Description
Book SynopsisReflecting on humanity's shared desire for certainty, this book explores the discrepancies between religious adherence and inner belief specific to the early modern period, a time marred by forced conversions and inquisition.
Trade Review"How did theology, medicine, law, natural science, exegesis and literature respond to the rising demand for credibility and truth? All nine essays in this volume adopt an approach we could call case-based, a CHOICE that renders the individual articles particularly intriguing." -- Vincenzo Lavenia, Università di Bologna *
Journal of Jesuit Studies *
“Barbara Fuchs and Mercedes García-Arenal have distinguished themselves, not only as gifted scholars but also as notably successful collaborators and editors of collections of essays. Their previous volumes of essays demonstrate a consistently high quality of scholarship and a coherence of thematic focus. The Quest for Certainty in Early Modern Europe: From Inquisition to Inquiry, 1550–1700, is a worthy addition to this corpus.” -- Gretchen Starr-LeBeau, Principia College *
Journal of Modern History *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction Mercedes García-Arenal I. Staging Inquisitions: Nature, Culture, Religion 1. Trusting the “I”: Picaresque Confession and Early Modern Scepticism Barbara Fuchs 2. Feeling Certainty, Performing Sincerity: The Emotional Hermeneutics of Truth in Inquisitorial and Theatrical Practice Paul Michael Johnson 3. Conflicting Certainties or Different Truths: Healers and Inquisition in Baroque Spain María Luz López Terrada 4. True Peste and False Doors: Medical and Legal Discourse during the Great Castilian Plague, 1596–1601 Ruth MacKay 5. Policing Talent in Early Modern Jesuit Rome: Difference, Self-Knowledge, and Career Specialization Javier Patiño Loira II. Negotiating History and Theology 6. Stolen Saint: Relic Theft and Relic Identification in Seventeenth-Century Rome A. Katie Stirling-Harris 7. Baptizing “Uncertain Human Beings”? Probabilist Theology and the Question of the Beginning of Human Life in Seventeenth-Century Catholicism Stefania Tutino 8. Truth and Human History in Melchor Cano’s De locis theologicis Fernando Rodríguez Mediano 9. Ambivalent Origins: Isaac La Peyrère and the Politics of Historical Certainty in Seventeenth-Century Europe Carlos Cañete
