Diritto e teologia nell’Inghilterra elisabettiana. La polemica oxoniense fra Alberico Gentili e John Rainolds sulle competenze del giurista e del teologo

The author investigates Alberico Gentili’s thought about the relationship between law, theology and religion as well as the roles and competence of the theologian and the jurist respectively. Many of the Gentili’s works on these issues appeared between 1585 and 1593 : De legationibus libri tres (1585), De iure belli Commentationes (1588-1589), Commentatio ad legem III. Codicis de professoribus et medicis (1593). An epistolary controversy between Gentili and the puritan theologian John Rainolds over this topic occurred in the years 1593-1594. The correspondence, still preserved manuscript in the Bodleian Library of Oxford, heralds the final Gentili’s position in the dispute, which will be completely expressed in the De iure belli (1598) and Book I of Disputationum de nuptiis libri VII (1601).