Inquisition, Index, Zensur: Wissenskulturen der Neuzeit im Widerstreit (review)

Abstract

The opening of the archives of the Roman Inquisition and the Congregation of the Index in 1998 was a much-publicized event. The fact that the documents of both congregations were withheld from scholars even after the opening of the Vatican Archives in the nineteenth century naturally gave rise to much speculation as to their content, some of it quite fanciful and unfounded. In the years since Pope John Paul II mandated that scholars be given access to these materials, several conferences have been organized with the aim of giving a more accurate and comprehensive picture of what the archives actually contain and of evaluating their holdings. The volume under review presents the papers, some in the form of finished articles, of a conference on the Inquisition, the Index, and censorship held in May, 2000, at the Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt.