Marsilius of Padua

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 l…