Hugh of Saint-Victor

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Hugh of Saint-Victor, probably born in Flanders around 1097, became a canon around 1120 at the Abbey of Saint Victor near Paris, where he taught and where he died in 1141. With his disciple Richard, he was among the greatest representatives in the twelfth century of the Augustinian mystical current, recognized as a master by Bonaventure and Thomas; his work appears to have been known and dear to Dante. Among his writings are the Didascalicon, the De sacramentis christianae fidei, the mystical treatise De arrha animae, and the short work De quinque septenis, whose probable influence on the structure of the Purgatorio was noted in the introduction to that canticle. Dante places him in Paradise, in the Heaven of the Sun, among the doctors and wise men who form the second flowering crown around Saint Francis and Saint Dominic.