Juan Sala y Bañuls

JUAN SALA Y BAÑULS (Alicante, 1731- 1806).
"Digestum Romano-Hispanum ad tironum Hispanorum ordinatum" Two volumes, 2nd edition.
Printer: Raimundo Vergés. Madrid. 1824 (Volume I) and Tomás Alban. Madrid, 1824 (Volume II).
Good condition.
Measurements: 21 x 15 x 3 cm (x2).
Juan Sala y Bañuls, born into a noble family, began his education in Gandía and later at the University of Valencia, where he studied Philosophy, Jurisprudence and Mathematics. His academic dedication seriously affected his health, forcing him to interrupt his studies on several occasions. Even so, he successfully obtained the degrees of bachelor and doctor in Civil Law in 1753, and later in Canon Law in 1767. He was ordained a priest in 1764.
From 1766 he actively participated in competitive examinations for university professorships, being named holder of the perpetual Chair of Instituta in 1773, and finally, in 1791, he obtained the primary professorship of the Faculty of Law. His academic career developed according to the Valencian university system, based on staggered access from temporary to perpetual professorships.
Sala was a prolific author of legal manuals, standing out for his work Vinnius castigatus, with which he tried to adapt, correct and simplify the commentaries of Vinnius on the Institutiones of Justinian, replacing the references to Dutch law with equivalents of Spanish law. This work was the subject of controversy, especially by the printer Benito Monfort, which led Sala to move to Madrid to defend it before the Council of Castile.
Among his main contributions to the academic field are also the Institutiones Romano-Hispanae (1788-1789) and the Digestum Romano-Hispanum, the result of a royal leave of absence from the professorship to write a commentary on the Digestum concordado con el derecho real. In these works, Sala developed a methodology based on the concordances between Roman law and Spanish law, especially the Partidas, the Nueva Recopilación, the Laws of Toro and the Furs de Valencia.