was born at Florence, in 1151, or, according to some writers, in 1182. He was the scholar of Azzo, and soon became more celebrated than his master. Yet it is thought that he did not begin the study of law before he was forty years old. When professor at Bologna, he resigned his office in order to complete a work on the explanation of the laws, which he had long meditated, and in which he was now in danger of being anticipated by Odefroy. By dint of perseverance for seven years, he accumulated the vast collection known by the title of the "Great Gloss," or the "Continued Gloss" of Accursius. He may be considered as the first of glossators, and as the last, since no one has attempted the same, unless his son Cervot, whose work is not in much esteem; but he was deficient in a proper knowledge of the Greek and Roman historians, and the science of coins, inscriptions, and antiquities, which are frequently necessary in the explanation of the Roman law. On this account, he was as much undervalued by the learned lawyers of the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, as praised by those of the twelfth and thirteenth, who named him the Idol of Lawyers. They even established it as a principle, that the authority of the Glosses should be universally received, and that they should rally round this perpetual standard of truth. The different studies pursued in the ages of Accursius' friends and enemies, will account for their different opinions of his merits; the one consisted of accumulated learning, interpretation, and commentary, the other approached nearer to nature and facts, by adding the study of antiquities, and of the Greek and Latin historians. Another reason probably was, that Accursius, who has been careless in his mode of quotation, became blamed for many opinions which belong to Irnerius, Hugolinus, Martinus Bulgarus, Aldericus, Pileus, &c. and others his predecessors, whose sentiments he has not accurately distinguished. The best edition of his great work is that of Denis Godefroi, Lyons, 1589, 6 vols. fol. Of his private life we have no important materials. lived in splendour at a magnificent palace at Bologna, or at his villa in the country; and died in his 78th year, in 1229. Those who fix his death in 1260 confound him with one of his sons of the same name. All his family, without exception, studied the law; and he had a daughter, a lady of great learning, who gave public lectures on the Roman law in the university of Bologna. Bayle doubts VOL. I.

H

He

this; but it is confirmed by Pancirollus, Fravenlobius, and Paul Freyer. The tomb of Accursius, in the church of the Cordeliers at Bologna, is remarkable only for the simplicity of his epitaph-" Sepulchrum Accursii glossatoris legum, et Francisci ejus filii."

1

ACCORSO, or ACCURSIUS (FRANCIS), eldest son of the preceding, was professor of law at Bologna, where he attained great reputation. When Edward I. king of England passed through Bologna, in 1275, after his return from the Holy Land, he wished to engage Accursius to teach law in the French provinces under his dominion; but the government of Bologna, unwilling to part with so able a professor, threatened to confiscate his goods if he dared to leave the city. Accursius, however, took his leave, and after having taught law at Toulouse for three years, was invited to Oxford by king Edward, and lodged in his palace at Beaumont. The king gave him also the manor of Martlegh, and in the grant styles him "dilectus et fidelis Secretarius noster;" and in another charter, “illustris regis Angliæ consiliarius." In 1275, he read law lectures at Oxford, or more probably in 1276, if he remained three years at Toulouse. In 1280, he returned to Bologna, and was restored to his chair and his property. His death took place in 1321. None of his writings remain.' His brother CERVOT published some glosses in addition to his father's, but they are not much esteemed. He studied law with such success as to be admitted doctor in that faculty in his seventeenth year, but not without a serious discussion in the academy of Bologna, on the legality of this degree. 3

ACCORSO, or ACCURSIUS (MARIANGELUS), a native of Aquila, in the kingdom of Naples, and one of the most eminent critics of his time, flourished in the beginning of the sixteenth century, and lived for thirty-three years in the court of Charles V. who had a great respect for him. He was well acquainted with the Greek, Latin, French, Spanish and German languages, was one of the most indefatigable antiquaries of the age, and enriched Naples with a great number of monuments of antiquity. His favourite employment was to correct the editions of ancient authors by the aid of manuscripts, which he sought out with great

Biographie Universelle.-Ginguene Hist. Lit. D'Italie, vol. I. p. 371.Gen. Diet. 2.Biographie Universelle, 1811.-Wood's Annals of Oxford. • Ibid.

care; and his first work is a lasting proof of, his industry and acuteness. This was his "Diatribe in Ausonium, Solinum, et Ovidium," Rome, 1524, fol. The frontispiece is an engraving of antique statues, among which are the Apollo Belvidere, and a Minerva, and two bas-reliefs of the rape of Proserpine and the death of Meleager. At the end of the work is a fable entitled "Testudo." The Diatribæ have been reprinted, but not entirely, as the titlepage asserts, in the variorum edition of Ausonius, printed at Amsterdam, 1671, 8vo. They are also incorporated in the Delphin edition, by John Baptist Souchay, Paris, 1730, 4to.

