Full Description
Until relatively recently, most scholars considered the notion of a Catholic enlightenment either oxymoronic or even illusory, since the received wisdom was that the Catholic Church was a tireless and indefatigable enemy of modernist progress. According to Christopher Johns, however, the eighteenth-century papacy recognized the advantages of engaging with certain aspects of enlightenment thinking, and many in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, both in Italy and abroad, were sincerely interested in making the Church more relevant in the modern world and, above all, in reforming the various institutions that governed society. Johns presents the visual culture of papal Rome as a major change agent in the cause of Catholic enlightenment while assessing its continuing links to tradition. The Visual Culture of Catholic Enlightenment sheds substantial light on the relationship between eighteenth-century Roman society and visual culture and the role of religion in both.
Contents
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Rome and the Catholic Enlightenment in Historical Context
Ecclesiastical Reform and the European Public: Italian Jansenism and the Catholic Enlightenment
Sanctity and Social Utility: Making Saints in the Era of Catholic Enlightenment
The Papacy and the Patrimony I: Corsini Cultural Initiatives on the Capitoline Hill
The Papacy and the Patrimony II: The Expansion of the Capitoline Museums Under Benedict XIV and Clement XIII
Enlightened Administration and Polite Conversation: Clement XII and Benedict XIV on the Quirinal Hill
Roman Spaces of Catholic Enlightenment: Sacred Sites and Institutions of Social Utility
Popes, Episcopacy, and the "Good Bishop" of Catholic Enlightenment
Epilogue: Two Portuguese Earthquakes and the End of Catholic Enlightenment
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
