Book Chapters by Wietse de Boer
Space and Conversion in Global Perspective, ed. G. Marcocci, W. de Boer, A. Maldavsky and I. Pavan. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 1-11, 2015
Edited Books by Wietse de Boer
Brill (Leiden; Boston), 2015
'Space and Conversion in Global Perspective' examines experiences of conversion as they intersect... more 'Space and Conversion in Global Perspective' examines experiences of conversion as they intersect with physical location, mobility, and interiority. The volume’s innovative approach is global and encompasses multiple religious traditions. Conversion emerges as a powerful force in early modern globalization.
In thirteen essays, the book ranges from the urban settings of Granada and Cuzco to mission stations in Latin America and South India; from villages in Ottoman Palestine and Middle-Volga Russia to Italian hospitals and city squares; and from Atlantic slave ships to the inner life of a Muslim turned Jesuit. Drawing on extensive archival and iconographic materials, this collection invites scholars to rethink conversion in light of the spatial turn.
Contributors are: Paolo Aranha, Emanuele Colombo, Irene Fosi, Mercedes García-Arenal, Agnieszka Jagodzińska, Aliocha Maldavsky, Giuseppe Marcocci, Susana Bastos Mateus, Adriano Prosperi, Gabriela Ramos, Rocco Sacconaghi, Felicita Tramontana, Guillermo Wilde, and Oxana Zemtsova.
Papers by Wietse de Boer
Space and Conversion in Global Perspective, 2015
Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Contents Acknowledgements vi... more Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Contents Acknowledgements vii List of Illustrations viii Notes on the Editors xii Notes on the Contributors xiv
Martin Luther, 2017
Johann Christian KittelJohann Ludwig KrebsFelix Mendelssohn BartholdyGirolamo FrescobaldiJan Piet... more Johann Christian KittelJohann Ludwig KrebsFelix Mendelssohn BartholdyGirolamo FrescobaldiJan Pieterszoon SweelinckDietrich BuxtehudeBert MatterJohann Sebastian Bac
Early Modern Catholicism, 2001
Jesuit Image Theory, 2016
This volume investigates how Jesuits reflected visually and verbally on the status and functions ... more This volume investigates how Jesuits reflected visually and verbally on the status and functions of the imago, between the foundation of the order in 1540 and its suppression in 1773, in rhetorical and emblematic treatises, theoretical debates, and embedded in various instances where Jesuit authors and artists implicitely explored the status and functions of images.
Theory and Practice in Late Medieval and Early Modern Intellectual Culture
Italo Calvino belonged to a generation of authors and critics whose work helped generate a wave o... more Italo Calvino belonged to a generation of authors and critics whose work helped generate a wave of interest in what came to be called visual culture. This interest, subsequently expanded to include other forms of sense perception, has also led to a renewed scholarly attention for Jesuit spirituality and for the artistic, theatrical, and literary endeavors associated with it. As Calvino discussed the concept of compositio loci , he noted that Ignatius distinguished between visible meditation and an invisible variant. In contrast, the invisible contemplation was appropriate, for example, for the meditation of sins. As confession became an ever more sophisticated art, other classification systems were introduced. The most important was the Ten Commandments, but there were others as well: the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the works of mercy, the occupational sins, and also those of the five senses. Keywords: Italo Calvino; Jesuit spirituality; Spiritual Exercises ; Ten Commandments
Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 2009
It is an understatement to say that the place of Catholicism in Reformation studies has evolved d... more It is an understatement to say that the place of Catholicism in Reformation studies has evolved dramatically over the last century-the lifespan of this, the field's longest-running journal. A reference to the Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte's triple foundation is enough to suggest how far the field has come but also to mark lingering continuities. That foundation was at once Lutheran, rooted in German nationalism, and embedded in historical teleology. At the end of the founding meeting of the Verein für Reformationsgeschichte (VRG) in Magdeburg on February 13, 1883, the participants ("mehr als hundert evangelische Männer"), "responding to a spontaneous urge, [intoned] the old Luther hymn 'Ein feste Burg.'" 1 This religious commitment had clear populist and political overtones, echoing contemporary aspirations to a national-Lutheran church as the base of the new German state. The new venture explicitly embraced the Kulturkampf, as it meant to confront German Catholicism on the field of history, countering "the Roman falsification of history which, thanks to a well-organized ultramontanist press, seeps from great historical works into the smallest local papers." 2 Over the following decades, as the VRG developed and became the institutional anchor of the ARG, the original fervor waned and made room for an increasingly rigorous scholarly spirit. What remained constant was the confessional nature of the enterprise; and so were its attendant national or generalhistorical concerns. When Walter Friedensburg, the founding editor of the ARG, proposed the study of the "era of the great church Reformation of the sixteenth century," not only did he speak primarily of the Protestant Reformation, specifically German Lutheranism, but he added the motivation that "there we can find
The Journal of Modern History, 2009
Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis, 2005
This contribution critiques the current practice of studying the early modern Catholic clergy wit... more This contribution critiques the current practice of studying the early modern Catholic clergy within the parameters of confessionalization and professionalization theories. Measuring the features of the early modern priest with the standards of the institutional reforms to which he was subjected, is an inevitably reductive operation. Once we take the perspective of the priest and study his career from a variety of angles (including family, education, economic opportunities, and career choices), his cultural profile may prove to be the far more complex outcome of often competing forces. Personal memoirs, such as the diary of Girolamo Magni, parish priest of Popiglio (Pistoia), arc especially helpful for the study of priests' careers and identity.
