Antonio Agustín y Albanell

Most Reverend Antonio Agustín y Albanell
Archbishop of Tarragona
Antonio Agustín y Albanell.
Church	Catholic Church
In office	1576–1586
Predecessor	Gaspar Cervantes de Gaete
Successor	Joan Terès i Borrull
Orders
Ordination	18 Dec 1557
Consecration	21 Dec 1557 by Giovanni Giacomo Barba
Personal details
Born	17 Feb 1517 Zaragoza, Spain
Died	31 May 1586 (age 69) Rome, Italy

Antonio Agustín y Albanell (1516–1586), also referred to as Augustinus, was a Spanish Humanist historian, jurist, and Roman Catholic archbishop of Tarragona, who pioneered the historical research of the sources of canon law.^[1]

Life

Born in Zaragoza, Agustín studied law and classical literature in Alcalá, Salamanca, Padua and Bologna, notably as a pupil of Andrea Alciati.

With his nomination as an auditor of the Sacra Rota Romana in 1544, Agustín started his ecclesiastical career, which saw him become a papal nuncio in 1554/55. On 21 Dec 1557, he was consecrated bishop by Giovanni Giacomo Barba - Bishop of Terni, with Cesare Cibo - Archbishop of Turin, and Ferdinando Pandolfini - Bishop of Troia, serving as co-consecrators.^[2] In 1556, he was named Bishop of Alife, and then named Bishop of Lleida in 1561. After participating in the Council of Trient in 1561–63, he was named Archbishop of Tarragona in 1576.

Work

Agustín is now primarily remembered as the first canon law historian; Peter Landau counts him among the other authors that enabled us to consider the 16th century the founding age of the science of history.

His first main work, Emendationum et opinionum libri IV, proposed the now widely accepted thesis that the Littera Florentina manuscript was the source for all other copies of the Pandects. This undermined the authority, fundamental to medieval Roman law, of the Latin Vulgate text of the Pandects.

Agustín's other main historical works are:

• Antiquae Collectionis Decretalium (1576)
• De Emendatione Gratiani dialogorum libri duo (1587), a textual criticism of the Decretum Gratiani
• Epitome iuris pontificii veteris (1587/1611), a compendium of canon law prior to Innocent III
• De quibusdam veteris canonum ecclesiasticorum collectoribus iudicium ac censura (1611, posthumously published), a history of the pre-Gratian sources of ecclesiastical law

Notes

References

• Landau, Peter (2001). "Antonio Agustín". In Michael Stolleis (ed.). Juristen: ein biographisches Lexikon; von der Antike bis zum 20. Jahrhundert (in German) (2nd ed.). München: Beck. p. 21. ISBN 3-406-45957-9.
• «Agustí i Albanell, Antoni, 1517-1586» Antics Posseïdors (Universitat de Barcelona. CRAI Biblioteca de Reserva)
• Falkowski, Mateuz, "The Limits of Philology: Antonio Agustín and Textual Criticism of Canon Law in Tridentine Europe," Renaissance Quarterly 76 (2023): 1340-1388.
• Sommar, Mary, The '"Correctores Romani": Gratian's "Decretum" and the Counter-Reformation Humanists (Berlin: Lit Verlag, 209).