LANCELOTTI, GIOVANNI PAOLO

Canonist and teacher; b. Perugia, 1522; d. Perugia, Sept. 23, 1590. He received his doctorate in law in Perugia in 1546 and soon became professor of law there. His classes followed the division of the Corpus iuris civilis Institutiones into persons, things, and actions, instead of the usual method of pure commentary on the Decretals. On invitation of paul iv he went to Rome to edit his class notes in a canonical volume that would correspond to the Institutes of Justinian. His hope was for his work to receive the force of law through official approbation and to be attached to the authentic collections of the Decretals. Neither Paul IV nor his successor pius iv would give the desired approbation. The work was, therefore, published privately in Perugia in 1563 under the title Institutiones iuris canonici, quibus ius pontificium singulari methodo libris quatuor comprehenditur. It received wide diffusion in the schools. Other works include: De Comparatione iuris pontificii et caesarei et utriusque interpretandi ratione (Lyons 1674), Index rerum Corporis iuris canonici (Rome 1580), Rebularum in universo pontificio iure libri tres (Perugia 1587).

Bibliography: r. naz, Dictionnaire de droit canonique, ed. r. naz (Paris 1935–65) 6:333. a. e. van hove, Commentarium Lovaniense in Codicem iuris canonici (Mechlin 1928) 1:384–385. Die Geschichte der Quellen und der Literatur des kanonischen Rechts (Graz 1956) 3.1:451–453. a. m. stickler, Historia iuris canonici latini (Turin 1950) 365–366.

[h. a. larroque]