Church History, 2011
his willingness to accommodate the Germans by offering the chalice to the laity was undermined by... more his willingness to accommodate the Germans by offering the chalice to the laity was undermined by the Italians. His final humiliation came when he got caught between reformers determined to enforce episcopal residence as a matter of divine law ( jure divino) and a pope equally determined to preserve his right to issue dispensations, and who was secretly communicating with another of Gonzaga’s fellow legates, Ludovico Simonetta. Murphy resists the view that Gonzaga’s failure was due to incompetence or lack of intellectual preparation and finds Hubert Jedin’s critical judgment biased in favor of Cardinal Morone (243). Despite the apparent impossibility of Gonzaga’s position, Murphy nevertheless judges his failure at Trent as confirming the broad anachronism of his patrician views of the Church and reform (244). Murphy’s concluding suggestion that “if there is a type of European reform that most resembles that of Gonzaga, it is that of the territorial princes of Germany” (252) comes as a mild surprise. The thesis is not argued throughout the book. But it aptly signals the importance that Murphy’s rich study will have not only in the field of Catholic reform but for studies of sixteenth-century reformations more broadly.
The American Historical Review, 2010
The American Historical Review, 2008
Il libro di Irene Fosi presenta una interessante ricerca sul tema della giustizia nello Stato pon... more Il libro di Irene Fosi presenta una interessante ricerca sul tema della giustizia nello Stato pontificio tra Cinquecento e Settecento. Attraverso lo studio di materiale inedito degli archivi giudiziari e dei numerosi carteggi dell'epoca l'a. ricostruisce la multiforme realtà del governo della giustizia nella sua complessità, dove trovano spazio violenza e repressione, moderazione e clemenza. Nella premessa la Fosi precisa che il suo studio non parla di amministrazione della giustizia «espressione troppo moderna che evoca coerente razionalità e progettualità» (p. VI), ma di governo della giustizia e quindi di controllo del territorio dominato. L'ottica scelta per analizzare il governo della giustizia e il rapporto tra sudditi e tribunali è prevalentemente centrale, romana. Il continuo carteggio tra Roma e la periferia esplica le varie sfaccettature del significato di ordine e di giustizia. L'analisi delle pratiche dei vari tribunali mostra che «governare il disordine e realizzare la giustizia si caratterizzarono anche come integrazione, patteggiamento, commistione fra vecchio e nuovo, adattamento lento e non distruzione sistematica e radicale di un ordine sociale, di rapporti interpersonali, di forme di giustizia che, in qualche modo se regolate e controllate da autorità esterne e superiori, potevano ancora sopravvivere e garantire il bene comune e la pacifica convivenza» (pp. VIII-IX). Il libro, strutturato in 13 capitoli, descrive nel primo la complessa geografia Storicamente, 3 (2007)
The Catholic Historical Review, 2002
... Carlo and Federico Borromeo achieved fame by turning Milan into the foremost laboratory of th... more ... Carlo and Federico Borromeo achieved fame by turning Milan into the foremost laboratory of the Italian Counter-Reformation. ... While Cardinal Federico has derived lasting fame from his portrayal in Manzoni's Promessi Sposi, he has received much less attention from historians. ...
