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How was the history of post-classical Rome and of the Church written in the Catholic Reformation? Historical texts composed in Rome at this time have been considered secondary to the city's significance for the history of art. The Invention of Papal History corrects this distorting emphasis and shows how historical writing became part of a comprehensive formation of the image and self-perception of the papacy. By presenting and fully contextualising the
path-breaking works of the Augustinian historian Onofrio Panvinio (1530-1568), Stefan Bauer shows what type of historical research was possible in the late Renaissance and the Catholic Reformation. Crucial
questions were, for example: How were the pontiffs elected? How many popes had been puppets of emperors? Could any of the past machinations, schisms, and disorder in the history of the Church be admitted to the reading public? Historiography in this period by no means consisted entirely of commissioned works written for patrons; rather, a creative interplay existed between, on the one hand, the endeavours of authors to explore the past and, on the other hand, the constraints of ideology and
censorship placed on them. The Invention of Papal History sheds new light on the changing priorities, mentalities, and cultural standards that flourished in the transition from the Renaissance to the
Catholic Reformation.
How was the history of post-classical Rome and of the Church written in the Catholic Reformation? Historical texts composed in Rome at this time have been considered secondary to the city's significance for the history of art. The Invention of Papal History corrects this distorting emphasis and shows how historical writing became part of a comprehensive formation of the image and self-perception of the papacy. By presenting and fully contextualising the
path-breaking works of the Augustinian historian Onofrio Panvinio (1530-1568), Stefan Bauer shows what type of historical research was possible in the late Renaissance and the Catholic Reformation. Crucial
questions were, for example: How were the pontiffs elected? How many popes had been puppets of emperors? Could any of the past machinations, schisms, and disorder in the history of the Church be admitted to the reading public? Historiography in this period by no means consisted entirely of commissioned works written for patrons; rather, a creative interplay existed between, on the one hand, the endeavours of authors to explore the past and, on the other hand, the constraints of ideology and
censorship placed on them. The Invention of Papal History sheds new light on the changing priorities, mentalities, and cultural standards that flourished in the transition from the Renaissance to the
Catholic Reformation.
Introduction
1: 'The Clouds roar': Panvinio's Early Career
2: Between Church and Empire: Panvinio's Final Decade
3: Panvinio's History of Papal Elections
4: Church History, Censorship, and Confessionalization
Epilogue
Appendix
Bibliography
Dr Stefan Bauer is an intellectual and cultural historian of early modern Europe; his research interests cover humanism, religious polemic, church history and censorship. Dr Bauer is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and Co-Editor of Lias: Journal of Early Modern Intellectual Culture and its Sources. In 2021, he was elected to the Council of the Royal Historical Society.
This important and fascinating book ... is essential reading for
those interested in the sixteenth-century Catholic Church as well
as those interested in the evolution of historical scholarship.
*Elizabeth McCahill, University of Massachusetts, Boston, Journal
of Modern History*
Bauer provides a comprehensive and enlightening examination of
Panvinio's labors.
*Thomas M. Izbicki, Rutgers University, American Historical
Review*
this excellent study ... is likely to remain the definitive work on
Panvinio for years to come.
*Katherine Van Liere, Calvin University, Sixteenth Century
Journal*
a very well researched, important, and constantly interesting book
which adds greatly to our knowledge of sixteenth-century Rome. It
is, in many respects, a model of what the history of scholarship
should be.
*Jean-Louis Quantin, École pratique des Hautes Études, Erudition
and the Republic of Letters*
This is an exemplary monograph on an individual scholar
*Peter Burke, University of Cambridge, English Historical
Review*
the book offers in compact form valuable insight into an important
part of the evolution of European historiography. The book will be
especially valuable to early modern European and Church historians,
but is accessible to non-specialists as well.
*David Kertzer, Brown University, Journal of Interdisciplinary
History*
It is mandatory reading for anyone interested in historical
scholarship in sixteenth-century Italy.
*Jetze Touber, History of Humanities*
a much needed contribution on the roots of a tradition of studies,
in order to understand also the standing and the status of church
history and papal history today.
*Massimo Faggioli, Theologische Revue*
...meticulously researched book...
*Stefania Tutino, Church History*
Stefan Bauer's The Invention of Papal History is an admirably
readable and fascinating portrait, not only of its principal
subject, Panvinio, but also of the culture of late Renaissance
humanism at a time of profound instability in Europe. It is a
significant achievement by this author, who, one hopes, has a great
deal more such scholarship ahead of him...
*Daniel Woolf, Queen's University, Marginalia Los Angeles Review of
Books*
Stefan Bauer's study of Onofrio Panvinio's complex contribution and
intellectual legacy should be praised for its clarity, in-depth
research and useful reflection on the complicated past.
*Jennifer Mara DeSilva, Ball State University, LSE Review of
Books*
The erudition diffused across Bauer's book is impressive and the
arguments are delivered with convincing elegance... a joy to
read.
*Fabien Montcher, Saint Louis University, Journal of Jesuit
Studies*
...insightful and enlightening... should inform all future
investigations into the historiography, and especially the
religious historiography, of this period
*William Stenhouse, Yeshiva University, Revista de
historiografía*
The Invention of Papal History fulfills its objectives. It presents
a biography that supersedes earlier lives of Panvinio, elucidates
his historical method, and demonstrates how this method differed
from those of earlier and later Catholic histories ... it is a
valuable contribution to our knowledge of a period of
historiography
*Sam Kennerley, Reformation*
The Invention of Papal History is an impressive work. Stefan Bauer
has scoured the European libraries and archives with extraordinary
competenceand thoroughness. His work ranges far beyond the figure
of Panvinio, dealing with the confessional pressures to which
historians were subjected, the various aspects of patronage, the
ins and outs of censorship, as well as the far broader matter of
Catholic historiography in the early modern period. It will remain
a major contribution.
*Alastair Hamilton, The Warburg Institute, Church History and
Religious Culture*
this important book helps us to better see papal history-writing
not simply as polemical or as a chronicle of events, but as a
dynamic intellectual field with its own critical methods.
*Robert John Clines, Western Carolina University, Renaissance
Studies*
This thoughtful and judicious monograph is to be welcomed for the
considerable light it sheds on confessionalisation of
historiography and the cultural politics of papal Rome.
*Peter Marshall, University of Warwick, History Today*
Stefan Bauer has written an outstanding study of one of the most
important Catholic historians in early modern Europe...This
exceptional new book promises to do much to shape future work on
history writing in early modern Europe.
*Crawford Gribben, Queen's University Belfast, New Books
Network*
This book succeeds in restoring to the foreground a figure of
considerable importance within the development of Catholic
historiography in early modern Italy, a field which the study
convincingly argues was central in establishing the contours of
different confessional positions during the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries...It is clearly an important book.
*Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin, Journal of Jesuit Studies*
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