Drawing on a vast store of primary sources - particularly those of the Inquisition - this book recreates the social fabric of Venice between 1640 and 1740. It brings to life a wealth of minor figures who inhabited the city and fostered ideas of dissent, unbelief and atheism in the teeth of the Counter Reformation. It will be of interest not only to scholars of Venice, but all those with an interest in the intellectual, cultural and religious history of early-modern Europe.
Early modern Venice was an exceptional city. Located at the intersection of trade routes and cultural borders, it teemed with visitors, traders, refugees and intellectuals. It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that such a city should foster groups and individuals of unorthodox beliefs, whose views and life styles would bring them into conflict with the secular and religious authorities. Drawing on a vast store of primary sources - particularly those of the Inquisition - this book recreates the social fabric of Venice between 1640 and 1740. It brings back to life a wealth of minor figures who inhabited the city, and fostered ideas of dissent, unbelief and atheism in the teeth of the Counter-Reformation. The book vividly paints a scene filled with craftsmen, friars and priests, booksellers, apothecaries and barbers, bustling about the city spaces of sociability, between coffee-houses and workshops, apothecaries' and barbers' shops, from the pulpit and drawing rooms, or simply publicly speaking about their ideas. To give depth to the cases identified, the author overlays a number of contextual themes, such as the survival of Protestant (or crypto-Protestant) doctrines, the political situation at any given time, and the networks of dissenting groups that flourished within the city, such as the 'free metaphysicists' who gathered in the premises of the hatter Bortolo Zorzi. In so doing this rich and thought provoking book provides a systematic overview of how Venetian ecclesiastical institutions dealt with the sheer diffusion of heterodox and atheistical ideas at different social levels. It will be of interest not only to scholars of Venice, but all those with an interest in the intellectual, cultural and religious history of early-modern Europe.
The first biography of the Jewish poet and polemicist Sarra Copia Sulam situates her in the tradition of women's writing in Venice and explores her rise and fall as a public intellectual in the tumultuous world of the city's presses.
Atheology is the intellectual effort to understand atheism, defend the reasonableness of unbelief, and support nonbelievers in their encounters with religion. This book presents a historical overview of the development of atheology from ancient thought to the present day. It offers in-depth examinations of four distinctive schools of atheological thought: rationalist atheology, scientific atheology, moral atheology, and civic atheology. John R. Shook shows how a familiarity with atheology’s complex histories, forms, and strategies illuminates the contentious features of today’s atheist and secularist movements, which are just as capable of contesting each other as opposing religion. The result is a book that provides a disciplined and philosophically rigorous examination of atheism’s intellectual strategies for reasoning with theology. Systematic Atheology is an important contribution to the philosophy of religion, religious studies, secular studies, and the sociology and psychology of nonreligion.
Bad Subjects examines the social and cultural milieu of the early modern French empire through an analysis of the quasi-criminal category of libertinage in the French Atlantic.
Perfect for book lovers, this is a fascinating exploration of the history of libraries and the people who built them, from the ancient world to the digital age. Famed across the known world, jealously guarded by private collectors, built up over centuries, destroyed in a single day, ornamented with gold leaf and frescoes, or filled with bean bags and children’s drawings—the history of the library is rich, varied, and stuffed full of incident. In The Library, historians Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen introduce us to the antiquarians and philanthropists who shaped the world’s great collections, trace the rise and fall of literary tastes, and reveal the high crimes and misdemeanors committed in pursuit of rare manuscripts. In doing so, they reveal that while collections themselves are fragile, often falling into ruin within a few decades, the idea of the library has been remarkably resilient as each generation makes—and remakes—the institution anew. Beautifully written and deeply researched, The Library is essential reading for booklovers, collectors, and anyone who has ever gotten blissfully lost in the stacks.
