
Benedict XIV and the Enlightenment
Art, Science, and Spirituality
University of Toronto Press
Published on 29. January 2016
Book
Hardback
536 pages
978-1-4426-3718-4 (ISBN)
Description
Pope Benedict XIV Lambertini (r. 1740-58) was one of the driving forces behind the Italian Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. His campaign to reconcile faith and empirical science, re-launch a dialogue between the Church and the European intellectual community, and expand papal patronage of the arts and sciences helped restore Italy's position as a center of intellectual and artistic innovation.
Benedict XIV and the Enlightenment offers a broad and nuanced assessment of Benedict's engagement with Enlightenment art, science, spirituality, and culture. The collection's essays, written by international experts in the field, cover topics ranging from Benedict's revisions to the Church's procedures for beatification and sanctification to his patronage of women scientists and mathematicians at the university in Bologna, his birthplace.
Benedict XIV and the Enlightenment offers a broad and nuanced assessment of Benedict's engagement with Enlightenment art, science, spirituality, and culture. The collection's essays, written by international experts in the field, cover topics ranging from Benedict's revisions to the Church's procedures for beatification and sanctification to his patronage of women scientists and mathematicians at the university in Bologna, his birthplace.
Reviews / Votes
'Accompanied by a wonderful set of colour plates, this book remarkably succeeds in its attempt to read the ambiguities and nuances of the "Catholic Enlightenment" through the figure of Benedict XIV. Historians of science will find an abundance of materials to work on the relationships between Catholicism and the science on a global scale in the early modern period.'- Paolo Savoia (Metascience 24 October 2016) "This collection of eighteen articles offers undoubtedly the most comprehensive reappraisal of the pontificate of Prospero Lambertini, who became Benedict XIV (ruling from 1740 to 1758), that is currently available in English."
- Simon Ditchfield, University of York (University of Toronto Quarterly, vol 87 3, Summer 2018)
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Toronto
Canada
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
23 b&w illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 236 mm
Width: 159 mm
Thickness: 40 mm
Weight
901 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4426-3718-4 (9781442637184)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Rebecca Messbarger | Christopher Johns | Philip Gavitt
Benedict XIV and the Enlightenment
Art, Science, and Spirituality
E-Book
02/2016
1st Edition
University of Toronto Press
€75.95
Available for download
Persons
Rebecca Messbarger is a professor in the Department of Romance Languages at Washington University in St. Louis.
Christopher M.S. Johns is a professor in the Department of History of Art at Vanderbilt University.
Philip Gavitt is a professor in the Department of History at Saint Louis University.
Christopher M.S. Johns is a professor in the Department of History of Art at Vanderbilt University.
Philip Gavitt is a professor in the Department of History at Saint Louis University.
Content
Preface by Rebecca Messbarger
Introduction by Christopher M. S. Johns
Part I: Benedict XIV, Women and Progressive Catholicism
1. Marta Cavazza: Benedict's Patronage of Learned Women
2. Paula Findlen: The Pope and the Englishwoman: Benedict XIV, Jane Squire, the Bologna Academy, and the Problem of Longitude
3. Stephanie Kirk: Benedict XIV and New World Convent Reform
Part II: Faith and Medicine in Catholic Enlightenment
4. Rebecca Messbarger: The Art and Science of Human Anatomy in Benedict's Vision of the Enlightenment Church
5. Gianna Pomata: The Devil's Advocate Among the Physicians: What Prospero Lambertini Learned from Medical Sources
6. Fernando Vidal: Modernizing the Miraculous Body in Prospero Lambertini's De Servorum Dei
Part III: Benedict's Response to Challenges to Church Authority
7. John L. Heilbron: Benedict XIV and the Natural Sciences
8. Maurice Finocchiaro: Benedict XIV and the Galileo Affair: Liberalization or Carelessness?
9. Maria Pia Donato: Reorder and Restore: Benedict XIV, the Index and the Holy Office
Part IV: Theology, Tradition and Institutions in the Era of Enlightened Catholicism
10. Maria Teresa Fattori: Lambertini's Treatises and the Cultural Project of Benedict XIV: Two Sides of the Same Policy
11. Roberto Rusconi: Benedict XIV and the Holiness of Popes in the First Half of the Eighteenth Century
12. Peter BjOErn Kerber: Vicar of Christ and Alter Christus: Benedict XIV's Della S. Messa
Part V: Benedict XIV's Transformation of the Public Sphere
13. Paola Giuli: Prospero Lambertini and the Accademia degli Arcadi (1694-1708)
14. Carole Paul: Benedict XIV's Enlightened Patronage of the Capitoline Museum
15. Christopher M. S. Johns: Papal Diplomacy and the Catholic Enlightenment: Benedict XIV's Caffeaus in the Quirinal Gardens
Part VI: Art and Architecture Across Italy and the World
16. Jeffrey Collins: Pedagogy in Plaster: Ercole Lelli and Benedict XIV's Gipsoteca at Bologna's Instituto delle Scienze e delle Arti
17. Kristina Kleutghen: The Art Ethnicity and Empire: Jesuit Art in China during the Papacy of Benedict XIV
18. Tommaso Manfredi: Academic Practice and Roman Architecture during the Reign of Benedict XIV
Introduction by Christopher M. S. Johns
Part I: Benedict XIV, Women and Progressive Catholicism
1. Marta Cavazza: Benedict's Patronage of Learned Women
2. Paula Findlen: The Pope and the Englishwoman: Benedict XIV, Jane Squire, the Bologna Academy, and the Problem of Longitude
3. Stephanie Kirk: Benedict XIV and New World Convent Reform
Part II: Faith and Medicine in Catholic Enlightenment
4. Rebecca Messbarger: The Art and Science of Human Anatomy in Benedict's Vision of the Enlightenment Church
5. Gianna Pomata: The Devil's Advocate Among the Physicians: What Prospero Lambertini Learned from Medical Sources
6. Fernando Vidal: Modernizing the Miraculous Body in Prospero Lambertini's De Servorum Dei
Part III: Benedict's Response to Challenges to Church Authority
7. John L. Heilbron: Benedict XIV and the Natural Sciences
8. Maurice Finocchiaro: Benedict XIV and the Galileo Affair: Liberalization or Carelessness?
9. Maria Pia Donato: Reorder and Restore: Benedict XIV, the Index and the Holy Office
Part IV: Theology, Tradition and Institutions in the Era of Enlightened Catholicism
10. Maria Teresa Fattori: Lambertini's Treatises and the Cultural Project of Benedict XIV: Two Sides of the Same Policy
11. Roberto Rusconi: Benedict XIV and the Holiness of Popes in the First Half of the Eighteenth Century
12. Peter BjOErn Kerber: Vicar of Christ and Alter Christus: Benedict XIV's Della S. Messa
Part V: Benedict XIV's Transformation of the Public Sphere
13. Paola Giuli: Prospero Lambertini and the Accademia degli Arcadi (1694-1708)
14. Carole Paul: Benedict XIV's Enlightened Patronage of the Capitoline Museum
15. Christopher M. S. Johns: Papal Diplomacy and the Catholic Enlightenment: Benedict XIV's Caffeaus in the Quirinal Gardens
Part VI: Art and Architecture Across Italy and the World
16. Jeffrey Collins: Pedagogy in Plaster: Ercole Lelli and Benedict XIV's Gipsoteca at Bologna's Instituto delle Scienze e delle Arti
17. Kristina Kleutghen: The Art Ethnicity and Empire: Jesuit Art in China during the Papacy of Benedict XIV
18. Tommaso Manfredi: Academic Practice and Roman Architecture during the Reign of Benedict XIV