Francisco de Vitoria

Francisco de Vitoria (or Victoria), OP (c. 1483, Burgos or Vitoria-Gasteiz – 12 August 1546, Salamanca), was a Spanish Renaissance Roman Catholic philosopher, theologian and jurist. He is the founder of the tradition in philosophy known as the School of Salamanca, noted especially for his contributions to the theory of just war and international law. He has in the past been described by some scholars as one of the "fathers of international law", along with Alberico Gentili and Hugo Grotius, though contemporary academics have suggested that such a description is anachronistic, since the concept of international law did not truly develop until much later. American jurist Arthur Nussbaum noted that Vitoria was "the first to set forth the notions (though not the terms) of freedom of commerce and freedom of the seas." Because of Vitoria's conception of a "republic of the whole world" (res publica totius orbis) he recently has been labeled "founder of global political philosophy".

Vitoria was raised in Burgos, the son of Pedro de Vitoria, of Alava, and Catalina de Compludo, both of noble families. He became a Dominican in 1504, and was educated at the College Saint-Jacques in Paris, where he was influenced by the work of Desiderius Erasmus. He went on to teach theology from 1516 (under the influences of Pierre Crockaert and Thomas Cajetan). In 1522 he returned to Spain to teach theology at the college of Saint Gregory at Valladolid, where many young Dominicans were being trained for missionary work in the New World. In 1524, he was elected to the Chair of theology at the University of Salamanca, where he was instrumental in promoting Thomism (the philosophy and theology of St. Thomas Aquinas). Francisco died in August 1546.

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