Saint Albert the Great

Albert was born in Lauingen, in Bavaria, sometime between 1193 and 1206, and he may well have been the man who knew more than anyone else in the Europe of his century. They called him Doctor Universalis, and it was no exaggeration. He studied in Padua, joined the Dominicans and taught in Cologne and Paris. He had a deep knowledge of the Greek, Latin and Arab sciences, and he worked on logic, physics, astronomy, biology, botany, zoology, mineralogy and chemistry, as well as philosophy and theology. His greatest achievement was bringing Aristotle into the West. The Greek philosopher’s texts arrived through Arab commentators and they frightened people: they seemed incompatible with the faith, and in Paris they were banned more than once. Albert argued the opposite, and spent years commenting on all of them, one by one. And he was a true scientist. He observed, dissected, checked. On plants and animals he wrote pages of direct observation that had no equal for centuries, and in several places he says explicitly that he checked in person what the authors reported — and that often it wasn’t true. His best student was a big, silent young man whom his classmates called “the dumb ox.” Albert said the bellowing of that ox would be heard all over the world. It was Thomas Aquinas. He died in Cologne on November 15, 1280. He is a Doctor of the Church and the patron saint of scientists. If your name is Albert, today is your name day.