It is a honour to offer these opening words for this book prepared by Professor Valentina Vadi over many years. The realisation of this work has been a labour of love. The resulting book is an important contribution to our understanding of the formation of modern international law in its earliest years, the role of Alberico Gentili in this endeavour, and the influence of his milieu and its many vicissitudes upon him and his work. This generous, humane, and elegantly written book brings this man, his work, and world to life for us across five centuries in infinite dimensions and vivid colour with the critical eye of a scholar.
What relevance then does an Italian émigré lawyer working in England during the first Elizabeth age hold for us today during the maturity of the second Elizabethan age? In this moment, a principal reason sounds out clearly amongst the din of our times.
The story narrated in this treatise contributes to the more general narrative on the contribution of refugee scholars to the making of international law. Fleeing religious persecution in his own country, Gentili sought and received refuge in England. No doubt reflective of his own learning, skills, adaptability, and resilience, he entered the highest echelons of English legal society holding the Regius Chair in Civil Law at Oxford and practicing at the Inns of Court. At a time when England was facing significant threats from abroad and political and religious instability within, it nevertheless opened its doors to people from other countries. It has happened so often and in so many different places in the world and throughout history that it cannot be a coincidence that places that have welcomed strangers – especially émigrés fleeing persecution – have flourished.
Why is this? Perhaps the nature of the person who is the subject of this monograph offers us one explanation. Gentili embodied a sameness and difference as a legal scholar that informed and enriched his contribution to the academy in his adopted country. His proficiency in Latin, a common language of learning and the ruling class, and his attendant knowledge of Roman law, which informed the legal systems of many European countries, meant that his skills were eminently transferable. Yet, Gentili brought with him to England a diversity of training, experience, and outlook that made him distinguishable and enabled him to enrich its (and our own) understanding of the teaching and practice of international law. This sameness and difference were fundamental drivers of his contributions to the development of modern international law at a significant moment in human history.
Ana Filipa Vrdoljak, PhD
Professor of Law and UNESCO Chair in International Law and Cultural
Heritage at the Faculty of Law, the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia.