ABSTRACT
Saint Thomas Aquinas was indisputably the greatest of the medieval philosophers. He was born in his family’s castle of Roccasecca near the town of Aquino, about halfway between Rome and Naples. The seventh son of the Count of Aquino, Landolfo, and his wife Teodora sent Thomas at the age of 5 to the Benedictine monastery of Monte Casino, where his uncle was the abbot. His parents hoped he would get a good education at the monastery and perhaps one day become abbot of Monte Casino. However, political struggles between the pope and the emperor made the monastery unsafe, and at age 14, Thomas moved to the Imperial University in Naples.
