ANDREA, GIOVANNI (1275-1348), Italian canonist, was born at
Mugello, near Florence, about 1275. He studied canon law at
Bologna, where he distinguished himself in this subject so
much that he was made professor at Padua, and later at Pisa
and Bologna, rapidly acquiring a high reputation for his
learning and his moral character. Curious stories are told
of him; for instance, that by way of self-mortification he
lay every night for twenty years on the bare ground with only
a bear's skin for a covering; that in an audience he had with
Pope Boniface VIII. his extraordinary shortness of stature
led the pope to believe he was kneeling, and to ask him three
times to rise, to the immense merriment of the cardinals;
and that he had a daughter, Novella, so accomplished in law
as to be able to read her father's lectures in his absence,
and so beautiful, that she had to read behind a curtain lest
her face should distract the attention of the students. He
is said to have died at Bologna of the plague in 1348, and
an epitaph in the church of the Dominicans in which he was
buried, calling him Rabbi Doctorum, Lux, Censor, Normaque
Morum, testifies to the public estimation of his character.
Andrea wrote a Gloss on the Sixth Book of the Decretals,
Closses on the Clementines and a Commentary on the Rules of
Sextus. His additions to the Speculum of Durando are a mere
adaptation from the Consilia of Oldradus, as is also the
book De Sponsalibus et Matrimonio, from J. Anguisciola.
Initial text from 1911 encyclopedia -- Please update as needed