The Society of Jesus and the Features of Counter-Reformation Urban Planning in Eighteenth-Century Transylvania

Abstract

The architecture promoted by the Jesuit Order contains a mindful construction process, which also implies features related to the urban status of their churches and colleges1. Based on this concept, the following pages investigate their buildings from Transylvania. The study is part of the author’s ongoing doctoral research, regarding the construction phenomenon of Catholic Orders in the eighteenth-century Transylvania. The geographical limits were outlined on the borders of the historical Principality, thus being researched the Society’s settlements from Cluj, Sibiu, and Târgu Mureș. This study aims to explore both the intentions behind the land acquisition and development and how buildings have been perceived in these towns over the centuries. It will be concluded that all three structures were carefully designed and developed in urban areas of maximum interest, to make a confessional and political stance in the Protestant landscape of these Transylvanian cities.