De actionibus is not an "autonomous" treatise in the modern sense, but a commentary on the title of Justinian's Institutiones , which is dedicated to "actions" ( actiones ), that is, the procedural means with which rights were asserted in court in Roman law and common law. The author analyses the various Roman procedural actions, their classification and functioning. the practical problems of application in the courts of his time.
Giasone del Maino was one of the most important jurists of the fifteenth century, a professor in Pavia, Padua, and Pisa, considered one of the greatest representatives of the school of commentators. His authority was such that he was called princeps iurisconsultorum during the Renaissance.