Early Modern Catholicism: Essays in Honour of John W. O'Malley, S.J.

The so-called Counter- or Catholic Reformation has traditionally been viewed as a monolith. John O'Malley, a scholar of the Renaissance and Reformation, has challenged this interpretation, emphasizing the variety, vitality and complexity of Catholicism in the early modern era. The essays in this volume, written in O'Malley’s honour, present new research on subjects ranging from art in China to popular religion, from new religious orders to colonial architecture, and suggest new interpretations of the accepted picture of various societies, institutions, and individuals which together constituted the Catholic Church in the period from the fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries. The book examines a wide variety of themes through many different methodologies and perspectives including social, art-historical, legal, educational, musicological and philosophical. Unique in both scope and subject, it is a significant contribution to the growing field of interdisciplinary studies of Early Modern Catholicism, and should be especially useful in a number of courses in history and religion.