Aristotle in Coimbra

The Cursus Conimbricensis and the education at the College of Arts

Cristiano Casalini

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781472464101
• eBook ISBN: 9781317178620
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Aristotle in Coimbra is the first book to cover the history of both the College of Arts in Coimbra and its most remarkable cultural product, the Cursus Conimbricensis, examining early Jesuit pedagogy as performed in one of the most important colleges run by the Society of Jesus in the sixteenth century.

The first complete philosophical textbook published by a Jesuit college, the Cursus Conimbricensis (1592–1606) was created by some of the most renowned early Jesuit philosophers and comprised seven volumes of commentaries and disputations on Aristotle's writings, which had formed the foundation of the university philosophy curriculum since the Middle Ages. In Aristotle in Coimbra, Cristiano Casalini demonstrates the connection between educational practices in a sixteenth-century college and the structure of a scholastic philosophical commentary, providing insight into this particular form of late-scholastic Aristotelianism through historiographical discourse.

This book provides both a narrative of the historical background behind the publication of the Cursus and an analysis of the major philosophical and educational issues addressed by its seven volumes. It is valuable reading for all those interested in intellectual history, the history of education and the history of philosophy.

1 The Gouveia affair

The origins of the Cursus are more confused than obscure. Underneath the somewhat dry philosophical prose, a historical stratification bares different events whose subjects alternately may change or intersect, often merging, making almost undecipherable “what” and “who” are behind the edition of a renowned textbook from the whole corpus Aristotelicum, signed for the first time by an entire college, and proudly presented as a prominent product of Jesuit culture.

The history of this book, just like the history of the Society of Jesus, begins in the crowded university town which was Paris at the beginning of the sixteenth century. And among the multitude of colleges that constituted this universitas, Sainte-Barbe’s enjoyed a prominent position. Numerous scholars have noted that the history of Jesuit education relies upon the modus parisiensis and that the Ratio Studiorum, the result of an extraordinary and laborious process on the part of the entire Society, relied heavily upon the model of Sainte-Barbe. But it has not been noted previously that this pedagogical tradition was modified by its Principals (or their substitutes). These personages, with very few exceptions, all had the same surname, Gouveia. The pioneering ideas of Diogo Gouveia, who transformed Sainte-Barbe into a real “Portuguese institution for education”,¹ and of his nephew André, an innovator and future principal of Coimbra, were and remained irreconcilable. Determining their influence on Sainte-Barbe’s pedagogical practices, and unravelling the history of this Portuguese family, consisting of educators, theologians, poets and diplomats, entails identifying the main lines along which Jesuit education developed, in addition to clarifying the complex tangle of the birth of the Society.

Ignatius of Loyola arrived in Paris in 1528. He had studied in Alcalá and in Salamanca,² but neither of these prestigious universities gave him “basic knowledge” (according to what he writes in A Pilgrim’s Journey). This student who had not completed his studies went first to Montaigu College and then to Sainte-Barbe, hoping to obtain his degree. In line with Parisian tradition, he had to start over studying with “the children”.³ He took advantage of this situation, teaching his spiritual exercises, which in a very short time became very famous among the clerics attending the College of Arts. When three of these students, Peralta, the bachelor Castro and the Basque Amador who lived in Sainte-Barbe, decided to leave their studies in order to live on charity, the other students assaulted St Jacques’s Hospital, where the three students had gone, to bring them back to their senses.

This is the first occasion on which Jesuit sources quote the Principal and teacher of Sainte-Barbe, the Portuguese Diogo de Gouveia, the elder, who did not sympathize with the novelties introduced by Loyola into college life. Ignatius wrote in his Journey: “Our teacher de Gouveia affirmed that [Ignatius] had caused Amador, who lived in his college, to go mad, and swore that on his first visit to Sainte-Barbe he would ‘order him to be whipped in the main room’ as a seducer of students.”⁴

Diogo de Gouveia, who also served as Rector of the University of Paris,⁵ had been one of the first Portuguese students in Paris and had completed all his courses, up to theology, in the same years in which the works of Erasmus were circulating widely among students. Mointaigu College had hosted the Dutch humanist thanks to one of the two scholarships which Jan Standonck had offered to King Manuel I; and Diogo also served as a diplomat for the sovereign between 1512 and 1521. Gouveia was not attracted to northern humanism and its philological consequences in exegesis: on the contrary, it seemed to him to be the prelude to Protestantism; and despite the good relations between Erasmus and the Portuguese court,⁶ Gouveia, unlike his nephew André, always opposed his teachings. In 1520, Diogo, in the name of the King, negotiated the purchase of the college for the Portuguese students. The matter was concluded with some difficulty because of the opposition of the owner, Robert Dugast, but in the end Sainte-Barbe College was rented and Diogo was appointed its Principal.

His management of the institution was brilliant: the period of Gouveia’s directorship was a time of the greatest growth for Sainte-Barbe. In spite of his opposition to Erasmian methods, under his direction, the College of Sainte-Barbe became one of the most important seedbeds of humane letters in Paris.⁷ Gouveia considered classical studies a cornerstone of the religious and cultural field, but only if placed at the service of Catholic theology and Parisian Scholasticism, and for this purpose he worked on the organization of studies, rendering them more effective. In this specific regard, the consequences of his years as director were both exciting and disappointing at the same time: exciting because of the number and quality of the students, disappointing regarding student desertions at the conclusion of the arts programme. The best students were less ardent than Diogo in mortifying rhetoric and dialectics with Scholastic theology.⁸

When he started to govern Sainte-Barbe, the great generation which filled the sixteenth century with its ideas was beginning to attend classes. The desire of reaching perfection in every field burned in these youthful hearts, and so many were those students who strove to surpass their masters. Gouveia’s merit lays in his fostering of the students’ fervour, something that generally did not interest his colleagues. This attracted excellent teachers and students to Sainte-Barbe and the college became a nursery for great men.⁹

The prestige of Sainte-Barbe and its appeal to large numbers of students would transform it into a model for the future organization of Jesuit colleges. It is well known that the protocollegium in Messina, as the first educational institution for men not belonging to the Society, was inspired by the Parisian model mediated through Spain.¹⁰ Similarly, it is possible to trace the Coimbra College of Arts to Sainte-Barbe, by way of Bordeaux. Sainte-Barbe College was, to a large extent, the incubator of the Society.

During Ignatius’s time at the college, his first companions were Francisco Xavier, Simão Rodrigues, Diego Laínez, Alfonso Salmerón, Bobadilla and Pierre Favre, who, although the youngest, was already studying theology. The encounter with Diogo de Gouveia was crucial for Ignatius and for the six who founded the Society on Montmartre, 15 August 1534. Teofilo Braga writes in his Historia da Universidade de Coimbra:

The first step for Ignatius was to be admitted to the College of Sante-Barbe, where Diogo de Gouveia the elder treated him kindly. Gouveia was definitely a Phyrronist, and knew very well that the Reformation was spreading in Europe, especially thanks to the novelties brought about by the study of Greek; his sympathy for that hallucinated Spaniard, who coupled mystical passivity and the military discipline of a former soldier of King Ferdinand, was as high as the faith and zeal with which he wanted to fight with a firm hand the Reformation. Loyola learned that the strict discipline of Sainte-Barbe could be a powerful way for an association intent on religious propaganda.¹¹

Braga errs badly when he attributed a sceptical attitude to Diogo; however, he correctly demonstrates that Diogo, who was a supporter of Parisian Scholasticism as far as education is concerned, made a great mistake in feeling some affinity with Ignatius, the mystic organizer and missionary. In spite of the confusion he introduces between Diogo’s culture and that of his nephew André (the latter was actually a humanist), the picture painted by Braga is a good example of the dichotomy in the “secular” historiography of the subject: on one side were the Pyrrhonist humanists, basically liberal, and on the other the Jesuits, future masters of order, discipline and repression. Of course, the juxtaposition is too simple and does not explain the dizzying sequence of alliances, breaches, sensible matches and burning debates that forced Gouveia first to discredit his own nephew, and then to send before the Inquisition the crème of the teaching staff of his college and, in the end, destroy what he had created. But let us proceed in order.

