ERASMO di MONTECASSINO. — A theologian who lived in the thirteenth century. He received his first theological training at Montecassino; the predominantly empirical orientation of the Cassinese school, begun by Costantino l'Africano, soon led him towards a more rational method than those more commonly employed in his time. This tendency was subsequently developed at the Studium of Naples, where he was appointed to the chair of theology in 1240, and where he probably remained until the death of Federico II (1250).
In the Neapolitan milieu, open to currents more inclined towards Aristotelianism, E. acquired a certain independence of thought even in relation to Guglielmo d'Auxerre, whose follower he nevertheless proves to be in his treatises. It is now generally held that E. had relations in Naples with s. Tommaso d'Aquino, who in those very years had been sent by the abbot of Montecassino to attend that University. Even more likely is that they had known one another earlier at Montecassino, and that the first scholarly contacts between the two figures date precisely from that period. There still remain unpublished in Cassinese manuscripts some theological treatises and several sermons by E.