Overview

Universities were driving forces of change in late Renaissance Italy. The Gonzaga, the ruling family of Mantua, had long supported scholarship and dreamed of founding an institution of higher learning within the city. In the early seventeenth century they joined forces with the Jesuits, a powerful intellectual and religious force, to found one of the most innovative universities of the time. Paul F. Grendler provides the first book in any language about the Peaceful University of Mantua, its official name. He traces the efforts of Duke Ferdinando Gonzaga, a prince savant who debated Galileo, as he made his family's dream a reality. Ferdinando negotiated with the Jesuits, recruited professors, and financed the school. Grendler examines the motivations of the Gonzaga and the Jesuits in the establishment of a joint civic and Jesuit university. The University of Mantua lasted only six years, lost during the brutal sack of the city by German troops in 1630. Despite its short life, the university offered original scholarship and teaching. It had the first professorship of chemistry more than 100 years before any other Italian university. The leading professor of medicine identified the symptoms of angina pectoris 140 years before an English scholar named the disease. The star law professor advanced new legal theories while secretly spying for James I of England. The Jesuits taught humanities, philosophy, and theology in ways both similar to and different from lay professors. A superlative study of education, politics, and culture in seventeenth-century Italy, this book reconsiders a period in Italy's history often characterized as one of feckless rulers and stagnant learning. Thanks to extensive archival research and a thorough examination of the published works of the university's professors, Grendler's history tells a new story.

Full Product Details

Author:   Paul F. Grendler
Publisher:   Johns Hopkins University Press
Imprint:   Johns Hopkins University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 2.60cm , Length: 23.50cm
Weight:   0.590kg
ISBN:  

9780801891717

ISBN 10:   080189171
Pages:   312
Publication Date:   21 September 2009
Recommended Age:   From 17
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations List of Tables Preface Abbreviations Values of Some Coins and Monies of Account ca. 1625 1. The Place and the People I. The Duchy of Mantua II. The Economy and the People III. Monferrato IV. Jesuit Attempts to Enter Italian Universities 2. The Jesuits Come to Mantua I. The Founding of the Jesuit College II. Blessed Luigi Gonzaga III. Growth of the College and School 3. Ferdinando Gonzaga and the Jesuits Create a University I. University Dreams II. Gonzaga Support of Learning III. The Education of Ferdinando Gonzaga IV. Duke Ferdinando Gonzaga V. The Jesuit Part of the University VI. The Public Academy of Mantua 4. Doctor Marta I. Early Life and Works II. Ecclesiastical and Civil Jurisdiction III. A Spy for James I IV. The Supplicatio ad imperatorem . . .contra Paulum Quintum V. Was Doctor Marta a Doctor? VI. The Compilatio totius iuris ex universi orbis VII. The Move to Mantua 5. Fabrizio Bartoletti and Other Professors I. Fabrizio Bartoletti II. The Encyclopaedia hermetico-dogmatica III. The Courting of Bartoletti IV. More Searches 6. The Peaceful University of Mantua I. Final Preparations and Crises II. Finances III. The Pacifico Gymnasio Mantuano Begins IV. Students 7. Medicine, Law, and Tacitus I. Botanical Medicine II. Chemical Medicine III. Bartoletti's Research on Angina Pectoris IV. Law Professors and Marta's Research V. The Tacitus Professorship 8. The Jesuit Professorships I. The Jesuit Curriculum and Teaching II. The Career Paths of Jesuits and Lay Professors III. Two Academic Cultures 9. The End of the University of Mantua I. The Crisis of the Mantuan Succession II. The Contenders III. War, Plague, and the Sack of Mantua IV. The Imprisonment and Death of Doctor Marta V. The End of the University of Mantua VI. After the Sack Appendix: Jesuit Professors at Mantua, 1624–1630 Bibliography Index

Reviews

Not only is this the first study of the university, but the deepest study of the relationship between an Italian family and the university it founded. - Kathleen Comerford, Georgia Southern University

Does a university that lasted only six years deserve a full-length academic study? In this case, the answer is clearly yes... Highly recommended. Choice 2010

Author Information

Paul F. Grendler is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Toronto and former president of the Renaissance Society of America. He is the editor-in-chief of the prize-winning Encyclopedia of the Renaissance and author of nine books, including Schooling in Renaissance Italy and The Universities of the Italian Renaissance, both winners of the American Historical Association's Howard R. Marraro Prize for Italian History and both published by Johns Hopkins.

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