Aquinas was born near Naples, joined the Dominican order against his family's wishes, and studied under Albert the Great in Cologne. He spent his career in Paris and Italy, writing at extraordinary speed, often dictating to four secretaries at once. His Summa Theologica attempts to organize all of Christian doctrine using Aristotelian logic. He developed five proofs of God's existence, a theory of natural law, and a nuanced account of the relationship between faith and reason. Three months before his death, he had a mystical experience during Mass and never wrote again.
Sent to study at the University of Paris and then under Albert the Great in Cologne. His classmates called him 'the dumb ox' because he was large, quiet, and slow to speak. Albert reportedly said that the bellowing of this ox would one day fill the world.
