MARSILIUS OF PADUA
His positions presaged some of those of Protestants in the Reformation. In the great struggle of the time between the Pope and the Emperor, Marsilius was the leading advocate for the emperor’s superiority of authority. The Pope wrote a condemnation of these ideas.
Marsilius of Padua (Italian: Marsilio or Marsiglio da Padova; born Marsilio dei Mainardini or Marsilio Mainardini; c. 1275 – c. 1342) was an Italian scholar, trained in medicine, who practiced a variety of professions. He was also an important 14th-century political figure. His political treatise Defensor pacis (The Defender of Peace), an attempt to refute papalist claims to a "plenitude of power" in affairs of both church and state, is seen by some authorities as the most revolutionary political treatise written in the later Middle Ages. It is one of the first examples of a trenchant critique of caesaropapism in Western Europe.
