The Jesuits and Italian Universities, 1548–1773 by Paul Grendler (review)

This book examines the creation of Jesuit universities in Italy, specifically between the mid-sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth centuries. The Jesuits' main difficulty was to create universities in cities where lay universities already existed. While Jesuit schools were often tolerated, Jesuit universities often struggled. The Jesuits were most successful in Germany where they founded a dozen universities. They were also popular in Prague, Coimbra, and Tournon, to name a few. In Italy, however, the main obstacle stemmed from creating universities in cities that already possessed lay universities such as Padua, Parma, Palermo, Turin, or Bologna. The Jesuits' predicament lay with the civil governments of these cities. If the Prince, viceroy, or city council favoured them, then they enjoyed financial support. If these constituencies disagreed over terms and conditions, then a bitter struggle ensued. Between 1548 and 1773, Jesuit professors attempted to insert themselves as alternative educational option for city-dwellers through Jesuit schools or Jesuit universities. Local Italian universities and governments, however, recurrently attempted to proscribe these initiatives when the Jesuits were seen as threats to local universities. In all Italian cities, the Jesuits encountered both supporters and detractors. This took place in no less than sixteen cities. This book, as Grendler states, "is the history of the interaction between the Jesuits and Italian universities and governments. Interaction is a neutral word for encounters that ranged from serene collaboration to pitched battles" (12).

The first chapter on Paris and Padua shows the Jesuit experience in Paris as a formation period, when the Society decided its educational policies. Most early Jesuits studied at the university of Paris while some did in Spain. The twelve early leaders earned university degrees. The Paris curriculum and pedagogy was formative and in 1540, once the Order was created, they felt ready to send recruits to Padua. In 1547, Ignatius Loyola started writing the Jesuit Constitutions. In 1551, he had drafted ten chapters on schools and the education of Jesuits. Padua was a failure, Grendler explains, because students reported by the Jesuits as "depraved" might have simply been Protestant, who were welcome in the Republic of Venice (34). In this atmosphere of spiritual peril, the Jesuits turned to Messina.

Chapters two and three examine Sicily. The cities in Catania and Messina defended their monopoly in curriculum. Moreover, Sicily depended on Spain, and the viceroy refused to have one city dominate. Through a papal bull, the Jesuits obtained the right to a collegiate university, but the Sicilians sought a civic law and medicine universities in 1596. Similarly, chapters four, five, six, and seven on Turin, Padua, Parma, and Mantua demonstrate that the Jesuits were never able to implement a university. Initially, a Jesuit university in Turin was seen as strengthening Catholicism and helping to counter heresy (96). However, funds to enable the Jesuits to become university professors never materialized. Instead, a Jesuit college acting as a noble boarding school, thrived. In Padua, their flourishing school was seen as a threat to the established university. Moreover, Venetian nobles believed the Jesuits were enemies of the Republic of Venice and served the King of Spain. As a result, the Jesuits were expelled from Venice in 1606.

Chapter nine on Palermo and Chambéry discusses how the Jesuits sought to create universities in cities lacking them, but cardinals and bishops sought absolute control of the universities, an unprecedented state of affairs. The governments of France and Spain ruled in the favour of the clergy against the Jesuits, forcing them to withdraw. Similarly, chapter ten on Bologna illustrates how the lengthy disputes with the town government when Pope Urban VIII intervened, leading the Jesuits (among them Francis Xavier) to a semi-victory by allowing them to teach philosophy and theology to a limited number of noble boarding students. Chapter eleven on Rome reveals how the Italian Jesuits wanted to teach canon law. The Eternal City was the seat of the Roman College, the most...