History of Early Modern Educational Thought – serie

In Educating the Catholic People, David Salomoni reconstructs the complex educational landscape that arose in sixteenth-century Italy and lasted until the French Revolution. Over three centuries, various religious orders, both male and female, took on the educational needs of cities and states on the Italian peninsula, renewing the traditional humanist pedagogy. Historians, however, have not attempted to produce a synthesis on this topic, focusing mainly on the pedagogical activities of the Jesuits and neglecting the contributions and innovations of other groups. This book addresses this historiographical gap, providing a new chapter in the comparative study of pre-modern education.

This book contains twenty essays on Italian Renaissance humanism, universities, and Jesuit education by one of its most distinguished living historians, Paul. F. Grendler. The first section of the book opens with defining Renaissance humanism, followed by explorations of biblical humanism and humanistic education in Venice. It concludes with essays on two pioneering historians of humanism, Georg Voigt and Paul Oskar Kristeller. The middle section discusses Italian universities, the sports played by university students, a famous law professor, and the controversy over the immortality of the soul. The last section analyzes Jesuit education: the culture of the Jesuit teacher, the philosophy curriculum, attitudes toward Erasmus and Juan Luis Vives, and the education of a cardinal.This volume collects Paul Grendler's most recent research (published and unpublished), offering to the reader a broad fresco on a complex and crucial age in the history of education.