DN. sacratissimi principis Justiniani PP. A. Juris enucleati ex omni vetere jure collecti Digestorum seu Pandectarum libri quinquaginta

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D. GOTHOFREDUS I. C.
TO THE READER.

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When the Ius ciuile Civil Law was to be issued to the public by Eustathius Vignon, he requested that I provide students with insights that might shed light on such a great work. Although I saw the justice of his petition, I said it was impossible for me to satisfy him, especially because he wanted the work completed with few resources, and most of all because he showed me a work that was already almost finished, to the polishing and illuminating of which Iulius Pacius, a teacher of law, had already devoted a great deal of effort—an effort sufficient for even the most learned person.

Yet as he pressed me more sharply, I thought it would not be useless if the series of all legal titles, which would contain both the rationale of the order observed by the jurists and a brief interpretation of those titles that were more difficult, were presented to the reader as if on a tablet. Thus, before students prepared themselves for the immense reading of the Pandects, the Code, and even the Institutes themselves, they would have a certain anticipation of Roman Law in their minds.

I was certainly not unaware that some works of this kind had been written in substantial volumes by the most learned jurists, especially Cuiacius and Wesembecius. However, because a great and hidden variety and abundance of useful things were either read only by the learned or served as substantial commentaries for those already engaged in the reading of Roman Law itself, a most fair reader will judge by the reading itself whether or not what I am attempting here will be useful to students.

I dare to promise, however, that more benefit will come to the student from this notation of the order observed by the jurists than from the bare series of titles that alone was read heretofore. If this work has helped anyone, this is what I intended. If not, the intention to help the reader was certainly not lacking. I have inserted these marks * † : so that where the titles were not placed in their proper order—either by the jurist himself or by the scribes of the law—they might be restored to their proper place, as the reader will notice in the 9th, 10th, and 11th books of the Pandects. Farewell.

A

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