This writer has left an example of an author's jealousy, and fear of being thought a plagiarist, which is too curious to be omitted. Having been accused of owing his notes on Ausonius to Fabricio Varano, bishop of Camarino, hẹ endeavoured to clear himself by the following very solemn oath: "In the name of God and man, of truth and sincerity, I solemnly swear, and if any declaration be more binding than an oath, I in that form declare; and I desire that my declaration may be received as strictly true, that I have never read or seen any author, from which my own lucubrations have received the smallest assistance or improvement: nay, that I have even laboured, as far as possible, whenever any writer has published any observations which I myself had before made, immediately to blot them out of my own works. If in this declaration I am foresworn, may the Pope punish my perjury; and may an evil genius attend my writings, so that whatever in them is good, or at least tolerable, may appear to the unskilful multitude exceedingly bad, and even to the learned trivial and contemptible; and, may the small reputation I now possess be given to the winds, and regarded as the worthless boon of vulgar levity." This singular protestation, which is inserted in the Testudo, has been often quoted. In 1533, he published at Augsburgh a new edition of "Ammianus Marcellinus," fol. more complete than the preceding edition (which is the princeps), and augmented by five books, not before known, and, as stated in the title, with the correction of above five thousand errors. In the same year and place, he published the "Letters of Cassiodorus," and his "Treatise on the Soul." This is the first complete collection of these letters, and, with the Treatise, is improved by many corrections. He also had made

preparations for an edition of Claudian, and had corrected above seven hundred errors in that author; but this has not been published. At his leisure hours, he studied music, optics, and poetry. We have a specimen of his poetry in his "Protrepticon ad Corycium," of eighty-seven verses, which is printed in a very rare work, entitled "Coryciana," Rome, 1524, 4to. This Corycius, according to La Monnoie, was a German of the name of Goritz. The volume contains the poems of various Neapolitan authors, as Arisio, Tilesio, &c.

In Accorso's time, it was the fashion with many Latin writers to make use of obsolete words. This he endeavoured to ridicule, and with considerable success, in a dialogue entitled "Osco, Volsco, Romanaque eloquentia interlocutoribus, dialogus ludis Romanis actus, &c." 1531, 8vo, without place, or the name of the author; but La Monnoie thinks it must have been printed before, as it is quoted by Tori in his "Champ-Fleuri," which appeared in 1529. At the end of this volume is a small work, entitled "Volusii Metiani, jurisconsulti antiqui distributio. Item vocabula ac notæ partium in rebus pecuniariis, pondere, numero, et mensura. The Dialogue was reprinted at Rome, 1574, 4to, with the author's name, and with the title of "Osci et Volsci Dialogus ludis Romanis actus a Mariangelo Accursio." There is another 4to edition, without date or name of the author. In the imperial library of Paris are two editions, both of Cologne, 1598. It appears by the dedication of the fable Testudo, that Accorso was employed on a history of the house of Brandenbourg; but this, and his other works, were lost on the death of his son Casimir, who was a man of letters, and had intended to publish all his father's works. Toppi, in his Biblioteca Napolet. among other inaccuracies, attributes to Accorso a work entitled "De Typographicæ artis Inventore, ac de libro primum omnium impresso;" but the mistake seems to have arisen from a few manuscript notices on the subject, written by our author in a copy of Dona tus' grammar, a very early printed book. 1

ACERNUS (SEBASTIAN FABIAN), a native of Poland, whose real name was Klonowicz, was born in 1551, and became burgomaster of Lublin. His Latin poem, "Victoria Deorum, in qua continetur veri Herois educatio,"

1 Gen. Dict.-Biographie Universelle, 1811.-Saxi? Onomasticon.➡Moreri. -For the Coryciaua, see Roscoe's Life of Leo, and a GORIZIO in this work.

on which he spent ten years, procured him the name of the Sarmatian Ovid. This poem, which was printed at Racow by Sebastian Sternacius, the Socinian printer, in 1600, is become very rare, as the impression was ordered to be burnt. He wrote also in the Polish language, a poem on the Navigation of the Dantzickers, 1643; a Memorial of the Dukes and Kings of Poland, and other works, and "Disticha moralia Catonis, interprete Seb. Fab. Klonowicio," Cracow, 1595. He died in 1608 in great distress, owing to the extravagance of his wife. '

ACHÆUS, a Greek poet, a native of Eretria, the son of Pythodorus, flourished, according to Saxius, between the 74th and 82d olympiad, or between 484 and 449 before the Christian æra, and consequently was the contemporary of Æschylus. He was both a tragic and satirical poet, having, according to some, composed thirty tragedies, and according to others, more than forty. These are all lost, except some fragments which Grotius collected in his "Fragmenta Tragic. et Comicorum Græcorum." Achæus carried off the poetical prize only once. His satirical pieces have likewise perished, but Athenæus quotes them often. There was another Greek poet of the same name, quoted by Suidas, who also composed tragedies, of which there are no remains. 2

ACHARD, bishop of Avranches in Normandy, usually surnamed ST. VICTOR, flourished in the twelfth century. His birth-place is much contested; but it appears most probable that he was a Norman, of a noble family; and as Normandy was at that time subject to the King of England, it was supposed he was an Englishman. He was, however, a Canon-regular of the order of St. Augustine, and second abbot of St. Victor at Paris, He was preferred to the bishoprick of Avranches in 1162 by the interest of King Henry II. of England, with whom he appears to have been a favourite, as he stood god-father to Eleanor, daughter to that prince, and afterwards wife of Alphonso IX. king of Castile. He died. March 29, 1172, and was interred in the church of the Holy Trinity, belonging to the abbey of Luzerne, in the diocese of Avranches. His epitaph, which, the authors of the General Dictionary say, is still remaining, speaks his character: "Here lies bishop Achard, by whose charity our poverty was enriched." He

1 Biog. Universelle, 1811.

? Ibid. Saxii Onomasticon.-Fabric. Bibl. Græc.