The Jesuits and the Arts 1540-1773
Second Printing Now Available
Edited by John W. O’Malley, S.J., and Gauvin Alexander Bailey
Giovanni Sale, S.J., editor of the Italian, French and Spanish editions.
The Jesuits and the Arts, 1540–1773 is the first survey ever published of the Jesuits’ global artistic enterprise in Europe, Asia, and the Americas, from the foundation of the Society of Jesus in 1540 to its suppression in 1773. Here the Jesuits’ extraordinary commitment to the arts—the subject of a groundswell of recent scholarly work—comes spectacularly alive, with 476 full color, high resolution images of Jesuit buildings, paintings, sculpture, theatrical sets, and music from around the globe, many of them published here for the first time. No other book dealing with this aspect of the Jesuits’ activities is as comprehensive or as profusely illustrated. Authors of the twelve essays are leading specialists from Italy, Germany, Austria, France, Spain, Argentina, and the United States; some of them are published here in English for the first time.
After John W. O’Malley’s introductory essay “The Cultural Mission of the Society of Jesus,” Giovanni Sale discusses first the principles that guided the Jesuits in design and construction of their churches and residences, and then, in a second essay, the tension between the Jesuits and Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, the imperious patron of their most important church, the Gesù in Rome. With a dazzling command of his material, Richard Bösel next takes the reader on an architectural tour of Jesuit churches, chapels, schools, residences, and meeting halls in Europe, spanning the Continent from France to Slovakia, from Spain to Poland and Lithuania, and from Rome to Antwerp. Gauvin Alexander Bailey leads a similar tour to show the influence of Italian painting on Jesuit art throughout Europe, after which Heinz Pfeiffer discusses Jesuit iconography and, especially, the often frustrating efforts of the Jesuits to obtain a “true” portrait of Saint Ignatius. Marcello Fagiolo presents one of the least known but most fascinating aspects of Jesuit engagement with the arts: the construction of elaborate temporary “stages” in their churches for the celebration of the Eucharistic devotion of the “Forty Hours.”
The volume takes leave of Europe with a theological-historical essay by Philippe Lécrivain on the Jesuit missions in Paraguay and China, which is followed by Ramón Gutiérrez and Graciela Maria Viñuales on the Jesuits’ artistic and architectural legacy in Spanish America. Bailey returns with an essay on Jesuit art in Asia and another on Jesuit art in North America, specifically New France and Maryland. The volume concludes with T. Frank Kennedy on “The Jesuits and Music.”
Although much of this volume first appeared in Italian, French, and Spanish in a version edited by Giovanni Sale in 2003, the English-language version has further edited and updated many of the chapters (some of them radically), added the chapter on the Jesuits in North America, included many new color images, greatly expanded the captions, and brought up to date and amplified the bibliographies. In many significant ways, The Jesuits and the Arts, 1540–1773 is a new book. Because of generous subventions toward publication, Saint Joseph’s University Press is able to offer this sumptuous volume at an affordable price.
About The Authors
John W. O'Malley, S.J., is Distinguished Professor of Church History at the Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A specialist in the religious culture of early modern Europe, he is Past President of the American Catholic Historical Association and of the Renaissance Society of America, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, member of the American Philosophical Society, and Fellow of the Accademia di San Carlo, Ambrosian Library, Milan. In 2002 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for Italian Historical Studies and in 2005 the corresponding award from the Renaissance Society of America. His latest book is Four Cultures of the West (Harvard, 2004).
Gauvin Alexander Bailey is Associate Professor of Renaissance and Baroque Art at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. A specialist in Jesuit art patronage in Renaissance and Baroque Italy, Latin America, and Asia, he has written over fifty articles and authored or co-authored six books on the subject, including his Art on the Jesuit Missions in Asia and Latin America (1999),
winner of the Bainton Prize in Art History, Between Renaissance and Baroque: Jesuit Art in Rome, 1565-1610 (2003), and Art of Colonial Latin America (2005). He is currently working on a new book entitled Andean Forms and Symbolism in the “Mestizo Style” Architecture of Colonial Peru. Bailey has been a fellow at the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies at Villa I Tatti in Florence and has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, National Endowment for the Arts, and Smithsonian Institution.
Giovanni Sale, S.J., is director of the Jesuit Historical Institute in Rome. He is also a member of the editorial board of La Civiltà Cattolica and teaches contemporary church history at the Pontifical Gregorian University, from which he received his doctorate in ecclesiastical history. He has published numerous articles in a variety of journals, as well as authored or edited more than a half–dozen books, including Pauperismo architettonico e architettura gesuitica (2001); La Civiltà Cattolica nella crisi modernista (2001); Dalla Monarchia alla Repubblica (2002); Hitler, la Santa Sede e gli ebrei (2004); De Gasperi, gli USA e il Vaticano all´inizio della guerra fredda (2005); Popolari e destra cattolica al tempo di Benedetto XV (2005).
Critical Acclaim for The Jesuits and the Arts 1540-1773
"The art and culture of the Jesuits has been enjoying a scholarly boom during the past decade, and much of it has been sparked by the work of the two editors of this volume. . . . Now St. Joseph's University Press offers what could be a primer with essays by these same authorities and nine others in a lavishly produced, rich illustrated volume, whose up-to-date bibliography is a guide for any further research. . . . In short, this is a treasure trove for art historians, both in its authoritative essays, luxurious color illustrations of often unfamiliar sites and objects, and an ample current bibliography. The importance of the Jesuit contribution to the arts had already been strongly reasserted by O'Malley and Bailey, but their new, single-volume survey provides both a summa and a definitive reference point."
Larry Silver, Sixteenth Century Journal
December 2005 496 pp, 476 Color Images
ISBN: 978-0-916101-52-7 (Cloth) $70.00 + shipping Second Printing Now Available
(A note about the list price of this book. Books from the first printing were advertised at $50 per copy, with a two–week introductory offer of $35 per copy. Those give–away prices were made possible by a number of generous subventions that we were not able to call upon a second time. Even with the increase in price to $70 per copy, we believe the book is still an incredible bargain. Quantity discounts are available.)