JOANNES FAVENTINUS

Canonist; b. Faenza, Italy; d. Faenza, 1187. Faventinus (John of Faenza) was a student and professor at the school of Bologna, which he left about 1174 to return to his native city. His best known work is a Summa on the Decretum of gratian, likely composed while he was still at Bologna. Although he borrows heavily from his predecessors, as he himself confesses, especially from the Summae of rufinus and of Stephen of Tournai, he is important for the fact that he made these works as well as the teaching of other early decretists widely known. He has been rated as the most-used and best of the Bolognese canonists before Huguccio. More than 40 manuscripts have survived. All later commentators on the Decretum refer to his work. He comments only briefly on the De poenitentia and the De consecratione. His references to the more recent papal legislation are few, with nothing on that of Alexander III. He is quite conversant with Lombard and Roman law and the commentaries on the latter. His later Glossae, perhaps begun at Bologna and continued at Faenza, reveal a more mature and independent thinker.

Bibliography: a. stickler, Dictionnaire de droit canonique, ed. r. naz, 7 v. (Paris 1935–65) 6:99–102. s. kuttner, Repertorium der Kanonistik (Rome 1937) 11, 143–145. j. f. v. schulte, Die Geschichte der Quellen und der Literatur des kanonischen Rechts, 3 v. in 4 pts. (Stuttgart 1875–80) 1:137–140.

[t. p. mclaughlin]