The Roman Church and Multiconfessional Europe
in the Early Modern Period
By (author) Andreea Badea By (author) Alessandro Boccolini By (author) Elena Bonora By (author) Birgit Emich By (author) Silvano Giordano By (author) Luca Iori By (author) Giovanni Pizzorusso By (author) Olivier Poncet By (author) Julien Régibeau By (author) Matteo Sanfilippo By (author) Laurent Tatarenko By (author) Thomas Wallnig Edited by Elena Bonora
Hardback (Published)
(April 2026)
ISBN: 9791257011468
Price: $50.00
On back order
The historical problem addressed in this volume may be framed as follows: in the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation, how did the Roman Church respond to a European space shaped by the coexistence of multiple confessions? What policies and strategies were devised to ensure the survival of Catholicism and to safeguard papal authority? Which bodies of knowledge, values, and interests informed these choices – and which often conflicting and contradictory dynamics emerged within the highest levels of the institution?
The essays collected here invite a reconsideration of the relationship between the Roman Church and multiconfessional Europe, not in terms of abstract principles or fixed models, but through the shifting interplay of norms and practices, claims to universality and strategies of accommodation, functional memory and oblivion. What comes into view is not a coherent or unified policy, but a plurality of responses shaped within a complex institutional machinery, operating across diverse political, legal, and confessional landscapes.
- Elena Bonora, Between Norm and Practice. The European Strategies of the Church of Rome
- I. The Nuncios
- Elena Bonora, “Setting Reality Before One’s Eyes”. Cardinal Giovanni Francesco Commendone (1524-1584) and Multiconfessional Europe
- Silvano Giordano, “In Countries with Much Freedom”. The Holy See and the Catholic Presence in Multiconfessional Europe at the Beginning of the 17th Century
- Olivier Poncet, Actor or Spectator? Papal Representation in France and the Construction of the Peace of Religion (1570-1629)
- II. The Centre: The Roman Curia
- Giovanni Pizzorusso, Missionary Strategies and Practices of the Catholic Church- Missionary Strategies and Practices of the Catholic Church in Multiconfessional Europe (Late 16th-Early 17th Century) 99 in Multiconfessional Europe (Late 16th-Early 17th Century)
- Matteo Sanfilippo, Multiconfessionality in Europe Through the Lens of Propaganda Fide (17th Century)
- Andreea Badea, Claiming Universality. The Congregation of the Index in a Multiconfessional Europe
- III. The Holy Roman Empir
- Julien Régibeau, Bringing an End to the Thirty Years’ War. Papacy, Mediation, and Religious Peace (1632-1650)
- Birgit Emich , More Than One Truth? The Sulzbach Simultaneum and Roman Politics
- Thomas Wallnig, Church Law against Imperial Law? Melchior Goldast’s Monarchia Sacri Romani Imperii, Jacob Gretser’s Gemina defensio, and the Election of 1612
- IV. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
- Alessandro Boccolini, The Holy See and Multiconfessionality in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (16th-17th Centuries)
- Laurent Tatarenko, Legal Norms and Ritual Boundaries. The Introduction and Use of Dispensations in the Ruthenian Community (17th-18th Centuries)
- Luca Iori, The Library of Antonio Maria Graziani. Books and Papal Diplomacy between Italy and Poland in the Late 16th Century
- Index of Names
- Contributors
- By (author) Andreea Badea
- By (author) Alessandro Boccolini
- By (author) Elena Bonora
- By (author) Birgit Emich
- By (author) Silvano Giordano
- By (author) Luca Iori
- By (author) Giovanni Pizzorusso
- By (author) Olivier Poncet
- By (author) Julien Régibeau
- By (author) Matteo Sanfilippo
- By (author) Laurent Tatarenko
- By (author) Thomas Wallnig
- Edited by Elena Bonora
Other Titles in this Series
Union in Separation
Diasporic Groups and Identities in the Eastern Mediterranean (1100-1800)
Volume 1
Political Objects in the Age of Revolutions
Material Culture, National Identities, Political Practices
Volume 21
A Description of All Spain
De situ, longitudine, forma et divisione totius Hispaniae libellus
Volume 5
Marriages and Alliance
Dissolution, Continuity and Strength of Kinship (ca. 1750-ca. 1900)
Volume 13
Gorbachev, Italian Communism and Human Rights
Rethinking Political Culture at the End of the Cold War
Volume 24
Moving Around in Town
Practices, Pathways and Contexts of Intra-Urban Mobility from 1600 to the Present Day
Volume 15
Mediterranean Crossings
Sexual Transgressions in Islam and Christianity (10th-18th Centuries)
Volume 18
Disciplined Dissent
Strategies of Non-Confrontational Protest in Europe from the Twelfth to the Early Sixteenth Century
Volume 4