L’apostolo gesuitico tra propaganda religiosa e autoconservazione. Aspetti del martirio nella Compagnia di Gesù (1540-1580)

Abstract

The contribution underlines the importance of the theme of the martyrdom for the history of the Society of Jesus in the XVI century, in which nevertheless there is an unusual shortage on the historiographical plain not so much in relationship to figures of martyrs (single or in group), how much in relationship to the debate on the martyrdom and to the elaboration of a specific jesuitic conception of it. Waiting for further historiographical investigations, for the medium of the analysis of the most ancient letters indipetae (with which the candidates asked the missions in Indies), rise some meaningful aspects, thematic and chronological, of the martyrdom in Society of Jesus between 1540 and 1580 (or rather before the epoch of the general Acquaviva, 1581-1615, that it constitutes a point of turn which to devote other searches). In the attempt to return historical depth to the emerged data, three specific points are faced: indeed a sort of archaeology of the martyrdom is reconstructed in the thought of Ignazio of Loyola; subsequently it is identified in the martyrdom of Antonio Criminali in India (1549) a main point of turn. Finally, are pointed out some hubs in the years fifty-seventy of the XVI century, underlining the coexistence of a double register: from a side, the propaganda, especially in «Notices from Indies», that in concrete exalts the figure of the Jesuit martyrs, and, from the other side, the necessity of the government of the Society to regulate the excesses of the «thirst of martyrdom» among the members of the order, to conclude with the shiny observations of José de Acosta who, at the end of the seventies, invokes the opportunity of deep changes in the missionary strategies and the consequent relativisation of the martyrdom.