15 November - Albert the Great is born Albrecht von Bollstädt in Lauingen, Swabia in 1193. He introduced Greek and Arabic sciences into the universities of Europe. He is already nicknamed "the Great" during his lifetime.
After studying literature and medicine in Northern Italy, Venice and Padua, he entered the Dominican Order in 1223, still in Padua. He left to study theology in Paris before 1233, or at least in Cologne, where he taught it from 1228. His first works are commentaries on the Pseudo-Denys the Areopagite. He then professed in Hildesheim, Freiburg im Breisgau, Strasbourg, and in 1241 at the University of Paris. There, in 1245, he obtained a position as Master of Theology. In Paris (three years) and Cologne (four years, until 1252) he studied the young Thomas Aquinas. During the thirteenth century, Aristotle's philosophy, whose Logica nova was rediscovered in the twelfth century, mainly through Arabic translators. It was during his stay in Paris that Albert the Great became familiar with the writings of the Greek philosopher, which would influence all his work. Indeed, most of his work consists of paraphrasing Aristotle, while sometimes adding a few comments. In 1248, Albert founded the Higher School of Theology (Studium generale) for the Dominicans of Cologne, which he directed as Master Regent until 1254. From 1254 to June 1257 he was elected provincial (superior directing a group of monasteries) of Germania (the province of Teutonia), which obliged him to visit about fifty monasteries on foot.
In 1257, he again became a teacher in Cologne. In 1259, at the General Chapter of the Dominican Order in Valenciennes, he organized, with Thomas Aquinas and other friars, the studies of the Friars Preachers. In 1260, he was named bishop of Regensburg by Pope Alexander IV, but after three years, he asked and obtained permission from Pope Urban IV to relinquish his office. He returned to teaching and conciliations: in Würzburg in 1264, in Strasbourg in 1267, and in Cologne in 1270. Not content to contest Aristotle's work from time to time, he undertook an encyclopedia of comparable ambition, De animalibus. This vast treatise, completed around 1270, includes twenty-six books. The first nineteen are commentaries on Aristotle's work, the following are devoted to animals that walk, fly, swim and crawl in a classification inspired by Pliny the Elder. In the latter books, he draws heavily on material from Thomas of Cantimpré's Liber de natura rerum. In 1274, after mourning the death of his disciple Thomas Aquinas, a renowned theologian, he took part in the Council of Lyon. In 1275, he inaugurated the abbey Saint-Vit de Mönchengladbach. He died in Cologne on November 15, 1280. Albert the Great was beatified in 1622 by Gregory XV. He was canonized in 1931 by Pope Pius XI and proclaimed Doctor of the Church by the same Pius XI. He was proclaimed "patron saint of Christian scholars" in 1941 by Pius XII.
