Odofredus (died 3 December 1265) was an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 jurist

Jurist

A jurist or jurisconsult is a professional who studies, develops, applies, or otherwise deals with the law. The term is widely used in American English, but in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth countries it has only historical and specialist usage...

.

He was born at Bologna

Bologna

Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...

 and studied law

Law

Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

 under Jacobus Balduinus

Jacobus Balduinus

Jacobus Balduinus was an Italian juristHe was born in Bologna, and is reputed to have been of a noble family. He was a pupil of Azo, and the master of Odofredus, of the canonist Hostiensis , and of Jacobus de Ravanis , who taught at Orléans...

 and Franciscus Accursius

Franciscus Accursius

Accursius was an Italian jurist. He is notable for his organization of the glosses, the medieval comments on Justinian's codification of Roman law, the Corpus Juris Civilis...

. After having practised as an advocate both in Italy and France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, he became a law professor at Bologna in 1228. The commentaries on Roman law

Roman law

Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, and the legal developments which occurred before the 7th century AD — when the Roman–Byzantine state adopted Greek as the language of government. The development of Roman law comprises more than a thousand years of jurisprudence — from the Twelve...

attributed to him are valuable as showing the growth of the study of law in Italy, and for their biographical details of the jurists of the 12th and 13th centuries. Odofredus died at Bologna in 1265.

Odofredus is famous for the personal remarks with which he sprinkled his teaching, often introduced by Or signori, "Listen, gentlemen". Perhaps his most famous saying is: "Everybody wants to know, but nobody wants to know the price of knowledge".

Under his name appeared the following works, which had already been printed in the late fifteenth century:

• Lecturae in Codicem (Lyons, 1480)
• Lecturae in Digestum Vetus (Paris, 1504)
• Summa de libellis formandis (Strassburg, 1510)
• Lecturae in Tres Libros (Venice, 1514)
• Lecturae in Digestum Novum (Lyons, 1552)