Thomas Aquinas, Saint
Thomas Aquinas, Saint
Thomas Aquinas, Saint, famous Italian theologian, philosopher, and poet; b. Roccasecca, near Aquino, 1224 or 1225; d. Fossanova, March 7, 1274. In 1263 Pope Urban IV commissioned him to compose a communion service, which contains the memorable numbers Lauda Sion (Corpus Christi sequence) and Pange lingua, Sacra solemnis, Verbum swpemum, and Adoro te (hymns). An extended chapter on music is contained in his Summa Theologica (II, quaestio XLT).
Bibliography
G. Amelli, S. Tomaso e la musica (1876); D. Thomas Aquinatis de arte musica nunc primum ex codice bibl. univ. Ticin-ensis ed. illustr. Sac. Guarinus Amelli (1880); C. Bellet, St. Th. d’Aquin (Paris, 1902); J. Callahan, A Theory of Esthetics According to the Principles of St. Th. Aquinas (diss., Catholic Univ., Washington, D.C., 1927).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire