Republicanism and Papalism: The Political Thought of Jacopo da Varagine (1228‐98)

The article presents an interpretation of the political thought of Jacopo da Varagine (1228‐98), a Dominican archbishop of Genoa and an acquaintance of Thomas Aquinas. Jacopo composed a famous collection of saint lives now called the Golden Legend ( Legenda Aurea ), a Chronicle of Genoa , and hundreds of extant sermons. Despite his prolific literary production, however, Jacopo is missing from standard histories of medieval political thought. The primary goal of this article is to rectify that lacuna. I pay particular attention to his connected arguments about the papacy, republicanism and the restoration of peace in Genoa in his Chronicle .