Commentaries De iustitia et iure in early modern New Kingdom of Granada

In 1553, the Salmantine master Domingo de Soto’s treatise De iustitia et iure launched a specialised genre of theological literature mainly dedicated to questions of justice and law. Developed out of the tradition of Aquinas’ Summa commentaries, to which Vitoria had contributed a great deal to in previous decades, the treatises De iustitia et iure – together with De legibus – became a kind of distinctive feature of the Salmantine school and rapidly attracted the interest of contemporary European jurists and moral theologians. While the long series of commentaries De iustitia et iure written on the Iberian Peninsula by figures such as Domingo Báñez, Luis de Molina or Pedro de Aragón – among many others – has been partially studied by the preceding historiography, the contemporary treatises elaborated in the American territories of the Spanish monarchy, which remained in manuscript form, have only been approached in a superficial manner.

On 5 May, Carlos Arturo Arias Sanabria will present his doctoral project focusing on the university manuscripts De iustitia et iure. These were written in the New Kingdom of Granada in the 17^th and 18^th centuries and belong to the Spanish American viceroyalty whose scholastic production has received the least amount of scholarly attention. Particular focus will be placed on the long work Tractatus theologico-moralis de iustitia et iure (1763), a kind of culmination of the genre by the Jesuit Lorenzo Tirado written only a few decades prior to Colombian independence. Arias Sanabria will also discuss his recent edition of the book Controversia sobre la obligación de reparar las injusticias y los daños causados contra cualquier clase de bienes humanos (1668), originally written by Martín de Eusa S.J. and related also to the commentary genre De iustitia et iure.

The colloquium will be held in Spanish.

The colloquium will take place as a video conference. For more information, please send an email: salamanca@...