SPECULUM
A JOURNAL OF MEDlAEVAL STUDIES
Volume XL, Number 3
July 1965
Published Quarterly by
THE MEDIAEVAL ACADEMY OF AMERICA
1430 Massachusetts Avenue
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 02138
Education in Dante’s Florence
The early importance ofthe Florentine studium is shown by the fact that in 1288 thirteen new students were assigned to it, while the other two studia theologiaethe Roman province, Rome and Naples, received only eight and five respectively.
In 1291, however, perhaps to redress the balance, Florence was assigned only five students, as against Siena’s six and Rome’s eight.
Again in 1293, five students went to Florence, while six went to Perugia and five to Naples.
In 1295, S Maria Novella received no new students, but bachelors ofpreceding years were stilI there attempting to complete their courses.
Other references to Florence as a studium oftheology are contained in provincial statutes of 1299, 1305, 1307, 1310, and 1311.
In the last year Florence was referred to as a studium generale, the only school in the province so described. In 1313 the convent secured eight new students, in 1331, ten, and in 1332, twenty-one, plus nine students of logic, all from the Roman province; we do not know how many came from outside. It had obviously become one ofthe leading schools ofits order.
A provincial studium theologiae generally had one lector sacrae paginae, who gave courses on books ofthe Bible and perhaps also on Peter Lombard’s Sentences, and who was expeded to hold a disputation at least once a weck.
It also usually had an assistant lector who was called lector Sententiarum or cursor Sententiarum or baccellarius.
Of this second class, Nicholas Brunacci of Perugia was assigned to the Convent in 1299.