Aosta · Italy
Saint Anselm's House
Around 1033 a boy was born here destined to become Archbishop of Canterbury and one of the most tenacious thinkers of the Middle Ages. Anselm left Aosta very young, opposed his father, crossed the Alps and never returned. In England he set himself against two kings to defend the independence of the Church, and wrote pages still studied today: the most celebrated is an attempt to demonstrate the existence of God by reasoning alone. He set out from this street. It is worth recalling when closed valleys are spoken of: from here, a thousand years ago, one reached anywhere.
Go deeper
Why does he matter?
Because he tried to use reason alone to talk about faith, opening the way to scholastic theology. His argument for the existence of God is still argued over by philosophers.
Why did he leave?
A quarrel with his father, and a wish to study. He crossed the Alps and arrived at the abbey of Bec in Normandy, then one of the intellectual centres of Europe.
Is there anything to see?
Little, and it is fair to say so: the house has been rebuilt more than once and is not a museum. What remains is the street, which still has the line and the width it had then.
Where it is
More stories in Aosta
- Adret and envers
- When the railway arrived
- Arch of Augustus
- Regional Archaeological Museum
- The villages the city swallowed
- The Battle of the Queens
- Aosta Cathedral
- Church of Santo Stefano