Further Reading
Editions
Corsi, Giuseppe. Rimatori del Trecento. Turin: UTET, 1969,
pp. 870–880.
D’Ancona, Alessandro. “L’arte del dire in rima: Sonetti di
Antonio Pucci.” In Miscellanea di fi lologia e linguistica in
memoria di Napoleone Caix e Ugo Angelo Canello. Florence:
Le Monnier, 1886, pp. 293–303.
Levi, Ezio. Fiore di leggende: Cantari antichi. Bari: Laterza,
- (Gismirante, Bruto di Brettagna, Madonna Lionessa,
and La reina d’Oriente.)
McKenzie, Kenneth. “Antonio Pucci on Old Age.” Speculum, 15,
1940, pp. 160–185. (Delia vecchiezza.)
Pucci, Antonio. Le noie, ed. Kenneth McKenzie. Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1931.
––––. Il contrasto delle donne: A Critical Edition with Introduc-
tion and Notes, ed. Antonio Pace. Menasha, Wis.: George
Banta, 1944.
Sapegno, Natalino, ed. Poeti minori del Trecento. Milan: Ric-
ciardi, 1952, pp. 349–420.
Critical Studies
Brambilla Ageno, Franca. “Per l’interpretazione delle Proprietà
di Mercato Vecchio di Antonio Pucci.” Lingua Nostra, 37,
1976, pp. 9–10.
Fasani, Remo. “Il Fiore e la poesia del Pucci.” Deutsches Dante
jahrbuch, 49–50, (1974–1975), pp. 82–141.
Kleinhenz, Christopher. “The Other Face of the Late Thirteenth-
Century Lyric: Realism, Comedy, and the Bourgeoisie.” In The
Early Italian Sonnet: The First Century ( 1220 – 1321 ), Lecce:
Milella, 1986, pp. 157–200.
Messina, Michele. “Pucci, Antonio.” In Enciclopedia Dantesca.
Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1970–1978.
Petrocchi, Giorgio. “Cultura e poesia del Trecento.” In Il Trecento.
Milan: Garzanti, 1965; rpt. 1979.
Rabboni, Renzo. “La tradizione manoscritta dell’Apollonio di
Tiro di Antonio Pucci.” In Studi in onore di Raffaele Spongano,
ed. Emilio Pasquini. Bologna: Boni, 1980, pp. 29–47.
Joan Levin
AQUINAS, THOMAS (ca. 1224–1274)
The only medieval philosopher whose ideas command
an active following in the 20th century. The symme-
try of Thomas’s methodical synthesis of traditional
Christian (Augustinian and Platonist) theology with
Aristotelian methods and categories may be thought
of at once as the zenith of medieval scholastic thought
and its downfall. Thomas’s apparently comprehensive,
even-tempered certainties, the product of method and
reason, continue to attract those seeking answers to the
problems of faith.
Thomas was born in Roccasecca, near Monte
Cassino, Italy, the youngest son of Count Landulf
of Aquino, a relative of the emperor and the king of
France. He was schooled at Monte Cassino, where his
family hoped he would become abbot, and later (1240)
studied arts at Naples. Thomas’s love of Christian learn-
ing urged him to join the Dominican order. His family
opposed his becoming a mendicant, when the wealth
of the Benedictines beckoned, and kept him prisoner,
fruitlessly, in Roccasecca for fi fteen months. In April
1244, he joined the Dominicans and was sent to Paris
(1245–48) to study theology with Albert the Great. In
1248, he accompanied Albert to the new Dominican
studium at Cologne, but by 1252 he was back in Paris
as lecturer at Saint-Jacques, the Dominican convent.
Here he defended mendicant poverty against the attacks
of William of Saint-Amour and his followers, writing
Contra impugnantes Dei cultum. He became master of
theology (his formal degree having been delayed by the
dispute) in 1256. From 1259 to 1269, he taught at Do-
minican houses in Italy: Anagni, Orvieto, Santa Sabina
and the studium generale in Rome, and Viterbo. In 1269,
just before the condemnation of Aristotelian errors by
Étienne Tempier, he returned to Paris but was moved
once more, to establish a Dominican studium in Naples,
in 1272. He was traveling again, to the Second Council
of Lyon, when he died at Fossanuova, on March 7, 1274.
Thomas, known as Doctor angelicus and Doctor
communis, is renowned for his massive output, which
was remarked upon in the evidence for his canoniza-
tion. He was said to dictate seamlessly to several
secretaries at once, each writing a different work. He
wrote biblical commentaries, at least one commentary
on the Sententiae of Peter Lombard, commentaries on
much of Aristotle and the liber de causis, disputed and
quodlibetal questions, and other works common to a
Paris master, as well as short tracts in answer to spe-
cifi c questions, whether in opposition to the Averroists
or Avicebron, for instance, or in reply to the duchess
of Brabant on government. Aware of the inadequacy
of western knowledge of Aristotle, he had William of
Moerbecke (1215–1286) translate or retranslate many
of his works, leaving a valuable legacy for later schol-
ars. But Thomas’s name is almost synonymous with
his Summa theologica (or Summa theologiae), which,
together with the earlier Summa contra Gentiles, is a
massive statement of the whole of Christian theology.
The Summa is in three parts, the fi rst (prima) dealing
with God in se, the second dealing fi rst (prima secundae)
with God’s relations with humanity and second (secunda
secundae) with humanity’s relations with God, and the
third (tertia) with Christ and the sacraments as the path
for the human return to God. (The plan is similar to
Peter Lombard’s Sententiae but in three unequal books
rather than four.)
Although Thomas’s place in the hierarchy of medi-
eval philosopher-theologians is secure, he is perhaps
recognized today more for his system and clarity than
for his originality of thought. As we learn more about
earlier 13th-century scholastics, we see Thomistic ideas
in prototype or isolation. His gift was in a synthesis of
what had previously tended to the imposition of Aristo-
telian categories of thought within a Platonist ChristianAQUINAS, THOMAS