‘Jacopus id quod ego’. With this epitaph, the dying Irnerio, in the imaginative words of the judge from Lodi, Ottone Morena, last salutes the scholar Iacopo di Porta Ravegnana, as he stood next to him alongside his other three disciples, Bulgaro, Martino Gosia and Ugo di Porta Ravegnana. ‘Iacopo as if he were me’: for centuries, this quote was taken to mean that the dying Irnerio designated Iacopo as head of his school after his death. In fact, it may simply indicate a greater affinity between the two than with the others.
Iacopo di Porta Ravegnana was born at the beginning of the 12th century in Bologna, in a district that still takes its name from the old gate which marked the road to Ravenna, Porta Ravennana or Ravegnana.
Like Bulgaro, Martino Gosia and Ugo, Iacopo was also a pupil of Irnerio but, being the youngest of the four, is believed to have continued his studies at the schools of his companions, who had already become doctors by this time.
Although in his numerous works he often presents affinities with Bulgaro, a strict and orthodox follower of the Corpus Iuris Civilis, and often departs from Martino, who was open to the legacy of Canon and Longobard law, in some cases it seems that, like the latter, he too seriously pondered the problem of the relationship between Roman and divine law, between leges and conones.
For Iacopo, while the Roman leges could not be challenged by the ecclesiastical canones, Justinian law could in fact find a worthy contradictory opinion in the divine ius.
This hybrid culture, which even resorts to the liberal arts and a certain literary language (something very rare in the first generations of Bolognese glossators), leads one to believe that he might have contributed to Graziano's Decretum , which was enriched with Roman regulations during the period in which the well-known canon jurist taught in Bologna.
Thus, a certain freedom in his approach to jurisprudence is evident, which is also seen in his teachings and consultations, which are recorded from 1151 to 1169.
If we exclude two documents from Modena in which an as yet unidentified 'dominus Jacobus' appears, all testimonies are ascribed to the territory of Bologna. These mostly pertain to University-related activities, but also include providing advice - like the other three disciples - to the city's first podestà, Guido di Raniero da Sasso.
What made Iacopo famous, however, was his meeting with Frederick I, Duke of Swabia, who in 1155, probably urged by the 'four disciples' themselves, granted the Constitutio Habita, in which the Emperor declared himself the protector of students, who were now guaranteed independence from the jurisdiction of the city in which they had taken up residence.
When Barbarossa went to Roncaglia in 1158 to determine his supremacy over the rebel cities of Lombardy, Ugo, together with the other three masters of the University, was called upon to plead the imperial cause through the support of Roman law.
A great connoisseur of the Corpus Iuris Civilis, for which he made numerous glosse on all its parts, Iacopo was particularly interested in fiscal, penal and especially legal matters.