Diogo de Gouveia was Ignatius’s Principal and it may be that his acquaintance from 1528 to 1538 with this charismatic Basque and his spiritual exercises promoted in the master an indulgent attitude in his regard. It is very likely that Diogo de Gouveia’s feelings went beyond a simple benignidade(kindness), because he started nurturing altogether higher ambitions for his (now former) students.

We have three letters written between 1538 and 1540, a crucial time span for the Society moving towards its official constitution, that provide evidence of Diogo’s diplomatic importuning of John III and Pedro Mascarenhas, the King’s ambassador in Rome, so that the kingdom of Portugal might be made aware of the advantages offered by these clerigos letrados (learned clerics), especially in the evangelization of the Indies.

These letters, moreover, cast more light on the missionary attitude of the first Jesuits. Diogo de Gouveia wrote to John III on 17 February 1538, suggesting that the sovereign should contact a group of his former students from Sainte-Barbe and in particular Ignatius, Pierre Favre and the Portuguese Simão Rodrigues, perfect, according to him, for the evangelization of the American natives: “They are the right persons for this purpose and if his Royal Highness desires to do what He has always demonstrated, I believe that it is impossible to find anybody else better suited to convert all of India.”¹²

Sainte-Barbe’s Principal considered the newborn Society an essentially missionary instrument: he claimed that it was easier to convert the Indians than the Moors (“their hearts are kinder and less obstinate than those of the Moros”) and he also deemed that the original purpose of Ignatius and his followers, to serve the Pope in the conversion of the Turks in Jerusalem, had to be adapted to the modern needs of evangelizing the peoples discovered in the New World. Gouveia’s plan emphasized one of the initial vocations of the Society; this vocation was one of the strongest motivations for the many sons of aristocrats who in the first hundred years after its founding tried to join the Society. Gouveia did not consider these clerigos letrados a Counter-Reformation weapon in Europe, even though he had demonstrated a strong commitment against Lutheranism (and Erasmianism, which he considered the prelude to the Reformation).¹³

Pierre Favre, for one, was of a different opinion. Gouveia wrote to inform him about what he had recommended to John III. Favre replied to his old teacher on 23 November 1538, thanking him also in the name of his companions, and adding that he appreciated the idea of “working with your natives”, but only the Pope was entitled to make the final decision:

We are at the disposal of the Supreme Pontiff and he will decide if we should leave or not, but a short time ago we were very close to being sent to the Indies that the Spaniards are subduing for the King: they had already talked with a Spanish bishop and with the royal ambassador, but they let us know that the Pope did not want us to go.¹⁴

Subsequently, Favre would be sent by Paul III, with Laínez and Salmerón, to the Council of Trent, but he died before reaching it.

John III, who was interested in Gouveia’s project,¹⁵ wrote on 4 June 1539 to his ambassador to the Holy See, Pedro de Mascarenhas, asking him to intercede with Paul III in order to confirm the institution and permit them to be sent to Portugal and then to the Indies.¹⁶ Mascarenhas answered the King on 10 March 1540, reassuring him about the conversation with the Pope and about the Jesuits’ imminent mission. While Favre and Lainez were proceeding to Parma and then to Northern Europe,¹⁷ Ignatius appointed Francisco Xavier (in place of Bobadilla, who was indisposed) and Simão Rodrigues. The two arrived separately in Lisbon at the end of June. As we know, the former left promptly, paving the Society’s way to the Indies,¹⁸ the latter remained in Portugal in order to found the Portuguese province, the first established by the Society.

In the meanwhile, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword by John W. O’Malley
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 The Gouveia affair
• 2 A province committed to education
• 3 The Cursus
• 4 The problem of the teacher
• 5 The problem of the cause
• Bibliography
• Index