El Dr. Pichardo de Vinuesa y la enseñanza de las Institutiones

Abstract

Antonio Pichardo de Vinuesa was born in Segovia in 1565 and died in Valladolid in 1631; he obtained a degree in utroque iure and a PhD in Law at the University of Salamanca. He held several professorships including Prima de Leyes, and was a judge at the Royal Chancellery of Valladolid. His main work is the comments on the Justinian Institutiones which were published in two volumes, the first one in 1600 and the second, which deals exclusively with book IV, in 1620. Both were printed in Venetia, Geneva, and Lyon after his death. In the words of Jacques Cujas it is a "book with no rival or match, with the best disposition of all those which have been written in this or any other Faculty". Pichardo de Vinuesa offers a balanced and renewed symbiosis between tradition and innovation, between mos italicus and mos gallicus, between the analysis of common law and the contribution of the regia norm, and between doctrine elaboration and the solution to the problems of everyday life. It is an excellent paradigm for the modern Romanist in his academic work..