John XXI

John XXI (born c. 1210–20, Lisbon—died May 20, 1277, Viterbo, Papal States) was the pope from 1276 to 1277, and he was one of the most scholarly pontiffs in papal history.

Educated at the University of Paris (c.. 1228–35), where he received his master’s degree c. 1240, John taught medicine at the new University of Siena, Italy. In 1272 Pope Gregory X, who made John his personal physician, appointed him archbishop of Braga and cardinal bishop of Tusculum in 1273 (consecrated 1274). After the five-week pontificate of Adrian V, John was elected on Sept. 8, 1276. He chose as his principal adviser Cardinal John Gaetan Orsini, who soon was to succeed him as Nicholas III. John’s short pontificate strove for unity between Rome and the Eastern Church. In addition to his psychological treatise De anima (“On the Soul”) and his commentary to Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite’s Celestial Hierarchy, John wrote one of the most widely used medieval textbooks on logic, Summulae logicales (“Small Logical Sums”). One of his most important medical works was Liber de oculo (“Concerning the Eye”). He was crushed to death in the papal palace at Viterbo, when the ceiling of his study collapsed.