Provides a panoramic account of the radical ways that life began to change for ordinary people in the age of Locke, Voltaire, and Rousseau. In this book, familiar Enlightenment figures share places with voices that have remained largely unheard until now, from freethinkers and freemasons to French materialists, anticlerical Catholics, pantheists, pornographers, readers, and travelers. Jacob reveals how this newly secular outlook was not a wholesale rejection of Christianity but rather a new mental space in which to encounter the world on its own terms. She takes readers from London and Amsterdam to Berlin, Vienna, Turin, and Naples, drawing on rare archival materials to show how ideas central to the emergence of secular democracy touched all facets of daily life. Jacob demonstrates how secular values and pursuits took hold of eighteenth-century Europe, spilled into the American colonies, and left their lasting imprint on the Western world for generations to come. --Adapted from publisher description.
The Republic of Venice was the only Catholic territory in which an Anabaptist community formed in the 16th century. The history of Venetian Anabaptism, hitherto little known in Reformation Studies, is the focus of this book. Using a large quantity of archival material and rare printed sources Riccarda Suitner reconstructs the lives of the Republic's Anabaptists and the inquisitorial repression they suffered, and analyses the doctrinal specificities of the Radical Reformation in this area. This story represents a fundamental stage in the relations between German, central-European and Italian culture in the early modern period. Events in Venice are presented within a broader comparative framework, paying particular attention to the German states, Switzerland, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Transylvania, Moravia, Tyrol, and the Kingdom of Naples. It will emerge that its Venetian history cannot be ignored if we are to gain a true understanding of the European Reformation.
Cursed Blessings explores the relationship between sexual nonconformity and religious radical dissent in the early modern Western European world. While many studies have been devoted to the process of the "hereticalization" of nonnormative sexual practices and its use in anti-heretical propaganda, this book is entirely devoted to understanding the meaning of unconventional sexual behaviors from the perspective of the dissenters. Divided into three parts, the first focuses on the Italian peninsula and explores alternative views on sexuality inspired by Renaissance currents of anti-clericalism, ancient Christian heresies, traditions of apocrypha of the New Testament, and Rabbinic literature. It also examines how embodied and gendered experiences influenced the dissenting views of religious women. The second part explores how reflections on Original Sin led to the questioning of Christian assumptions regarding sex and gender, highlighting the relationship between the criticism of sexual morality and disputes on free will, spirituality, and redemption. The third part examines how most of these threads were entwined into a more coherent philosophical framework in the writings of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century erudite libertines. This book is designed for academic readers, including graduate and undergraduate students. Given its intersectional approach, it will be of interest to researchers, teachers, and students in a wide array of fields, including religious, gender, and sexuality studies, as well as literature. This book also tackles issues that are relevant to present-day debates, such as the problematic relations between sexuality and religion and the ongoing polemics surrounding the complicated interactions between religion and politics.
This book is about the relationship between belief, credibility, and credulity in post-Reformation Catholicism. It argues that, starting from the end of the sixteenth century and due to different political, intellectual, cultural, and theological factors, credibility assumed a central role in post-Reformation Catholic discourse. This led to an important reconsideration of the relationship between natural reason and supernatural grace and consequently to novel and significant epistemological and moral tensions. From the perspective of the relationship between credulity, credibility, and belief, early modern Catholicism emerges not as the apex of dogmatism and intellectual repression, but rather as an engine for promoting the importance of intellectual judgment in the process of embracing faith. To be sure, finding a balance between conscience and authority was not easy for early modern Catholics. This book seeks to elucidate some of the difficulties, anxieties, and tensions caused by the novel insistence on credibility that came to dominate the theological and intellectual landscape of the early modern Catholic Church. In addition to shedding light on early modern Catholic culture, this book helps us to understand better what it means to believe. For the most part, in modern Western society we don't believe in the same things as our early modern predecessors. Even when we do believe in the same things, it is not in the same way. But believe we do, and thus understanding how early modern people addressed the question of belief might be useful as we grapple with the tension between credibility, credulity, and belief.
