Naples, Orvieto, Rome (1259–1268)

In 1259 Thomas completed his first regency at the studium generale and left Paris so that others in his order could gain this teaching experience. He returned to Naples where he was appointed as general preacher by the provincial chapter of 29 September 1260. In September 1261 he was called to Orvieto as conventual lector responsible for the pastoral formation of the friars unable to attend a studium generale. In Orvieto Thomas completed his Summa contra Gentiles, wrote the Catena aurea, (The Golden Chain),^[33] and produced works for Pope Urban IV such as the liturgy for the newly created feast of Corpus Christi and theContra errores graecorum (Against the Errors of the Greeks).^[32]

In February 1265 the newly elected Pope Clement IV summoned Aquinas to Rome to serve as papal theologian. This same year he was ordered by the Dominican Chapter of Agnani^[34] to teach at the studiumconventuale at the Roman convent of Santa Sabina, founded some years before, in 1222.^[35] The studium at Santa Sabina now became an experiment for the Dominicans, the Order’s first studium provinciale, an intermediate school between the studium conventuale and the studium generale. “Prior to this time the Roman Province had offered no specialized education of any sort, no arts, no philosophy; only simple convent schools, with their basic courses in theology for resident friars, were functioning in Tuscany and the meridionale during the first several decades of the order’s life. But the new studium at Santa Sabina was to be a school for the province”, a studium provinciale.^[36] Tolomeo da Lucca, an associate and early biographer of Aquinas, tells us that at the Santa Sabina studium Aquinas taught the full range of philosophical subjects, both moral and natural.^[37]

While at the Santa Sabina studium provinciale Thomas began his most famous work the Summa theologiae,^[33] which he conceived of specifically as suited to beginning students: “Because a doctor of catholic truth ought not only to teach the proficient, but to him pertains also to instruct beginners. as the Apostle says in 1 Corinthians 3: 1-2, as to infants in Christ, I gave you milk to drink, not meat, our proposed intention in this work is to convey those things that pertain to the Christian religion, in a way that is fitting to the instruction of beginners.”^[38] While there he also wrote a variety of other works like his unfinished Compendium Theologiae and Responsio ad fr. Ioannem Vercellensem de articulis 108 sumptis ex opere Petri de Tarentasia (Reply to Brother John of Vercelli Regarding 108 Articles Drawn from the Work of Peter of Tarentaise).^[31]In his position as head of the studium Aquinas conducted a series of important disputations on the power of God, which he compiled into his De potentia.^[39] Nicholas Brunacci [1240-1322] was among Aquinas’s students at the Santa Sabina studium provinciale and later at the Paris studium generale. In November 1268 he was with Aquinas and his associate and secretary Reginald of Piperno, as they left Viterbo on their way to Paris to begin the academic year.^[40] Another student of Aquinas’s at the Santa Sabina studium provinciale was Blessed Tommasello da Perugia.^[41]

Aquinas remained at the studium at Santa Sabina from 1265 until he was called back to Paris in 1268 for a second teaching regency.^[39] With his departure for Paris in 1268 and the passage of time the pedagogical activities of the studium provinciale at Santa Sabina were divided between two campuses. A new convent of the Order at the Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva had a modest beginning in 1255 as a community for women converts, but grew rapidly in size and importance after being given over to the Dominicans friars in 1275.^[42] In 1288 the theology component of the provincial curriculum for the education of the friars was relocated from the Santa Sabina studium provinciale to the studium conventuale at Santa Maria sopra Minerva, which was redesignated as a studium particularis theologiae.^[43] This studium was transformed in the 16th century into the College of Saint Thomas (Latin: Collegium Divi Thomæ). In the 20th century the college was relocated to the convent of Saints Dominic and Sixtus and was transformed into the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum.