The status quaestionis of Gratian Studies

Some recent research into the anti-mendicant controversies reminded me just how much Thomas knew about and employed canon law, all throughout his career. I have been reading Anders Winroth's important book, The Making of Gratian's Decretum (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), and just found out that the author has a home page for Gratian studies. One of the many gems in the site is a lecture that Winroth gave at the Twelfth International Congress of Medieval Canon Law in 2004, entitled "Recent work on the making of Gratian's Decretum." To read the lecture (in PDF format) is to get a refresher course in Gratian and his work. I believe that I have mentioned before that the entire Decretum is on-line: a crucial resource.

On Remigius of Florence

The Academic Press of the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) has just published this exciting work by Anto Gavric, a Dominican from Croatia. The author is also preparing the critical edition of Remigius’ De modis rerum which will appear in the prestigious series Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis. On his website you can find more on the author. Most exciting from an international perspective is the fact that he hosts this website focusing on Thomas Aquinas in Croatia.

Here is the text from the website of the editor in Fribourg:

Redécouvrant l’histoire du thomisme, le XXe siècle est marqué entre autres par un effort considérable de situer l’oeuvre et la doctrine de Thomas d’Aquin dans leur contexte historique propre, notamment par des études portant sur les premiers disciples de Thomas d’Aquin. Rémi de Florence est un témoin important pour notre connaissance de la transmission de la doctrine de Thomas d’Aquin et de son enseignement dans les studia dominicains en Italie, notamment à Florence. Notre travail met en évidence certains aspects de la doctrine thomasienne qui émergent du traité De modis rerum, considéré comme un traité de métaphysique. L’apport de Rémi de Florence devient incontournable pour la terminologie et l’histoire de la doctrine des transcendantaux. Le De modis rerum doit être sans conteste considéré comme le premier traité systématique sur les transcendantaux ou au moins être placé parmi les premiers. Il intègre dans ses réflexions philosophiques, logico-grammaticales, théologiques, de façon particulièrement remarquable, des recherches portant sur les multiples acceptions, divisions et définitions de termes. Le De modis rerum montre aussi que la question de Dieu a passionné les débats philosophiques médiévaux. En outre, on peut observer un troisième aspect de la pensée de Rémi, lorsqu’il évoque l’esse morale ou plus encore l’esse civile. Cet aspect s’avère d’une grande importance, car la philosophie politique apparaît comme une préoccupation très significative de la pensée du dominicain florentin: elle montre son intérêt pour l’actualité ainsi que son engagement actif dans la vie publique de son temps. Ces divers critères permettent de cerner la diversité de la pensée de Rémi de Florence ainsi que la spécificité de la philosophie médiévale.

354 pages, broché,
Fr. 64.- / EUR 39.50
ISBN 978-2-8271-1016-2

Conference on metaphysics of Aquinas in Rome

This is just in from Prof. Jésus Villagrasa L.C. of the Ateneo Pontificio Regina Apostolorum in Rome. They’re co-hosting a one-day conference on March 20, 2007 entitled “Creazione e actus essendi. Originalità e interpretazioni della metafisica di Tommaso d’Aquino”. Here is the program. If I could make it, I would be particularly looking forward to the papers on the “Patristic sources of the metaphysics of Aquinas” and “The ontological difference in 20th century Thomism”!

In addition the “Progetto Culturale Cornelio Fabro”, in charge of the edition of the collected works of the Italian Thomist Cornelio Fabro (see our Newsletter of March 2005), will present the edition of Fabro’s “Breve introduzione al tomismo”.

New blog about Aquinas

Here’s a neat one, just in time for St Thomas’s feast day (January 28^th): a new blog devoted to Aquinas is just coming on-line. Entitled ‘Aquinasblog,’ it

…attempts to describe the high points of his thought, sketching out in a big picture way the key ideas and (more interestingly) the connections between them.

Welcome aboard. We all wish the site good luck, and much Google juice!

New book on the notion of ‘science’ in the 13th century

I love SISMEL, and the wide variety of things they publish. Their most recent newsletter announced a book on the notion of science in the 13^th century, based on commentaries on the Posterior Analytics, written by Amos Corbini. Of course there is a discussion of Aquinas. Here is the information:

Amos Corbini, La teoria della scienza nel XIII secolo. I commenti agli Analitici Secondi

Pagine/Pages : XX-347
Legatura/Binding : Brossura/Paperback
ISBN : 88-8450-222-5
Prezzo/Price : € 57,00

Il saggio prende in esame i commenti duecenteschi agli Analitici secondi, a partire da quello di Roberto Grossatesta che negli anni Trenta del secolo diede inizio alla tradizione esegetica: sono considerati sia i testi già noti (Grossatesta, Riccardo Rufo di Cornovaglia, Alberto Magno, Tommaso d'Aquino, Egidio Romano, Walter Burley), sia quelli in fase di studio o di edizione (Roberto Kilwardby, Rodolfo il Bretone), sia quelli inediti (Gerardo di Nogent, Giacomo di Douai, Simone di Faversham), ricostruendo un quadro completo e mai prima presentato. L'esposizione, che è organizzata intorno ai grandi temi della teoria scientifica aristotelica e tiene conto anche dei più recenti studi, corredata di un apparato di indici per una più agevole consultazione, permette di valutare le idee sulla conoscenza scientifica formatesi nella prima fase della recezione del testo aristotelico e pone le basi di un percorso di ricerca destinato ad essere completato con ulteriori indagini riguardanti i secoli successivi.

Blackfriars’ translation of the Summa to be republished

Thanks to Steve Perisho of Seattle Pacific University for this. Cambridge University Press will be republishing the whole 61 volume run of the Blackfriars edition of the Summa theologiae in paperback form this February (2007). This handy translation, begun in the 1960s and completed in the 1970s, had the singular merit of being a facing-page translation, with the Latin text of the Summa on the left-hand page, and the English translation being on the right-hand side. The division of the work into 61 volumes also meant each volume was compact and portable. It also sported interpretive notes at the bottom of the pages, as well as appendices of articles that helped one situate a given tractate in its doctrinal or historical context.

The only "issue" with the translations was that the whole series was done by many people (all skilled, of course). But if the Italian adage holds—traduttore traditore (the translator also betrays)—then the variety of hidden interpretations in the series is multiplied exponentially. That said, one always has recourse to the Latin text on the opposite page. Here's the blurb from the CUP website:

Summa Theologiae. The complete paperback set
60 volumes, plus one index volume

The Summa Theologiae ranks among the greatest documents of the Christian Church, and is a landmark of medieval western thought. It is regularly consulted by scholars of theology, philosophy and a range of related academic disciplines. This paperback reissue of the classic Latin/English edition first published by the English Dominicans in the 1960s and 1970s has been undertaken in response to regular requests from around the world. The original text is unchanged, except for the correction of a small number of typographical errors. The parallel English and Latin texts can be used successfully by anybody with a basic knowledge of Latin, while the presence of the Latin text allowed the translators a degree of freedom in adapting their English version for modern readers. Each volume contains a glossary of technical terms and is designed to be complete in itself to serve for private study or as a course text.

The cost of the whole series is $1800.00 USD, far above the purchase-range for individual scholars, but a good investment for college and university libraries. I cannot tell from the website whether individual volumes can be purchased. I'll look into this, and post a follow-up.

Update on 2007-01-27 19:01 by Mark Johnson

Well, that was quick. If you look at the comments associated with this post you’ll see that individual volumes can be purchased (at $35.00 a volume).

Complete Index for the journal, Mediaeval Studies

The journal Mediaeval Studies, out of the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto, has put on-line a near-complete Index of the journal's run, from 1939 through 2005. The Index lists Articles-by-Authors, and the various notes In memoriam for associates of the Institute who have died. The downloadable file is in PDF format. In addition, PIMS also has an Index of critically edited texts that have appeared in the journal, also available in PDF format.

Peter Lombard's Sentences, Book 1, now in translation

The Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto has just published Book 1 of Peter Lombard’s Libri sententiarum in English translation by Giulio Silano. Here is the blurb:

PETER LOMBARD
The Sentences – Book 1: The Mystery of the Trinity
Mediaeval Sources in Translation 42. St Michael’s College Mediaeval Translations. 2007. • lviii, 278 pp.
ISBN 13: 978–0–88844–292–5 (ISBN 10: 0–88844–292–0) • $39.95

This volume makes available for the first time in English a full translation of Book 1 of Peter Lombard’s Sentences, the work that would win the greatest teacher of the twelfth century a place in Dante’s Paradise and would continue to excite generations of students well beyond the Middle Ages.

You can see a PDF ad for the book, download a PDF order form for it, or learn more about it and PIMS’s website.

The journal, Medieval Philosophy and Theology, is on-line only

The journal, Medieval Philosophy and Theology, which began in 1991 at Notre Dame University but has since moved to Cornell University, has changed from being a printed journal to an on-line only journal. Here is the journal's general description of itself:

Medieval Philosophy and Theology is a semi-annual, peer-reviewed journal devoted to the publication of original articles in all areas of medieval philosophy, including logic and natural science, and in medieval theology, including Christian, Jewish, and Islamic. Coverage extends from the Patristic period through the Neo-Scholasticism of the seventeenth century.

…[b]eginning with volume 12 the journal will be publishing new issues exclusively [on-line], exclusively in digital format. All back issues of the journal are also accessible…in digital format.

The finely-wrought website has a search feature, and currently sports all the articles from volumes 1–6 in PDF format, with the hope that volumes 7–11 will be available soon.

Update on 2007-01-19 12:57 by Mark Johnson

The search feature on the site is very good. A quick search of the term “Aquinas” in the title-field yielded 12 hits of articles on Aquinas. I also found out, somewhat to my surprize, that full-text searches are possible, too. This surprized me because the PDF formats of many of the articles are the image-version of the format (the larger version), which is basically a graphic file of an already-printed document. Someone has been working very hard, here.

New English translation of the Summa theologiae in progress

Dr. Alfred J. Freddoso of Notre Dame, whose personal website is already a source of seemingly infinite learning, has embarked upon a new English translation of the Summa theologiae, which he hopes to publish with St. Augustine's Press before too, too long. In the interim he has taken to placing PDF versions of individual questions on-line as soon as he has them in "penultimate draft" form. As of this writing he has most of the Prima pars done, and chunks of the Prima secundae. Check it out, and don't forget his helpful commentaries, too.

The Virtual Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi

This just in, from James Ginther at Saint Louis University:

Theologians Use Video Game Technology to Create Virtual Tour of 13th Century Basilica

Users can fly around structure and see famed frescoes up close

St Louis, MO (9 January 2007) – The Institute of Digital Theology, a non-profit foundation located in St Louis, Missouri and affiliated with Saint Louis University, announced today the release of the CD-ROM, "The Virtual Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi ."

This new computer software allows users to explore on their own computer this medieval Italian church. The Basilica contains frescoes from the workshops of the early Italian Renaissance painters, Giotto and Cimabue. As a three-dimensional model, the Virtual Basilica permits users to walk and even fly freely about the building.

The Institute has combined gaming technology and digital photography to produce an innovative product. "Most virtual tours of historic buildings combine static, 360-degree panoramas and two dimensional images," noted Dr Jay Hammond, the Institute's President and Co-Director. "We have moved beyond this and have taken advantage of the 3D environment that game engines create." The model is based on laser-accurate measurements of the building and over 4,000 digital images that were taken prior to the disastrous earthquake of 1997. "The result," said Hammond, "is an electronic version of the Basilica before some of its artwork was irreparably damaged."

