Andrea Alciato was a jurist from the Italian city of Milan who settled in France in the early 16th century. A learned man, Alciato wrote a number of legal treatises, but he is most famous for his Emblemata, published in dozens of editions from 1531 onward. This collection of short Latin verse texts and accompanying woodcuts created an entire European genre, the emblem book, which attained enormous popularity in continental Europe and Britain.