The ‘Sophismata’ attributed to Marsilius of Padua

Abstract

The fact of being the author of a masterpiece in political thought, such as the Defensor Pacis was enough to establish Marsilius as one of the most interesting political philosophers of the later Middle Ages. The heated discussions the Defensor Pacis provoked also had the effect, however, of putting other works of his in almost perennial shade. This is the case, for example, with other political treatises such as Defensor Minor which, in spite of its intrinsic relevance, survived in only one copy.1 The destiny of his activity in logic and metaphysics was no better. We are informed of his presence at the Parisian Art Faculty where he enjoyed the title of magister and was also rector in the first months of 1313. He came back to Paris after an Italian parenthesis (to be placed approximately between 1315 and 1319) during which he began his activity on behalf of the Italian Ghibellines. His Defensor Pacis was in fact finished in the French capital, on 24th June 1324; a few months later he left that city, together with one of the outstanding figures of the Parisian Arts Faculty, John of Jandun, to join the Emperor in his struggle against the Papacy.2 KeywordsPolitical ThoughtMedieval PhilosophyCorpus AlbumOpus OmniaManuscript TraditionThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.