Nicolaus de Tudeschis (known as Panormitanus or Abbas Panormitanus) was a Sicilian Benedictine canonist, born in Catania. He studied under Francesco Zabarella at Padua and Bologna, and became the foremost canon lawyer of his age, earning the scholastic epithet "lucerna juris" (lamp of the law). In 1425 he was made abbot of the monastery of San Maria di Maniace near Messina, and in 1434 King Alfonso V of Aragon nominated him Archbishop of Palermo, from which office he took the name Panormitanus. His massive commentaries on the Decretals of Gregory IX became the standard reference work in canon law for over a century and were among the most frequently printed legal texts of the incunabula period.
