in 1406, was carried to Florence, where it has since remained.

[Sidenote: The Civil Law]

Few events in history can be mentioned which have conduced more to the
welfare of Europe than this discovery. The codes, the capitularies, the
formularies, and the customs, by which, till that time, the feudal
nations had been governed, fell very short of affording them the legal
provisions, which society, in the improved state of civilization, to
which it was then advancing, evidently required. Unexpectedly, a system
of law presented itself, which seemed to contain every thing that the
most enlightened men of those times could have desired. The wisdom and
justice of the system of law expressed in the Pandects seem to have been
universally felt. The study of it was immediately pursued with ardour.
It was introduced into several universities; exercises were performed,
lectures read, and degrees conferred in that, as in other branches of
science; and most of the nations of the continent adopted it, if not as
the basis, at least as an important portion of their civil
jurisprudence. A regular _succession of civil_ lawyers followed. At
first, they rather incumbered the text with their subtleties, than
illustrated it by learning and discrimination. _Andrew Alciat_ was the
first who united the study of polite learning with the study of the
civil law: he was founder of a school called the _Cujacian_, from
_Cujas_, the glory of civilians. Of him, it may be truly said, that he
found the civil law in wood and left it in marble.

This school has subsisted until our time: it has never been without
writers of the greatest taste, judgment and erudition; the names of
Cujacius, Augustinus, the Gothofredi, Heineccius, Voetius, Vinnius,
Gravina and Pothier, are as dear to the scholar as they are to the