LAWYERS from Italy

Top 6

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Italian Lawyers of all time. This list of famous Italian Lawyers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

1. Irnerius (1050 - 1140)

With an HPI of 60.67, Irnerius is the most famous Italian Lawyer.  His biography has been translated into 19 different languages on wikipedia.

Irnerius (c. 1050 – after 1125), sometimes referred to as lucerna juris ("lantern of the law"), was an Italian jurist, and founder of the School of Glossators and thus of the tradition of medieval Roman Law. He taught the newly recovered Roman lawcode of Justinian I, the Corpus Juris Civilis, among the liberal arts at the University of Bologna, his native city. The recovery and revival of Roman law, taught first at Bologna in the 1070s, was a momentous event in European cultural history. Irnerius' interlinear glosses on the Corpus Juris Civilis stand at the beginnings of a European law that was written, systematic, comprehensive and rational, and based on Roman law.

2. Baldus de Ubaldis (1327 - 1400)

With an HPI of 56.85, Baldus de Ubaldis is the 2nd most famous Italian Lawyer.  His biography has been translated into 21 different languages.

Baldus de Ubaldis (Italian: Baldo degli Ubaldi; 1327 – 28 April 1400) was an Italian jurist, and a leading figure in Medieval Roman Law and the school of Postglossators.

3. Alfenus Varus (-100 - -60)

With an HPI of 55.48, Alfenus Varus is the 3rd most famous Italian Lawyer.  His biography has been translated into 18 different languages.

Alfenus Varus was an ancient Roman jurist and writer who lived around the 1st century BC.

4. Cino da Pistoia (1270 - 1336)

With an HPI of 53.07, Cino da Pistoia is the 4th most famous Italian Lawyer.  His biography has been translated into 20 different languages.

Cino da Pistoia (1270 – 1336) was an Italian jurist and poet. He was the university teacher of Bartolus de Saxoferrato and a friend and intellectual influence on Dante Alighieri.

5. Alberico Gentili (1552 - 1608)

With an HPI of 52.18, Alberico Gentili is the 5th most famous Italian Lawyer.  His biography has been translated into 18 different languages.

Alberico Gentili (14 January 1552 – 19 June 1608) was an Italian jurist, a tutor of Queen Elizabeth I, and a standing advocate to the Spanish Embassy in London, who served as the Regius Professor of Civil Law at the University of Oxford for 21 years. He is regarded as the co-founder of the field of international law, and thus known as the "Father of international law". The first medieval writer on public international law, in 1587 Gentili became the first non-English person to be a Regius Professor. He also authored numerous books, which are recognized to be among the most essential sources for international legal doctrines, yet that also include theological and literary subjects.

6. Dario Franceschini (b. 1958)

With an HPI of 40.59, Dario Franceschini is the 6th most famous Italian Lawyer.  His biography has been translated into 18 different languages.

Dario Franceschini (Italian pronunciation: [ˈdaːrjo frantʃesˈkiːni]; born 19 October 1958) is an Italian lawyer, writer, and politician, member of the Democratic Party (PD), of which he briefly became leader in 2009. Franceschini served as Minister of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism, a position that he held from February 2014 to June 2018 and again from September 2019 to October 2022, making him the longest-serving cultural heritage minister in the history of the Italian Republic. Franceschini also served as Minister for Parliamentary Relations from 2013 to 2014. Franceschini was a prominent member of the Italian People's Party (PPI), of Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy (DL), and the first Deputy Secretary of the PD. Following the resignation of Walter Veltroni on 21 February 2009, the Constituent Assembly of the PD elected him the new secretary. On 25 October 2009, he lost the 2009 PD leadership election to Pier Luigi Bersani, and subsequently accepted his offer to become the party's leader in the Chamber of Deputies. Franceschini, who is considered a centrist and a Christian leftist, is the leader of AreaDem, which is the majority faction in the PD.