Gradisca, situate! on the Laguiiadi Grailo, which connects it with the Adriatic, about twenty-five miles west-northwest of Trieste (Map: Austria, C 4). Tliis once llourishing seaport has dwindled to an insignificant fishinji-place of less than a thousand inhabitants, with little to remind one of its former prosperity and importance but its ancient cathedral and the remains of the Patri- arch's Palace. It ofl'ers, however, a rich field to antiquarians. Colonized by the Romans in B.C. 182. it became in time the second city of Italy, and in a.d. 108 was so strongly fortified by JIarcns Aurelius as to be considered the first bulwark of the Empire on the north. In the reign of Hadrian, its population was between 300,000 and .500,000. It was the meeting-place of the -Emilian Wny and the roads leading to central and southeastern Europe, and one of the principal naval ports. Here the Emperor Jlaxi- minus perished (238), and in the vicinity Con- stantine II. lost his life in a battle against his brother Constans (340). Wlien tlie town was destroyed by Attila (452), it had 100,000 inhab- itants. It never recovered, although between 556 and 1750 it was the seat of a patriarchate. In 1800 it was acquired by Austria.
Consult: Bartoli, Le Antichita d'Aquileja (Venice, 1739) ; Zahn, AnstrUi Friulana (Vi- enna, 1877) ; Meyer, Die Si)iiJluitg des Putri- urchuta AqiiUeja (Berlin, 1808).
AQUI'NAS, Thomas, or Thomas of Aquino
(c.l226-1274) . One of the most influential of the
scholastic theologians, who bears the honorable
titles and epithets of Doctor Coiiiinuiiis ("Uni-
versal Doctor," Fourteenth Century) ; Doctor
Angelicus ("Angelical Doctor," Sixteenth Cen-
tury) ; Princeps Hcholasticorum ("Prince of
Scholastics") : Doctor Ecclesiw ("Doctor of the
Church," 1567) ; "Patron of all Catholic ScJiools"
(1880). He was of tlie family of the counts of
Aquino, in the Kingdom of Najjles, and was born
in the castle of Rocco Secca, directly north of
Aquino, about fifty miles northwest of Naiiles,
about 1220. He received the rudiments of his
education from the Benedictine monks at Monte
Cassino, which was only a few miles away, and
completed his studies at the University of
Naples. A strong inclination to philosophical
speculation and theological study determined the
young nolilcman, against the will of his family,
to enter (1243) the Order of Dominicans. In
order to frustrate the attempts of his friends,
especially his niotlier, to force him to give up
his monastic life and enter the world, his order
sent him to Rome, and thence to Paris. On his
way thither his brothers overtook him at Aequa-
pendente, and by force brought him to the
castle of Saint John, near Aquino, and there
he was closely guarded for a year, and every
effort was made to break his resolution to re-
main a monk. But at length his mother came
to his release, and he went, in the company of
the General of the Dominicans, to Paris and
thence to Cologne, about 1245, where he stud-
ied under Albert the Great (Albertus Magnus).
At Cologne he pursued his studies in such si-
lence that his companions gave him the name
of the "Dumb 0.." But Albert, his master,
is reported to have predicted, "that this ox would
one day fill the world with his bellowing." He
accompanied him to Paris in 1245 and liack to
Cologne in 1248, W'hen Albert was commissioned
by his Order, the Dominican, to establish a theo-
logical school there. In it Aquinas taught himself
until in 1251 (or 1252) he was sent to Paris to
teach in the Dominican monasterv of Saint
Jacques. He had taken the usual degrees, but the
highest, the doctorate, was not conferred upon
him till 1257, by the University of Paris, because
of the tight between it and the 'Mendicant Orders.
He defended his Order in his Contra Iminii/nanfcs
Dp Cult urn ct lifiUriionem. He was already a
distinguished scholar and teacher. He continued
to lecture with great applause in Paris, till
Urban IV., in 1201, called him to Italy to teach
philosophy in Rome, Bologna, Pisa, and other
places. Finally he came to reside in the convent
at Naples (1272-74), where he declined the offer
of the dignity of archbishop, in order to devote
himself entirely to study and lecturing. It was
while there that the following incident is said to
have occurred. One day Christ appeared' to him
and said: "You have written ablv about me.
What reward would you like to have'?" He said:
"Lord, nothing, excejjt thyself." Being sum-
moned by Gregory N. to attend the general
council at Lyons, he was taken ill on the way
in the castle of his niece at Ceccano. Realizin'o-
that it was his last illness, he was at his own
request transferred to the neighboring Cistercian
monastery of Fossaniiova, so that he mio-ht
die in a religious house. He lingered there a
month and died on JIarch 7, 1274. Aceordino-
to a report, he %as poisoned at the instiua'^
tion of Charles I. of Sicily, who dreaded the e^vi-
(lence that Aquinas would give of him at Lyons
Dante held this opinion (Piiryatory, xx "68)
but It IS probably not true. His relics were
tought for, and his right arm is now in Saint
Jacques, Paris, other parts in Salerno and
Naples, and the rest of his body in Rome He
was canonized July 18, 1323.
Even during his life Aquinas enjoyed the highest consideration in the Church. His voice carried decisive weight with it. A general chapter ot Dominicans in Paris made it obIi<Tatorv on the members of the Order, under pain of punishment, to defend his doctrines. Like most of the other scholastic theologians, he had no know edge of Greek or Hebrew, and was almost equally ignorant of history; but his writings display a great expenditure of diligence and dialectic art, set off with the irresistible eloquence of zeal. His chief works are: .1 Commentary on the Four Books of Sentences of Peter Lombard, the l^umnia Theolorjiw, Qua-siloncs Disputatce et Quodlibetales, and Opuscuhi Theoloqica. He gave a new and systematic foundation to the doctrine of the Church's treasury of works of supererogation, to that of withholding the cup from the laity in the communion, and to that of transubstantiation. He also treated Christian morals according to an arrangement of his own, and with a comprehensiveness that procured him the title of the "Father of Moral Philosophy." The definiteness. clearness, and coni|)letenes3 of his method of handling the theology of the Church, gave his works a superiority over the text-books' of the earlier writers on systematic theology. His Summa Theolof/iw is the" first attempt at"a complete theological system, but he died ere he couhl complete it. In his philosophical writings, the ablest of which is his ,Summa de Veritate Catholiew Fidei contra Gentiles, he throws new light upon the most abstract tniths. The circumstance of Aquinas being a Dominican, and
