Stephen C. Córdova was born in San José, California in 1963. A cradle Catholic, from childhood he has had a fascination with the lives of the saints and miracle stories, especially of the Dominican and Franciscan traditions. He has also had a life-long interest in Ancient and Mediaeval history and a passion for words and language. Yet the more that Stephen has pursued the work of the intellect, the more he has been moved in his spiritual life.
Stephen grew up speaking English and was surrounded by Spanish, which he learned formally in high school and college. From his mother he gained a love for poetry, which led him to study literature in college.
Stephen Córdova began his university studies at UC Santa Cruz. There, was captivated by two texts in particular: Homer’s Iliad and Dante Alighieri’s Divina Commedia. In particular, he fell in love with Italian when he heard Prof. Robert Durling read Dante aloud. Stephen completed his BA at St. Mary’s College of California, where he was fortunate to study with the poet Robert Hass, lyric poetry and Aristotle’s Poetics with Prof. Mary Doyle Springer, and Mediaeval history with Prof. M. Michèle Mulchahey. Prof. Mulchahey was Stephen’s mentor at St. Mary’s. A graduate of the Centre for Medieval Studies and the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies at the University of Toronto, she encouraged Stephen to pursue advanced studies and to learn more languages, especially Latin. She taught him that history, theology, philosophy, and literature can all be studied together. She taught him that such an interdisciplinary approach to Mediaeval history, would allow him to be able to spend his life studying the world of St. Francis of Assisi, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Dante.
Stephen Córdova graduated summa cum laude from St. Mary’s with BA in English and was accepted to graduate studies at the Centre and Institute in Toronto. Before leaving for Canada, he took the intensive summer Latin program at UC Berkeley. He has read Latin every day ever since. In his time at Toronto, Stephen learned to read French, German, and Catalan. In the summer of 1991 he fulfilled a long held dream by learning Italian in another summer intensive at Berkeley. He studied and taught Mediaeval history, learned to read and edit Latin manuscripts, and was trained to conduct advanced academic research. He completed course work for the licentiate in Mediaeval Studies from the Institute (a Dominican topic) and for the PhD from the Centre (a Franciscan topic).
Stephen Córdova’s doctoral research was on the thought and works of friar Servasanctus of Faenza, a Franciscan who lived and wrote in Florence in the 1260s into the 1280s. The pursuit of this friar’s works, led Stephen to examine manuscripts in libraries and archives in Europe and North America.
