Francisco Suárez

Francisco Suárez (1548–1617) was a Spanish Jesuit philosopher and theologian, a leading figure of the School of Salamanca. Born at Granada, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1564 and began teaching philosophy in 1570, later teaching theology at Valladolid. He taught at Rome, Alcalá and Salamanca before taking the principal chair of theology at Coimbra in 1597.

His Disputationes metaphysicae were read across seventeenth-century Europe, while his treatises on law and church and state earned him the title godfather of international law. Doctor Eximius, he influenced Grotius and Leibniz.