estre entenduz.’ W. F. Smith, _Rabelais_, vol. I., p. 257, translates the last sentence thus: ‘With regard to the cultivated literature and knowledge of antiquities and history, they were as much provided with those faculties as is a toad with feathers and have as much use for them as a drunken heretic has for a crucifix.…’