Early Modern Italy Research Articles

Abortion in Early Modern Italy by John Christopoulos (review)

Abortion in Early Modern Italy by John Christopoulos (review)

A Plague of Meat: Food, Politics, and Warfare in Early Modern Italy

A Plague of Meat: Food, Politics, and Warfare in Early Modern Italy

The Bishop's Burden: Reforming the Catholic Church in Early Modern Italy. By Celeste McNamara. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2020. xviii + 285pp. $75.00 cloth.

The Bishop's Burden: Reforming the Catholic Church in Early Modern Italy. By Celeste McNamara. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2020. xviii + 285pp. $75.00 cloth.

:The Dynamics of Learning in Early Modern Italy: Arts and Medicine at the University of Bologna

:<i>The Dynamics of Learning in Early Modern Italy: Arts and Medicine at the University of Bologna</i>

Advertising doubt in early modern Italy: Doubt and ignorance in early modern paratexts

AbstractSpelled in several different ways, the word ‘doubt’, usually in the plural ‘doubts’ (dubbi, dubitazioni) appears on the frontispiece of several works printed in Venice and elsewhere in Italy in the sixteenth century. Building on different traditions, ranging from the pseudo‐Aristotelian Problemata to Medieval didactic literature, these texts, normally in the vernacular, address questions that the average reader may have on a variety of topics: from thermal baths to indulgences, from natural philosophy to duel. While usually the term ‘doubt’ means ‘question’, things can be sometimes less straightforward, especially when it comes to religious texts or works penned by unorthodox writers, as in the case of Ortensio Lando's Quattro libri di dubbi. This article will explore paratextual elements of works addressing doubts focusing on a variety of topics such as readership, definitions of doubt and its function, the role of these works in the dissemination of knowledge.

Paola Ugolini. The Court and Its Critics: Anti-Court Sentiments in Early Modern Italy

Paola Ugolini. <i>The Court and Its Critics: Anti-Court Sentiments in Early Modern Italy</i>

Catholic Censorship and the Demise of Knowledge Production in Early Modern Italy

Abstract Censorship makes new ideas less available to others, but also reduces the number of people choosing to develop non-compliant ideas. We propose a new method to measure the effect of censorship on knowledge growth, accounting for the agents’ choice between compliant and non-compliant occupations. We apply our method to the Catholic Church’s censorship of books written by members of Italian universities and academies over the period 1400–750. We highlight new facts: once censorship was introduced, censored authors were of better quality than the non-censored authors, but this gap shrank over time and the intensity of censorship decreased over time. We use these facts to identify the deep parameters of a novel endogenous growth model that links censorship to knowledge diffusion and occupational choice. We conclude that the average log publication per scholar in Italy would have been 43% higher if censorship had not been present, while the effect of adverse macroeconomic processes is almost four times smaller. The induced reallocation of talents towards compliant activities explains half the effect of censorship.

Unbelief and Inquisition in Early Modern Italy: The Case of Flaminio Fabrizi

This essay reflects on the history of the origins of atheism in the late sixteenth century through an analysis of the Inquisition proceedings against Flaminio Fabrizi, which began in Siena in 1587 and ended in Rome in 1591 with the accused being sentenced to death at the stake. This is a very intriguing case because Fabrizi, not a learned man, mixed different forms of heterodoxy and unbelief that surprised and disturbed the judges of the Holy Office. This essay aims to contribute to the history of religious nonconformism in Counter-reformation Italy and in Europe during the so-called “confessional era”.

Witch Hunting and Prosecuting in Early Modern Italy: A Historiographical Survey

This article critically assesses Italian scholarship on the history of witchcraft over the last 60 years. Beginning with Carlo Ginzburg’s influential Night Battles (published in 1966 and translated to English in 1983) and ending with the recent work of Matteo Duni, Tamar Herzig, Vincenzo Lavenia and Louise Nyholm Kallestrup, the article traces the intellectual contexts and shifts in historiographical debates.

Editorial: Rethinking Catholicism in Early Modern Italy

In 1925, having spent six months on the island of Capri, Walter Benjamin and Asja Lãcis published a short essay on the city of Naples in the Frankfurter Zeitung [...]

Jesuit Attitudes Toward Printers and Printing in Early Modern Italy

Abstract The Society of Jesus engaged with the medium of print almost from its inception and, as in other fields, according to its own way of proceeding. This article studies two aspects of Jesuit engagement with print, using its Italian assistancy as a case study. In the first part, Jesuit attitudes towards printing technology—its dangers and opportunities—are examined, focusing especially on the relationship between Robert Bellarmine and some of his printers. What emerges is an overriding concern for accuracy: the need to disseminate texts without typographical errors in order to avoid misinterpretations and possible accusations of heresy. The second part of the article analyzes one possible solution to this difficulty: Jesuit attempts, at the Roman College and elsewhere, at managing their own printing presses. As these efforts regularly ended in economic failure, they bring into question the traditional view of Jesuits as skilled administrators.

