Arnold Vinnius

Arnold Vinnius (4 January 1588 – 1 September 1657) was one of the leading jurists of the 17th century in the Netherlands.

A prolific author, he published: "Iurisprudentiae contractae sive Partitionum iuris civilis libri IIII" (Jurisprudence abridged, or the Partitions of civil law in four books) (The Hague, 1624-1631); a series of short treatises on contracts, jurisdiction, inheritance, and compromise, in 1644 and in 1646 (later united in a single volume and reprinted many times under the title "Tractatus IV de pactis, jurisdictione, collationibus, transactionibus"; Amsterdam, 1651); his extremely popular "Notes" to the Institutes of Justinian (Leiden, 1646); and a volume of selected questions on civil law ("Selectarum iuris quaestionum...", Leiden, 1653).

Moreover, he prepared annotated reprints of Petrus Peck’s commentary on Maritime Law and Matthaeus Wesenbeck’s Paratitla, in addition to his 1618 edition of the Institutes of his master, Gerardus Tuningius.

More than one-third of these editions were versions of his great best-seller, "In quatuor libros Institutionum imperialium commentarius academicus et forensis".

The philosopher David Hume recalled being required to read it while studying Law in Edinburgh.