Naples
City on the Bay of Naples, in the thirteenth century a place of schools in the kingdom of Sicily. Thomas Aquinas studied and joined the Dominicans here, and here he stopped work on the Summa in 1273.
Naples lies on the west coast of southern Italy. William of Tocco says that Thomas Aquinas was sent there as a boy to study grammar, logic and natural philosophy, and there took the Dominican habit (William of Tocco, Life of Thomas Aquinas chs. 5–6). At the end of his life he was again in Naples, and it was after a Mass in the chapel of Saint Nicholas there that he gave up writing (Canonization process of Thomas Aquinas (Naples, 1319), 79). The inquiry for his canonization sat in the archbishop’s palace at Naples in 1319 (Canonization process of Thomas Aquinas (Naples, 1319), editor’s introduction, p. 265). See Thomas Aquinas Writes the Summa Theologiae.
What happened here
- about 1265 to 1273, estimated dateThomas Aquinas Writes the Summa Theologiae
The Dominican friar Thomas Aquinas, pupil of Albert the Great and master at Paris, sets out theology in three parts, in questions and articles, drawing on Scripture, church doctors and philosophers. He stops writing at Naples in December 1273 and dies three months later.