This volume takes the Renaissance papacy as an institution promoting an ambivalent and complex project of religious reform, where the ideal of the affirmation of a new political power, nourished by classical cultural models, coexists - in dialectic tension - with the attempt to absorb and channel the diverse claims for the spiritual renewal of the Church, based on Biblical and apocalyptic motifs. In particular, this volume explores the influence of texts and motifs from ancient Christianity on the ideological and theological-political projects of the Catholic Church between 1431-1549 as well as the rise of the so-called "e;Catholic orientalism"e; in Renaissance Rome, the study of Hebrew texts, and Christian Kabbalah. Contributions by A. Annese, L. Battista, G. Bartolucci, F. Berno, D. Del Prete, A. Gerace, N. Kouremenos, V. Lauria, and T. Leinonen.
