The Jesuits: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540-1773

In recent years scholars in a range of disciplines have begun to re-evaluate the history of the Society of Jesus. Approaching the subject with new questions and methods, they have reconsidered the importance of the Society in many sectors, including those related to the sciences and the arts. They have also looked at the Jesuits as emblematic of certain traits of early modern Europeans, especially as those Europeans interacted with 'the Other' in Asia and the Americas. Originating in an international conference held at Boston College in 1997, the thirty-five essays here reflect this new historiographical trend. Focusing on the Old Society- the Society before its suppression in 1773 by papal edict- they examine the worldwide Jesuit undertaking in such fields as music, art, architecture, devotional writing, mathematics, physics, astronomy, natural history, public performance, and education, and they give special attention to the Jesuits' interaction with non-European cultures, in North and South America, China, India, and the Philippines. A picture emerges not only of the individual Jesuit, who might be missionary, diplomat, architect, and playwright over the course of his life in the Society, but also of the immense and many-faceted Jesuit enterprise as forming a kind of 'cultural ecosystem'. The Jesuits of the Old Society liked to think they had a way of proceeding special to themselves. The question, Was there a Jesuit style, a Jesuit corporate culture? is the thread that runs through this interdisciplinary collection of studies.

Table of Contents:
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS CONTRIBUTORS INTRODUCTION ABBREVIATIONS PART ONE Refraining Jesuit History 1 1 / The Historiography of the Society of Jesus: Where Does It Stand Today? JOHN W. O'MALLEY, S.J. 2 / 'Le style jésuite n'existe pas': Jesuit Corporate Culture and the Visual Arts GAUVIN ALEXANDER BAILEY 3 / The Fertility and the Shortcomings of Renaissance Rhetoric: The Jesuit Case MARC FUMAROLI 4 / The Cultural Field of Jesuit Science RIVKA FELDHAY PART TWO The Roman Scene 5 / Two Farnese Cardinals and the Question of Jesuit Taste CLARE ROBERTSON 6 / Jesuit Thesis Prints and the Festive Academic Defence at the Collegio Romano LOUISE RICE 7 / From The Eyes of All' to 'Usefull Quarries in phihlosophy and good literature': Consuming Jesuit Science, 1600-1665 MICHAEL JOHN GORMAN 8 / Music History in the Musurgia univer-salts of Athanasius Kircher MARGARET MURATA PART THREE Mobility: Overseas Missions and the Circulation of Culture 9 / Mapping Jesuit Science: The Role of Travel in the Geography of Knowledge STEVEN J. HARRIS 10 / Jesuits, Jupiter's Satellites, and the Académie Royale des Sciences FLORENCE HSIA 11 / Exemplo aeque ut verbo: The French Jesuits' Missionary World DOMINIQUE DESLANDRES 12 / East and West: Jesuit Art and Artists in Central Europe, and Central European Art in the Americas THOMAS DACOSTA KAUFMANN 13 / The Role of the Jesuits in the Transfer of Secular Baroque Culture to the Río de la Plata Region MAGNUS MöRNER 14 / Candide and a Boat T. FRANK KENNEDY, S.J. PART FOUR Encounters with the Other: Between Assimilation and Domination 15 / Alessandro Valignano: The Jesuits and Culture in the East ANDREW C. ROSS 16 / Jesuit Corporate Culture As Shaped by the Chinese NICOLAS STANDAERT, S.J. 17 /Translation as Cultural Reform: Jesuit Scholastic Psychology in the Transformation of the Confucian Discourse on Human Nature QIONG ZHANG 18 / The Truth-Showing Mirror: Jesuit Catechism and the Arts in Mughal India GAUVIN ALEXANDER BAILEY 19 / Roberto de Nobili's Dialogue on Eternal Life and an Early Jesuit Evaluation of Religion in South India FRANCIS X. CLOONEY, S.J. 20 / The Jesuits and the Indigenous Peoples of the Philippines REN£ B. JAVELLANA, S.J. PART FIVE Tradition, Innovation, Accommodation 21 / Bernini's Image of the Ideal Christian Monarch IRVING LAVIN 22 / Innovation and Assimilation: The Jesuit Contribution to Architectural Development in Portuguese India DAVID M. KOWAL 23 / God's Good Taste: The Jesuit Aesthetics of Juan Bautista Villalpando in the Sixth and Tenth Centuries B.C.E. JAIME LARA 24 / Jesuit Aristotelian Education: The De anima Commentaries ALISON SIMMONS 25 / Jesuit Physics in Eighteenth-Century Germany: Some Important Continuities MARCUS HELLYER 26 / The Jesuits and Polish Sarmatianism STANISLAW OBIREK, S.J. PART SIX Conversion and Confirmation through Devotion and the Arts 27 / The Art of Salvation in Bavaria JEFFREY CHIPPS SMITH 28 / Henry Hawkins: A Jesuit Writer and Emblematist in Stuart England KARL JOSEF HOLTGEN 29 / Jesuit Casuistry or Jesuit Spirituality? The Roots of Seventeenth-Century British Puritan Practical Divinity JAMES F. KEENAN, S.J. 30 / The Use of Music by the Jesuits in the Conversion of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil PAULO CASTAGNA 31 /The Jesuits in Manila, 1581-1621: The Role of Music in Rite, Ritual, and Spectacle WILLIAM J. SUMMERS 32 / Jesuit Devotions and Retablos in New Spain CLARA BARGELLINI PART SEVEN Reflections: What Have We Learned? Where Do We Go from Here? JOSEPH CONNORS LUCE GIARD MICHAEL J. BUCKLEY, S.J. INDEX

About the Author :
John W. O'Malley, S.J., is professor in the Department of Church History at the Weston Jesuit School of Theology. Gauvin Alexander Bailey is an associate Professor in the Department of Visual and Performing Arts at Clark University. Steven J. Harris is a professor at the Jesuit Institute, Boston College. T. Frank Kennedy, S.J. is a professor in and chair of the Department of Music at Boston College.

Review :
‘A triumphalist volume – and a triumphant one.’ - Alison Shell (Times Literary Supplement) ‘An important addition to the historiography of the Society of Jesus and the early modern world … Should be ignored only at a scholar’s risk.’ - Michael W. Maher, S.J. (Catholic Historical Review) ‘The scope of the contributions is breathtaking.’ - Thomas M. McCoog, S.J. (Journal of Ecclesiastical History) ‘Combines cutting-edge scholarship with traditional concerns … An excellent collection.’ - Kathleen M. Comerford (Sixteenth Century Journal)