Index librorum prohibitorum: 1600-1966 (review)

After the publication of the ten volumes of Index of forbidden books, which record all books prohibited by secular and ecclesiastical authorities in Catholic Europe during the sixteenth century, this eleventh volume of the series Index des livres interdits directed by J. M. De Bujanda registers the books appearing only on the Roman Index, but it embraces a much wider span of time. It lists approximately 5200 titles and 3000 authors, whose prohibition was issued between 1600 and 1966, when the Roman Index was finally abolished by Pope Paul VI. To these impressive numbers, as De Bujanda stresses in his introduction, must be added anonymous writings, titles that, though never placed on the index, were not allowed to circulate for several reasons, and that incalculable amount of books falling under the prohibitions of the general rules, which concerned inter alia vernacular translations of the Bible, lascivious and obscene texts, controversial religious literature, astrological writings, etc. De Bujanda, however, points out that a few authors and titles were withdrawn from the 1900 index following the reform of Roman censorship decreed by Leo XIII. Interestingly enough, this revision was the consequence of the harsh criticisms by F. H. Reusch, whose Der Index der verbotenen Bücher was examined in 1885 by the Congregation of the Index in view of its condemnation. Far from being prohibited, Reusch's book prompted the censors to put order in the contradictory and messy contents of Roman catalogues (see Hubert Wolf, Storia dell'Indice. Il Vaticano e i libri proibiti [Rome: Donzelli, 2006], pp. 199-214). Notwithstanding the inevitably concise biographical data on the authors and bibliographical data on the writings, as compared to the previous volumes, De Bujanda provides the reader with the indispensable elements of a given author or a given work, thus offering an invaluable and hitherto lacking tool to scholars of censorship and to specialists of various disciplines. The major interest of this new volume, with respect to the sixteenth-century catalogues, lies in its chronology, for it encompasses more than 350 years of activity of the three curial institutions involved in censorship—the Inquisition, the Congregation of the Index, and the Master of the Sacred Palace. A bird's-eye view of such a long period allows a deeper and broader understanding both of the wide-ranging spectrum of topics, issues, and disciplines at the center of Roman concerns and of the most significant changes over time in the selection of targets. Having lost its battle against the Reformation, Rome seems to have increasingly focused its attention on attacks from domestic dissidents: defenders of State jurisdiction against the encroachments of the Church and the claims of the papacy, Jansenists, quietists, and modernists. Meanwhile virtually every branch of knowledge, independently from its theological implications, came under close scrutiny, and every discipline—from philosophy to history, medicine, sciences, law, biblical studies, literature, etc.—paid its toll to censorship. Condemnations, however, were accurately dispensed: the relevance attributed to the authors or to the writings concerned was evidenced by the authority emitting them. The entries include references to the official document (decree, bull, brief, encyclical, edict), to the authority emitting it (pope, Inquisition, Index, Master of the Sacred Palace, and in a few cases the Congregations of Rites and Indulgences) and to the date. Though drawn from the 1948 index (the last catalogue published by the Roman Church), these data must be handled with caution, since they do not always refer the correct date of the decisions taken by the Inquisition or the Index or of the first publication of the prohibition. On the other hand, they also reflect long-term disputes as to which institution should cloak the condemnation of a book with its authority, a problem that needs to be more carefully investigated and that may account for both the frequent delays in condemning books and authors and for the contradictory...