Right Thinking and Sacred Oratory in Counter-Reformation Rome

Frederick J. McGinness

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780691606446, 9780691635194
• eBook ISBN: 9781400864072
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Europäische Geschichte des Mittelalters

At the end of the sixteenth century, when painters, writers, and scientists from all over Europe flocked to Rome for creative inspiration, the city was also becoming the center of a vibrant and assertive Roman Catholic culture. Closely identified with Rome, the Counter-Reformation church sought to strengthen itself by building on Rome's symbolic value and broadcasting its cultural message loudly and skillfully to the European world. In a book that captures the texture and flavor of this rhetorical strategy, Frederick McGinness explores the new emphasis placed on preaching by Roman church leaders. Looking at the development of a sacred oratory designed to move the heart, he traces the formation of a long-lasting Catholic worldview and reveals the ingenuity of the Counter-Reformation in the transformation of Renaissance humanism.

McGinness not only describes the theory of sermon-writing, but also reconstructs the circumstances, social and physical, in which sermons were delivered. The author considers how sermons blended spirituality with pious legends--for example, stories of the early martyrs--and evocative metaphors to fashion a respublica christiana of loyal Catholics. Preachers projected a "right" view of history, social relationships, and ecclesiastical organization, while depicting a spiritual topography upon which Catholics could chart a path to salvation. At the center of this topography was Rome, a vast stage set for religious pageantry, which McGinness brings to life as he follows the homiletic representations of the city from a bastion of Christian militancy to a haven of harmony, light, and tranquility.

Originally published in 1995.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Roman Eloquence and Christian Virtue: A Paideia for Defenders of the Respublica Christiana
• 2. "Vices and Virtues, Punishment and Glory": Homiletic Instructions, Sacred Rhetoric, and Zeal for the Word of God
• 3. "And to Heare the Maner of the Italian Preacher...": Tridentine Rome and the Ambience of the Sacred Orator
• 4. "To Penetrate into the Deep-Down Things...": Arcana Dei and the Majesty of the Papal Liturgy
• 5. Right Thinking: Conformity, Militant Catholicism, and the Return to Discipline
• 6. Like "a Sundial Set into a Rock": The Supreme Hierarch of the Church Militant
• 7. From Vices to Virtues, Punishment to Glory: Rome, Civitas Sancta
• Conclusion
• Appendix 1 Liturgical Texts for the Feasts Celebrated by the Papal Court with a Latin Sermon
• Appendix 2 List of Popes
• Abbreviations Used in Notes
• Notes
• Bibliographical Essay
• Index