Questo volume \ue8 un piccolo omaggio per Adriano Prosperi in occasione del suo ottantesimo compl... more Questo volume \ue8 un piccolo omaggio per Adriano Prosperi in occasione del suo ottantesimo compleanno; un segno di affetto e di gratitudine per il suo insegnamento da parte di allievi e colleghi che con lui si sono confrontati e da lui hanno imparato. Come Prosperi ha messo in evidenza in diverse occasioni, la ricerca delle origini (concentrarsi sulla ghianda invece che sulla quercia, avrebbe detto Marc Bloch) \ue8 un seme da cui nella storia sono germogliate facilmente l\u2019intolleranza, la manipolazione e l\u2019incomprensione del passato. I saggi riuniti in questo libro nascono da questa consapevolezza, sono legati da fili comuni e scaturiscono dall\u2019analisi di una fonte. Nel solco dell\u2019insegnamento di Prosperi, mirano alla ricostruzione di vicende individuali che attraversano i conflitti dell\u2019et\ue0 moderna e aprono uno sguardo sugli intrecci tra fedi, culture e aree del mondo diverse
Space and Conversion in Global Perspective, 2014
Our world is becoming more and more conscious of the global scope of processes and events that ha... more Our world is becoming more and more conscious of the global scope of processes and events that have traditionally been interpreted within local or regional contexts. Individuals and societies perceive their geographic frame of reference as rapidly widening. This has led many scholars to stress the importance of the notion of 'space'-a notion which is far from neutral or limited to the strictly physical sphere. Thus, for some years now, words like simultaneity, connection, circularity, and border crossing-to mention a few-have come to pervade a growing literature in the human and social sciences.1 Historians, too, have embraced this new sensibility, which some have termed a 'spatial turn' .2 In doing so, they have begun to ask questions particular to their craft, that is, questions about time. How, for example, did events, actions and representations relate to the multiplicity of spaces with which they were associated? How did these relationships change over time? And how did people experience such more or less radical transformations? Historians do not tend to see most breaks with the past as clean and irreversible. On the contrary, they will point out that, if the global present reflexively adopts planetary scales to understand today's economies, societies and demography, as well as politics and culture, this calls for the need to recognize the impact of (partly) similar processes during past centuries.3 Rejecting the idea of drastic historical breaks does not mean to deny any discontinuity. Between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the application of new technologies of transportation and mass communication deeply modified the relations between humans and space, though in different ways depending
Spirits Unseen: The Representation of Subtle Bodies in Early Modern European Culture, 2007
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 2005
... HAMBURG An ecstasy of folly. Prophecy and authority in early Christianity. ... That debate wa... more ... HAMBURG An ecstasy of folly. Prophecy and authority in early Christianity. ... That debate was a genuinely ancient debate (not exclusively Christian, or even Jewish). Ancient philosophy arose from prophetic ecstasy, as every student of the pre-Socratic movement knows. But in ...
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Book Chapters by Wietse de Boer
Edited Books by Wietse de Boer
In thirteen essays, the book ranges from the urban settings of Granada and Cuzco to mission stations in Latin America and South India; from villages in Ottoman Palestine and Middle-Volga Russia to Italian hospitals and city squares; and from Atlantic slave ships to the inner life of a Muslim turned Jesuit. Drawing on extensive archival and iconographic materials, this collection invites scholars to rethink conversion in light of the spatial turn.
Contributors are: Paolo Aranha, Emanuele Colombo, Irene Fosi, Mercedes García-Arenal, Agnieszka Jagodzińska, Aliocha Maldavsky, Giuseppe Marcocci, Susana Bastos Mateus, Adriano Prosperi, Gabriela Ramos, Rocco Sacconaghi, Felicita Tramontana, Guillermo Wilde, and Oxana Zemtsova.
Papers by Wietse de Boer
In thirteen essays, the book ranges from the urban settings of Granada and Cuzco to mission stations in Latin America and South India; from villages in Ottoman Palestine and Middle-Volga Russia to Italian hospitals and city squares; and from Atlantic slave ships to the inner life of a Muslim turned Jesuit. Drawing on extensive archival and iconographic materials, this collection invites scholars to rethink conversion in light of the spatial turn.
Contributors are: Paolo Aranha, Emanuele Colombo, Irene Fosi, Mercedes García-Arenal, Agnieszka Jagodzińska, Aliocha Maldavsky, Giuseppe Marcocci, Susana Bastos Mateus, Adriano Prosperi, Gabriela Ramos, Rocco Sacconaghi, Felicita Tramontana, Guillermo Wilde, and Oxana Zemtsova.
I saggi riuniti in questo libro nascono da questa consapevolezza, sono legati da fili comuni e scaturiscono dall’analisi di una fonte. Nel solco dell’insegnamento di Prosperi, mirano alla ricostruzione di vicende individuali che attraversano i conflitti dell’età moderna e aprono uno sguardo sugli intrecci tra fedi, culture e aree del mondo diverse.