Diego de Covarrubias

Diego de Covarrubias y Leyva (1512-1577) was a Spanish jurist and Roman Catholic prelate, born in Toledo to the family of the architect Alonso de Covarrubias. He studied at the University of Salamanca under Francisco de Vitoria and Martin de Azpilcueta and became a professor of canon law there at the age of twenty one. Contemporaries called him the Bartolus of Spain and regarded him as the greatest canonist of the sixteenth century, praising the clarity of his legal writing, above all his Variarum resolutionum ex jure pontificio regio et caesareo libri IV. He went on to serve as Archbishop of Cuenca and other sees, helped draft reform decrees at the Council of Trent, and sat on the Council of Castile before becoming president of the Council of State under Philip II.