Turin 1593: the Reasons for Opposing the Jesuits against the Background of the Contemporary European Antagonisms

Abstract

This paper deals with an unpublished Renaissance document preserved in the Archives of Turin, relevant to the history of the local university. It is an anonymous report, written in 1593, relative to the reasons for opposing the Jesuits’ attempt to obtain the teaching of philosophy, and to transfer this teaching from the university to their college. The pedagogical, cultural, and political arguments brought forward by the anonymous author of the document are here considered against the background of the European expansion of the Jesuit Order and of its schools. The case of Turin is compared to polemics that affected the Universities of Paris and Padua, involving academic, civil and religious authorities. Thus, a wider overview of the conflicts between traditional universities and the emerging Jesuit educational system is offered. Moreover, the Turin quarrel helps pinpoint the irreconcilability between Jesuit Scholasticism and late Humanism as an important aspect of these contrasts. A transcription of the 1593 document is added as an appendix.

Keywords:  Renaissance, Jesuits, Humanism