and his crowning at Aquila and was in Naples during his
pontifi cate in 1294. Ptolemy was in Avignon by 1309
and spent most of the next two decades there, serving at
least two cardinals. He was named bishop of Torcello in
- Because of a quarrel with the patriarch of Grado,
Ptolemy’s episcopate was stormy, and he even suffered
excommunication and imprisonment. Pope John XXII
restored Ptolemy to his see in 1323, probably while
the pope was in Avignon attending the festivities for
Aquinas’s canonization. Ptolemy died in Torcello.
Though he wrote one “scientifi c” work, De operi-
bus sex dierum, published under the title Exaemeron,
Ptolemy’s achievements as a historian and political
thinker far outweighed those in philosophy or theology.
Besides his Historia ecclesiastica nova, which is based
not only on Martin of Troppau and other chroniclers but
also on numerous canonistic texts, Ptolemy wrote Gesta
Tuscorum, a volume of annals extending from 1061 to
1303 in which Tuscany and particularly Lucca fi gured
prominently. Ptolemy refers also to a third historical
work, Historia tripartita, of which no manuscript is
known. His desire to exalt the temporal jurisdiction of
the papacy found expression in his Libellus de lurisdic-
tione imperii et auctoritate summi pontifi cis, published
as Determinatio compendiosa de iurisdictione imperii;
and Tractatus de iurisdictione ecclesie super regnum
Apulie et Sicilie. Krammer, who edited Determinatio
compendiosa (1909), also edited De origine ac trans-
latione et statu romani imperii as a work probably by
Ptolemy, but its authorship is uncertain. In about 1302
Ptolemy wrote his continuation of Aquinas’s De regno;
this composite work has usually been referred to as De
regimine principum and attributed solely to Aquinas.
In Ptolemy’s continuation, another dimension of his
political thought came to the fore: his republicanism. He
arranged governments under two main headings, politi-
cal and despotic, classifying aristocracies and popular
governments as political and all forms of absolute rule,
including kingship, as despotic. Ptolemy depended
heavily on Aristotle’s Politics, but Artistotle had drawn
a sharp distinction between despotic and royal govern-
ment—a distinction of which Ptolemy shows himself to
be well aware in his De operibus. Ptolemy’s preference
for political government was revealed in his claim that
this was the regime best suited for inhabitants of Eden,
northern Italy, and Rome. In De operibus he said that in
the state of innocence government would have been, as it
was today among the angels, not despotic but political,
a prelacy based on service, not a dominion involving
subjection—subjection having come about only as a
result of the fall of man. In De regimine principum he
said that this was also true of northern Italy and Rome,
whose inhabitants took pride in their own rationality,
though it was not true of the majority of other postlapsar-
ian men, who usually profi ted more from royal rule.
Ptolemy tried to reconcile this view with the frequency
of despotism in contemporary Italy by saying that
northern Italians could be subjected only by coercion.
As for the Roman empire, not it but the church was the
legitimate heir of the Roman republic. The virtues of the
heroes of the Roman republic, to which Ptolemy also
alluded in Determinatio compendiosa, recalled, in fact,
the pristine state of human nature before the fall of man.
Ptolemy’s attempt to justify and harmonize republican
and hierocratic theories makes him one of the most
original political thinkers of the Middle Ages.See also Aquinas, ThomasFurther Reading
Editions
De operibus sex dierum, ed. P. T. Masetti (as Exaemeron). Siena,
1880.
De regimine principum, ed. Joseph Mathis, 2nd ed. Turin: Mari-
etti, 1948.
De regno sive de regimine principum. In Thomas Aquinas,
Opuscula omnia, Vol. 1, Opuscula philosophica, ed. Johannes
Perrier. Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1949, pp. 220–426.
Gesta Tuscorum, ed. Bernhard Schmeidler (as Die Annalen des
Tholomeus von Lucca). Monumenta Germaniae Historica,
Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum, New Series 8. Berlin:
Weidmann, 1930.
Historia ecclesiastica nova, ed. L. A. Muratori. Rerum Italicarum
Scriptores, 11. Milan, 1727, pp. 740–1203.
Libellus de iurisdictione imperii et auctoritate summi pontifi -
cis, ed. Mario Krammer (as Determinatio compendiosa de
iurisdictione imperii). Monumenta Germaniae Historica,
Fontes Iuris Germanici Antiqui. Hannover and Leipzig:
Hahn, 1909.
Tractatus de iurisdictione ecclesiae super regnum Apuliae et
Siciliae, ed. Etienne Baluze and Domenico Mansi. In Miscel-
lanea, Vol. 1, Monumenta historica tum sacra tum profane.
Lucca: Riccomini, 1761, pp. 468–473.Translation
Ptolemy of Lucca. On the Government of Rulers: De regimine
principum—Ptolemy of Lucca with portions attributed to
Thomas Aquinas, trans. James M. Blythe. Philadelphia: Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania Press, 1997.Critical Studies
Blythe, James M. Ideal Government and the Mixed Constitution
in the Middle Ages. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1992.
Davis, Charles. “Ptolemy of Lucca and the Roman Republic.”
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 118,
1974, pp. 30–50. (Reprinted in Charles Davis. Dante’s Italy
and Other Essays. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1984, pp. 254–289.).
——. “Roman Patriotism and Republican Propaganda: Ptolemy
of Lucca and Pope Nicholas III.” Speculum, 50, 1975, pp.
411–33. (Reprinted in Charles Davis. Dante’s Italy and Other
Essays. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984,
pp. 224–253.)
Dondaine, Antoine. “Les ‘Opuscula fratris Thomae’ chez Ptole-
mée de Lucques.” Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 31,
1961, pp. 142–203.PTOLEMY OF LUCCA