New Books across the Disciplines

New Books across the Disciplines

Lavish sounds of early modern Italy

In the present time, when everything seems to have been discovered, researched and revisited, it seems difficult to find a ‘first’. Yet this batch of recordings presents six firsts for early modern Italian sacred vocal polyphonic music. A collection of representative mid-17th-century small-scale sacred monodies by Carlo Filago and Leonardo Leo’s responsories are recorded in their entirety for the first time. The first two albums of Giovanni Legrenzi’s collected liturgical music revisit the late 17th-century composer’s opus, in line with the performers’ goal to record his complete works. Similarly, another in a line of first recordings of Melchior Vulpius’s liturgical output is added to the project, slowly working towards the completion of this composer’s oeuvre on disc. Lastly, late 15th- and early 16th-century music from Italian convents reaches us for the first time. Performed by Italian ensemble Les Nations, Carlo Filago: Sacri concerti a voce sola, 1642 (Tactus tc 580610, issued 2022) is a first in the row of firsts: a first almost complete recording of the composer’s last collection, missing only two out of 16 original compositions. In the context of the rest of his opus—two collections of polyphonic motets (1611 and 1619) and a lost collection of Sacrae cantiones (1611)—this collection presents a genre typical of the period. Sacred monody was an effective and popular tool in devotion and was well known by the mid 17th century. In the liner notes, musicologist Mariarosa Pollastri points out that the collection is directly connected to a Polish nun Maria Felice Sbarasca (active in the convent of St Marco and St Andrea in Murano), as well as Filago’s afterword. There, he uncovers his dissatisfaction with ‘the modern way of singing and composing’, in which he ‘condemns decidedly the excesses of the virtuosi that sing in the church as if they were in a theatre’.

Christopoulos, John. Abortion in Early Modern Italy

Christopoulos, John. Abortion in Early Modern Italy

:A Renaissance of Violence: Homicide in Early Modern Italy

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsA Renaissance of Violence: Homicide in Early Modern Italy. By Colin Rose. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Pp. xii+248. $99.99 (cloth); $80.00 (Adobe eBook Reader).Trevor DeanTrevor DeanUniversity of Roehampton, London Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Modern History Volume 95, Number 1March 2023 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/723336 For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Convent Networks in Early Modern Italy. Edited by Marilyn Dunn and Saundra Weddle. Europa Sacra 25. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2020. 352 pp. €95.00 hardcover.

Convent Networks in Early Modern Italy. Edited by Marilyn Dunn and Saundra Weddle. Europa Sacra 25. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2020. 352 pp. €95.00 hardcover.

:Food Culture and Literary Imagination in Early Modern Italy

:<i>Food Culture and Literary Imagination in Early Modern Italy</i>

Forbidden Knowledge: Medicine, Science, and Censorship in Early Modern Italy , by Hannah Marcus

Forbidden Knowledge: Medicine, Science, and Censorship in Early Modern Italy , by Hannah Marcus

Emotions and the Hidden Transcript

This article focuses ont he reception, circulation and transmission of Jewish narratives on Jesus in early modern Italy. The Italian Peninsula witnessed an important revival of Jewish culture in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, due, among other things, to the influx of Jewish refugees from Spain and Portugal. Italy stood at the junction of the Ashkenazi and Sephardi worlds, acquiring a central role in the dissemination, transmission, and renewed development of polemical traditions, including the Jewish stories on Jesus and the origins of Christianiy known as Toledot Yeshu. I argue that Toledot Yeshu in fact constituted the background of many discussions between Christian and Jews in that context. Almost a third of all extant Toledot Yeshu manuscripts in fact originate from Italy, which thus provides a key site for understanding the place and function of this tradition at a particular time and place.

Sharon T. Strocchia. Forgotten Healers: Women and the Pursuit of Health in Late Renaissance Italy.

Women’s active role in diverse areas of premodern medical practice has been well established over the last decades. As far back as 1989, Monica Green challenged the notion that “women’s health was women’s business” and provided strong evidence that men and women treated both men and women in a variety of ways. More recent studies of recipes, domestic healing, and early modern patients demonstrated the central importance of the household as a site for medical practice, the high value placed on medicinal recipes and pharmaceutical interventions in illness, and the involvement of women in these overlapping arenas. Sharon T. Strocchia’s superb Forgotten Healers, the first full-length study of women medical practitioners in early modern Italy, both reinforces and adds important new aspects to this existing scholarship. With a focus on Renaissance Florence, Strocchia draws on rich archival sources to study a range of female healers, particularly noblewomen, nuns, and hospital workers. Together, these examples offer a picture of how women of various walks of life, all working outside the male-centered guild structure, managed to exercise authority in the medical marketplace.