Some Renaissance Panegyrics of Aquinas

Abstract

This year's commemoration of the seven-hundredth anniversary of the death of Aquinas in 1274 continues a tradition of veneration and panegyric which stretches far back into history and reaches considerably beyond the confines of the Dominican order to which the saint belonged. The most famous and provocative panegyric of St. Thomas is certainly that of Lorenzo Valla, delivered in the Dominican church of S. Maria sopra Minerva, Rome, on the saint's feast day, March 7, 1457. The fame, even notoriety, of this particular panegyric derives from the significant place in intellectual history which the panegyrist holds as well as from his curious treatment of his subject. As has frequently been observed, Valla's oration is almost an antipanegyric, an apologia for his own humanistic style of theology against the scholastic style of Thomas. It is a good illustration of the fundamental antagonisms between these two styles and an instance of the polemic which often marked their confrontation.