"We also chose a game engine to build the model," added Dr James Ginther, Vice-President and Co-Director, "because it would ensure the Virtual Basilica would run on the average PC and not on expensive computers that only universities can afford." The Institute's mission, Ginther continued, is to connect preservation of the past with the widest possible access today.

The CD-ROM also has maps and guides for the artwork so that the virtual visitor can learn about the artists, what the pictures depict and their written sources. It also reveals how each fresco fits into the larger narratives of the building. "Church wall paintings and frescoes were meant to tell a story," said Hammond, "and the Virtual Basilica can help the modern observer to understand once again the stories the Basilica of St Francis."

Built in the thirteenth century, the Basilica has stood over 700 years as a monument to the life and work of St Francis, the founder of the Franciscan order. The main set of frescoes tells the story of Francis' conversion to a life of poverty and simplicity and how he became an inspiration for the reform of European Christianity. That message has shaped his order of "lesser brothers" who have continued to teach his message to all Christians. In the last few decades, the Basilica has also become a place for an inter-religious prayer service three times.

With the upper level of the basilica complete, the Institute will create similar virtual tours of the lower church, crypt and exterior gardens. In June, a design team will break virtual ground on another major project: a virtual tour of York Minster in York, England, the largest Gothic church in northern Europe

As the Institute is a non-profit foundation, all proceeds from the sales of the CD-ROM will support academic research in the Franciscan Tradition and advancements in digital media, such as electronic texts and databases as well as virtual modeling of historic sites.

The software is designed for Windows 2000/NT/XP. It is available for purchase the Institute's web-site, www.digitaltheology.org and on Amazon.

The Institute of Digital Theology is a non-profit foundation, affiliated with Saint Louis University. Its mission is to support research and teaching in Theological Studies and related Humanities disciplines through the creation of multimedia projects, web-based databases and other electronic resources.  Housed in the University's Department of Theological Studies, the Institute focuses primarily on the preservation of historical artifacts and texts that have significant religious or theological meaning.

Contact:
Institute of Digital Theology
Room HU 124
3800 Lindell Blvd
St Louis, MO 63108

Email: publicity@digitaltheology.org
Web: http://www.digitaltheology.org

Now, let's see them do the same thing for Santa Sabina in Rome or San Domenico in Naples!

Update on Ave Maria conference “Sacraments in Aquinas”

Last February I posted about an upcoming conference at Ave Maria University, in Naples, Florida, to take place in February, 2007. A change in the dates for the conference resulted in a little shuffling of the speakers, so here is the full line-up for the conference (to take place February 1-3, 2007: see more at the Ave Maria website):

Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ
Fordham University, Keynote Address
Reinhard Hütter
Duke University Divinity School, Closing Address

• Sr. Thomas Augustine Becker, OP, Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist
• Bernhard Blankenhorn, OP, Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology
• John Boyle, University of St. Thomas (MN)
• Romanus Cessario, OP, St. John's Seminary
• Michael Dauphinais, Ave Maria University
• Barry David, Ave Maria University
• Benoît-Dominique de La Soujeole, OP, University of Fribourg
• Gilles Emery, OP, University of Fribourg
• Thomas Hibbs, Baylor University
• Mark Johnson, Marquette University
• Joseph Koterski, SJ, Fordham University
• Peter Kwasniewski, International Theological Institute
• Matthew L. Lamb, Ave Maria University
• Michael Lang, London Oratory
• Matthew Levering, Ave Maria University
• Steven Long, Ave Maria University
• Bruce Marshall, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University
• Robert Miner, Baylor University
• Sébastian Perdrix OP, Dominican House of Studies, Washington, DC
• Lauren Pristas, Caldwell College
• Richard Schenk, OP, Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology
• Mary Catherine Sommers, Center for Thomistic Studies
• Michael Waldstein, International Theological Institute, Gaming, Austria
• Thomas Weinandy, OFM Cap, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

Matthew Levering has a nice interview about the conference in PDF format, and the precise schedule and titles of papers is also in PDF format. See you there?