Awards

• Nominated for Herbert Baxter Adams Prize 2014
• Nominated for John Gilmary Shea Prize 2014
• Nominated for Phyllis Goodhart Gordan Book Prize 2014
• Nominated for Roland H. Bainton Book Prize 2014 (United States)

Overview

Italian preachers during the Reformation era found themselves in the trenches of a more desperate war than anything they had ever imagined. This war-the splintering of western Christendom into conflicting sects-was physically but also spiritually violent. In an era of tremendous religious convolution, fluidity, and danger, preachers of all kinds spoke from the pulpit daily, weekly, or seasonally to confront the hottest controversies of their time. Preachers also turned to the printing press in unprecedented numbers to spread their messages. Emily Michelson challenges the stereotype that Protestants succeeded in converting Catholics through superior preaching and printing. Catholic preachers were not simply reactionary and uncreative mouthpieces of a monolithic church. Rather, they deftly and imaginatively grappled with the question of how to preserve the orthodoxy of their flock and maintain the authority of the Roman church while also confronting new, undeniable lay demands for inclusion and participation. These sermons-almost unknown in English until now-tell a new story of the Reformation that credits preachers with keeping Italy Catholic when the region's religious future seemed uncertain, and with fashioning the post-Reformation Catholicism that thrived into the modern era. By deploying the pulpit, pen, and printing press, preachers in Italy created a new religious culture that would survive in an unprecedented atmosphere of competition and religious choice.

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9780674072978

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Reviews

The Pulpit and the Press in Reformation Italy is much more than a meticulous study of 'the barely known mainstream' of Catholic vernacular preaching in the sixteenth century. It changes our understanding of early modern Italian Catholicism as such. Through the texts and textures of sermons that serve both a social and spiritual history, Emily Michelson shows how Catholic clergy sought to instruct and reform lay souls by embracing biblical preaching while avoiding Protestant heresy. This book is an outstanding achievement.--Brad S. Gregory, University Of Notre Dame, Author Of the Unintended Reformation: How A Religious Revolution Secularized Society

Author Information

Emily Michelson is a lecturer in History, University of St Andrews.

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