St Thomas Aquinas presenting his book to Pope Urban IV
Trinity Coll. MS B.4.18, f. 1r
Aquinas, Catena on the Gospels of Matthew and Mark
England, ca 1300

Image reproduced by kind permission of the Master and Fellows of Trinity College Cambridge

Although St Thomas Aquinas (ca 1225–1274) is more famous for his theological and philosophical writings, he also wrote biblical commentaries on Isaiah, Jeremiah, Job, Psalms, Epistles of St Paul, most famously his ‘Catena’ on the Four Gospels, and separate commentaries on those of Matthew and John. The Catena was written from 1263 onward when he was at Orvieto between 1261 and 1265, and this copy in two volumes comes from the Benedictine library of Christ Church Canterbury. St Thomas studied and taught at the University of Paris in 1245–1248, 1252–1259 and 1268–1272, when at the Dominican convent of St Jacques, and many of the manuscripts of his works were produced in Paris both before and after his return to Italy in 1259–1268 and 1272–1274. The two volumes of the Catena in Trinity College are illuminated in a style characteristic of Paris ca 1300 which was influential in England where the book was probably made.