[6] On 21 January 1217 the papal bull Gratiarum omnium[7] confirmed the Order's pedagogical mission by granting its members the right to preach universally, a power formerly dependent on local episcopal authorization.

[10] The official foundation of the Dominican studium conventuale at Rome, which would grow into the Angelicum, occurred with the legal transfer of the Santa Sabina complex from Pope Honorius III to the Order of Preachers on 5 June 1222.

"Prior to this time the Roman Province had offered no specialized education of any sort, no arts, no philosophy; only simple convent schools, with their basic courses in theology for resident friars, were functioning in Tuscany and the meridionale during the first several decades of the order's life.

as the Apostle says in 1 Corinthians 3: 1-2, as to infants in Christ, I gave you milk to drink, not meat, our proposed intention in this work is to convey those things that pertain to the Christian religion, in a way that is fitting to the instruction of beginners.

To honor this great doctor, in 1577 Juan Solano, former bishop of Cusco, Peru, generously funded the reorganization of the studium at the convent of the Minerva on the model of the College of St. Gregory at Valladolid in his native Spain.

[47] The features of this Spanish model included a fixed number of Dominican students admitted on the basis of intellectual merit, dedicated exclusively to study in virtue of numerous dispensations from other duties, and governed by an elected Rector.

Diego Alvarez (1550 c.-1635), author of the De auxiliis divinae gratiae et humani arbitrii viribus and famous apologist for the Thomistic doctrines of grace and predestination, was professor of theology at the college from 1596 to 1606.

In the mid-1650s Ciantes wrote a "monumental bilingual edition of the first three Parts of Thomas Aquinas' Summa contra Gentiles, which includes the original Latin text and a Hebrew translation prepared by Ciantes, assisted by Jewish apostates, the Summa divi Thomae Aquinatis ordinis praedicatorum Contra Gentiles quam Hebraicè eloquitur.... Until the present this remains the only significant translation of a major Latin scholastic work in modern Hebrew.

Responding to Boxadors and to the prevailing philosophical rationalism of the Enlightenment, Salvatore Roselli, professor of theology at the Roman College of St. Thomas,[75] published a six volume Summa philosophica (1777) giving an Aristotelian interpretation of Aquinas validating the senses as a source of knowledge.

By the late eighteenth century, professors of the college had begun to follow the Wolffianism and Eclecticism of Austrian Jesuit, Sigismund von Storchenau and Jaime Balmes with the aim of engaging modern thought.

[87] After the Capture of Rome, the final act of the Risorgimento, the Dominicans were expropriated by the Italian government in virtue of law 1402 of 19 June 1873 and the Collegium Divi Thomae de Urbe was forced to leave the Minerva.

In response to the disarray of religious educational institutions Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical Aeterni Patris of 4 August 1879 called for the renewal of Christian philosophy and particularly the doctrines of Aquinas:We exhort you, venerable brethren, in all earnestness to restore the golden wisdom of St. Thomas, and to spread it far and wide for the defense and beauty of the Catholic faith, for the good of society, and for the advantage of all the sciences.

[94] 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.

Its publication originally entitled Unio thomistica would continue under the title Angelicum, a trimesterly journal with articles in Italian, French, English, German, and Spanish treating theology, philosophy, canon law, and social sciences.

Blessed Buenaventura García de Paredes, Master General of the Order, seeing the opportunity to recuperate the Dominican patrimony, suggested to Benito Mussolini that selling the convent to the Order would return the property to its original owners, and that it could be used to house the Angelicum[114] By decree of 2 June 1928 the Italian Minister of Justice authorized the College of St. Thomas to purchase from the Italian State for the agreed price of nine million lire (L. 9,000,000) the complex of buildings constituting the former convent of Saints Dominic and Sixtus [115] In this way Paredes activated Cormier's plan for the Angelicum to be established at a site whose amplitude was more fitting to its new status.

[128] On 29 November 1963, Egyptian scholar and peritus at Vatican II for Christian–Islamic relations Georges Anawati delivered a lecture entitled at the Angelicum "L'Islam a l'heure du Concile: prolegomenes a un dialogue islamo-chretien."

[131] On 24 November 1994, four days after beatifying Hyacinthe-Marie Cormier, Pope John Paul II visited the Angelicum and gave an address to faculty and students on the occasion of the dedication of the university's Aula Magna in his honor.

It carries out several research, academic, educational and cultural projects to deepen knowledge of the intellectual and spiritual heritage of the pope and foster understaning of key problems facing the Church and the world today, in the light of his teaching.

[133] Angelicum alumnus and famed historian and philosopher James A. Weisheipl notes that since the time of Aquinas "Thomism was always alive in the Dominican Order, small as it was after the ravages of the Reformation, the French Revolution, and the Napoleonic occupation.

One theory holds that its name Magnanapoli derives from the expression Bannum Nea Polis or "fort of the new city" from the adjacent Byzantine military citadel which included the Torre delle Milizie Rome's oldest extant tower.

A wide flight of stairs leads to a Palladian motif portico above which are mounted a Dominican shield bearing one of the Order's mottos "laudare, benedicere, praedicare" (to praise, bless, and preach) on the right, and the escutcheons of Pope Pius XI[189] who was reigning when the Pontificium Institutum Internationale Angelicum opened its doors in 1932, on the left.

The base of the statue of Aquinas bears an inscription attributed to Pope Pius XI, "Sanctus Thomas Doctor angelicus hic tamquam domi suae habitat," (Saint Thomas the Angelic Doctor dwells here as in his own house), a paraphrase of the papal encyclical Studiorum ducem that singles out the Angelicum as the preeminent Thomistic center of learning: "ante omnia Pontificium Collegium Angelicum, ubi Thomam tamquam domi suae habitare dixeris".

The immortal book that he clutches, the powerful arm that extends to affirm sacred science and to halt the audacity of error, are truly grand, and in the words of Leo XIII, have equaled the genius of all other great teachers.

Also located off the cloister are the administration offices and the Sala delle Colonne, a reception room with antique marble columns and arched ceilings bearing traces of late Renaissance style frescos, which initially housed a library.

[203] To the east of the Sala delle Colonne is the Aula Magna Giovanni Paolo II, a raked semicircular auditorium with seating for 1100 people that was constructed during 1930s renovations by Roman engineer Vincenzo Passarelli (1904–1985).

[199] The garden is planted with trees of many kinds: orange, lemon, pistachio, olive, fig, palm and laurel, as well as with grape vines, and is an oasis of calm and silence, a figure of paradise in the midst of the bustling eternal city.

In 1946 in this garden the young student Karol Wojtyla, future Pope John Paul II, would stroll and visit daily what he called the "miraculous tree", an ancient olive from which springs incredibly the branches of a palm, a fig, and a laurel.

In the 18th century Antonio Canaletto made a pen and ink study with grey wash and black chalk, today in the collection of the British Museum, described as depicting "the Church of SS Domenico e Sisto, Rome; with a sweeping double staircase to the entrance, in the foreground a man bowing to two approaching ladies".

[208] Italian born American painter John Singer Sargent during his extensive travels in Italy made an oil painting of the exterior staircase and balustrade of the campus's Church of Saints Dominic and Sixtus in 1906.

This Latin phrase literally translated as the charity of truth appears in The City of God[265] by St. Augustine of Hippo, and is quoted by St. Thomas Aquinas in comparing the active and the contemplative life: "Unde Augustinus dicit XIX De civ.