Il concilio di Trento e il moderno ed. by Paolo Prodi and Wolfgang Reinhard

Abstract

II concilio di Trento e il moderno. Edited by Paolo Prodi and Wolfgang Reinhard. [Annali dell'Istituto storico italo-germanico, Quaderno 45.] (Bologna: Societa editrice il Mulino. 1996. Pp. 575. Lire 58.000.) This volume presents the atti of a week of study and discussions held to celebrate the 450th anniversary of the opening of the Council of Trent. Twin introductions by the organizers (Paolo Prodi and Wolfgang Reinhard) reveal the focus of meetings that week: the history of the Council against the backdrop of contemporary politics and law on one hand, and against the backdrop of modernizing religious persons and institutions on the other. In his introduction, Prodi explained that the organizers hoped to move forward the study of the long-range significance of the Council in relation to the birth of modern western political culture. From firm conviction that the old controversy concerning Reformation, Counter-Reformation, and Catholic Reform has been overcome, he argues nicely for a more complex picture of the Council and the forces behind it by pointing out the research-including his own-that illustrates the impact of the modern state upon the Church. It is no longer possible to maintain that the Council was a simple battle between reformers hoping to purify the Church and conservatives attempting to defend traditional ecclesiastical prerogatives against the reformers. Rapport between the papacy and other sovereigns allowed the formation of an equilibrium, albeit one retaining areas of potential conflict, that was epitomized, for Prodi, in the distinction between doctrine and statements of positive law in conciliar decrees. Reinhard's essay on Trent and the modernization of the Church as a social institution begins with far less optimism, asserting that Catholics today still see that Council as either an assertion of authentic orthodoxy or as a ruinous victory of conservatism and reaction. He maintains that Trent was characterized by defensiveness and reaction to Protestantism while arguing that the Council still contributed to both the relative and the absolute modernization of the Church. The published results of the week of study Prodi and Reinhard envisioned should provide the grist for much discussion in graduate seminars on the political, social, and religious history of early-modern Europe. What follows in the volume are essays that, in the main, present the state of current scholarship on a set of topics permitting reconsideration of the connection between the Council and emerging modernity. Some, like Konrad Repgen's essay on the religious law of the Holy Roman Empire, Umberto Mazzone's on the bureaucratic structure of Trent, Peter Burschel's on the modernity of post-Tridentine models of sanctity, plus those by Volker Reinhardt and Carlo Poni on scientific thought in the era of Trent, do little for me other than raise problems. Their suggestions concerning modern political, religious, and intellectual commitments demonstrate the reason for my lingering doubt about the very intent of the conference itself. …