Marsilius of Padua
Italian philosopher (1275-1342) · Academics · Died at 67
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Something wrong?He wrote a treatise so combustible that popes spent decades trying to suppress it. Marsilius argued the church had no right to wield political power - a claim that made him a heretic in the 14th century and a prophet to reformers two hundred years later.
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About this person
Marsilius Mainardi was born around 1275 in Padua, trained in medicine, and moved through several professions before turning to political philosophy. Around 1324 he completed Defensor pacis, a systematic demolition of papal claims to supreme authority in both spiritual and temporal matters - what the church called its "plenitude of power." The work was condemned almost immediately; Marsilius fled to the court of Ludwig of Bavaria, where he lived under imperial protection. His arguments - that the church should be subordinate to secular rulers, that Scripture alone held final authority - would lie dormant for generations. When the Reformation erupted in the sixteenth century, Calvin and Luther found in his pages a blueprint they could use.
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