Life
Alberico Gentili was born into a noble family in the town of San Ginesio in what is now Marche, in Italy. He studied law at the university of Perugia and graduated doctor of law in 1572. He was commissioned to prepare a revised version of the statutory laws of his home town, a task which he completed in 1577. Two years later, together with his father Matteo Gentili (1517—1602), a renowned medical doctor, and one of his brothers, Scipione Gentili, he had to flee from Italy because of their Protestant beliefs. The three first went to Ljubljana, Slovenia, the capital of the duchy of Carniola. From there, Alberico went on to the German university towns of Tübingen and Heidelberg. In 1580 he arrived in England and was appointed regius professor of civil law at Oxford University by the then Chancellor, Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester. After a short stay in Wittenberg, Germany, in 1586, he returned to Oxford.
Gentili held the regius professorship until his death, but he turned more and more to practical work in London from about 1590. He practised in the High Court of Admiralty, where the continental civil law rather than the English common law was applied. In 1600 Gentili was honorifically admitted to Gray's Inn. From 1605 to 1608 he served as a standing advocate to the Spanish embassy. He died in London and was buried in the Church of St. Helen Bishopsgate in the City of London.
His son was Robert Gentilis, who graduated from Oxford University at the age of 12 and was made a Fellow of All Souls College Oxford at the age of 17 (below the minimum age of 18) through his father's influence.
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