page_title: Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas
section_title: 1906: Pontificium Collegium Divi Thomae de Urbe
hierarchical_section_title: Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas / History / 1906: Pontificium Collegium Divi Thomae de Urbe
caption_attribution_description: English: A photograph of Blessed Hyacinthe-Marie Cormier, O.P., the Master General of the Dominican Order from 1904 to 1916. Cormier is seated in the middle. To his right sits His Excellency Pio Alberto Del Corona, O.P., the Bishop of San Miniato.
context_page_description: The Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, also known as the Angelicum in honor of its patron the Doctor Angelicus Thomas Aquinas, is a pontifical university located in the historic center of Rome, Italy. The Angelicum is administered by the Dominican Order and is the order's central locus of Thomist theology and philosophy.
  The Angelicum is coeducational and offers both undergraduate and graduate degrees in theology, philosophy, canon law, and social sciences, as well as certificates and diplomas in related areas. Courses are offered in Italian and for some programs in English. The Angelicum is staffed by clergy and laity and serves both religious and lay students from around the world.
context_section_description: In response to the call for a renewal of Thomism sounded by Aeterni Patris rectors Tommaso Maria Zigliara (1833–1893), Alberto Lepidi  (1838–1922), and Sadoc Szabó had brought the college to a high degree of excellence. Under the leadership of Szabó the number of subjects taught at the Angelicum included archeology, geology, paleography, Christian art, biology, mathematics, physics, and astronomy.
  
  At the dawn of the twentieth century the Dominican conception of intellectual formation at Rome was again transformed. The general chapters of 1895 (Avila) and 1901 (Ghent) had called for the expansion of the College of St. Thomas to meet the growing educational needs in the modern world. The Chapter of 1904 (Viterbo) directed Hyacinthe-Marie Cormier (1832–1916), newly elected Master General of the Order of Preachers, to develop the College into a studium generalissimum directly under his authority for the entire Dominican Order:
  Romae erigatur collegium studiorum Ordinis generalissimum, auctoritate magistri generalis immediate subjectum, in quo floreat vita regularis, et ad quod mittantur fratres ex omnibus provinciis.
   Building on the legacy of the Order's first Roman studium at the priory of Santa Sabina founded in 1222 and the studium general that had sprung from it by 1426 at Santa Maria sopra Minerva and that in 1577 became the College of Saint Thomas, Cormier stated his intention to establish this new studium generalissimum as the principal vehicle of dissemination of orthodox Thomistic thought for both Dominicans and secular clergy.
  In 1904 Pope Pius X allowed diocesan seminarians to attend the college.  He elevated the College to the status of Pontificium on 2 May 1906, making its degrees equivalent to those of the world's other pontifical universities.  By Apostolic Letter of 8 November 1908, signed on 17 November, the Pope transformed the College into the Collegium Pontificium Internationale Angelicum, located on Via San Vitale 15.  Cormier developed the Angelicum until his death in 1916, establishing it principal guidelines,  giving it his motto as Master General, caritas veritatis, "the charity of truth."  Cormier, also noted for the spiritual quality of his retreats and powerful preaching, was declared Blessed by Pope John Paul II on 20 November 1994.
  In the first half of the twentieth century Angelicum professors Edouard Hugon, Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange and others carried on Leo's call for a Thomist revival.  The core philosophical commitments of the revival, which after Zigliara traditionally are those of the Angelicum, were later summarized in “Twenty-Four Thomistic Theses” approved by Pope Pius X.  Due to its rejection of attempts to synthesize Thomism with non-Thomistic categories and assumptions neo-scholastic Thomism has sometimes been called “Strict Observance Thomism.”
  In 1909 there were 26 professors.  Beyond philosophy and theology subject included archeology, geology, paleography, Christian art, biology, mathematics, physics, and astronomy.  In 1917 a professorship in ascetical and mystical theology was created at the Angelicum expressly for Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange. This was the first of its kind in the world, and Garrigou-Lagrange initiated courses in sacred art, mysticism, and aesthetics in 1918. Marie Alain Couturier studied with Garrigou at the Angelicum from 1930 to 1932 before going on to have an instrumental role in liturgical art ventures such as Henri Matisse's Vence Chapel and Le Corbusier's Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut, and the Dominican priory of Sainte Marie de La Tourette.
  Garrigou-Lagrange has been called "torchbearer of orthodox Thomism" against Modernism in the period between World War II and the Cold War. He is commonly held to have influenced the decision in 1942 to place the privately circulated book Une école de théologie: le Saulchoir (Étiolles 1937) by Marie-Dominique Chenu on the Vatican's "Index of Forbidden Books" as the culmination of a polemic within the Dominican Order between the Angelicum supporters of a speculative scholasticism and the French revival Thomists who were m
caption: Hyacinthe-Marie Cormier, seated in the middle.  To his right sits Pio Alberto Del Corona, the Bishop of San Miniato.
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