GENTILI, Alberico, Italian-English jurist. founder of the science of international law: b. Sanginesio, 14 Jan. 1552; d. London. 19 June 1608. He was educated at the University of Perugia, where he received the degree of doc tor juris civilis. For a short time he held a judicial office at Ascoli, after which he re turned to Sanginesio and set about recasting its ordinances. His Protestant opinions obliged him to seek refuge in Carniola. He was designated as contumacious by the Inquisi tion and he soon had to quit Austrian territory. In 1580 he settled at Oxford and soon after ward began to lecture on Roman law. In 1587 he was appointed regius professor of civil law at Oxford University. His lectures and commentaries greatly enhanced his reputation as a jurist, especially his application of old legal maxims to the then new problems arising from the growing intercourse between nations. In 1584 Gentili was consulted by the English gov ernment in the Mendoza case. The latter, while Ambassador of Spain to the court of Elizabeth, had been discovered plotting against her. Gen tili liter expanded his answer in the work, 'De legationibus libri tres.' A treatise on the law
of war ((De jure belli commentatio prima') appeared in 1588, and was subsequently ex panded to(De jure belli libri ties) (1598). He was admitted member of Gray's Inn in 1600, and five years later became counsel to the king of Spain. The 'Libri duo Hispanic= advoca tionis' contains the record of his work in this service. Not until the last quarter of the 19th century did the world assign Gentili his true place as the first to define adequately the rela tions of states and to indicate the solution of international problems according to the princi ples of natural law and the common sense of mankind, without regard to precedent or the still more hampering rules of the Church. A monument to Gentili was erected in England in 1877 and in 1908, on the tercentenary of his death, a statue of him was unveiled in his native city. Consult Holland, T. E. 'Studies in In ternational Law' (1898) and Walker; T. A., 'History of the Law of Nations' (Vol. I, 1899).