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Description of  Church and Censorship in Eighteenth-Century Italy: Governing Reading in the Age of Enlightenment (Routledge Research in Early Modern History)

1138306630 epub Dealing with the issue of ecclesiastical censorship and control over reading and readers, this study challenges the traditional view that during the eighteenth century the Catholic Church in Italy underwent an inexorable decline. It reconstructs the strategies used by the ecclesiastical leadership to regulate the press and culture during a century characterized by important changes, from the spread of the Enlightenment to the creation of a state censorship apparatus. Based on the archival records of the Roman Inquisition and the Congregation of the Index of Forbidden Books preserved in the Vatican, it provides a comprehensive analysis of the Catholic Churchs endeavour to keep literature and reading in check by means of censorship and the promotion of a "good" press. The crisis of the Inquisition system did not imply a general diminution of the Churchs involvement in controlling the press. Rather than being effective instruments of repression, the Inquisition and the Index combined to create an ideological apparatus to resist new ideas and to direct public opinion. This was a network mainly inspired by Counter-Enlightenment principles which would go on to influence the Churchs action well beyond the eighteenth century. Read more