Istituto Sangalli

The book investigates the emergence in Italy between the 16th and 17th centuries of the so-called ‘Jesuitesses’, i.e. congregations of laywomen inspired by the spirituality of the Society of Jesus. Sources in the Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu show that in the early modern period various Jesuit spiritual directors helped many women, especially nobles, to set up communities without eclosure, dedicated to practices of spiritual improvement and educational activities similar to those of their confessors. In addition to providing a census of these congregations, the study examines the innovations of their forma vitae and analyzes the attitudes, at times supportive and at times oppositional, that territorial princes, bishops, Jesuit generals, the Holy Office, Roman congregations, and popes took towards the Jesuitesses.

Fabio Arlati

«A maggior gloria di Dio»

Firenze University Press 2024

The volume offers a new perspective for the study of the mendicant orders between the 13th and 14th centuries through the example of the Servites in central and northern Italy. The study, despite considering a so-called ‘minor’ order, has made it possible to analyse two essential issues for Western Europe’s late medieval history. The first concerns the transformations of religiosity between the 13th and 14th which saw the prominence of new social classes and institutions. The second concerns the urban expansion, the economic growth and the political-institutional and socio-cultural changes that characterised the cities of the time. The Servites were expression and later fine interpreters of these processes, becoming actors who were anything but marginal in the social context of late medieval Italy.

Emanuele Carletti

“Per lo buono istato de la città”

Firenze University Press, Firenze 2023