Gentili, Alberico

Gentili, Alberico (älbārē`kō jāntē`lē), 1552–1608, Italian writer on international law. Forced to leave Italy because of his Protestantism, he went to England (1580), where he became regius professor of civil law, Oxford, and in 1605 became advocate for the king of Spain in the British admiralty court. His De legationibus (1585) had a great influence in shaping modern diplomatic practice. In De jure belli [on the law of war] (1598), one of the earliest works on international law, he developed many ideas on the legal conduct of war to which Hugo Grotius later gave wider circulation.

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Gentili, Alberico 

Born Jan. 14, 1552, in San Ginesio; died June 19, 1608, in Oxford, England. Italian jurist, diplomat, professor of civil law.

Gentili taught civil law at Oxford University. He was the author of On Ambassadorial Law (1585), Commentaries on the Law of War (1588), On the Law of Prizes (published 1613), and others. His best-known work is On the Law of War, published in 1598. Gentili laid the foundation for the positive school in the science of international law.