The Maronite college in early modern Rome: Between the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Letters

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aurélien Girard ◽  
Giovanni Pizzorusso
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Catholic Colleges ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
Cultural Challenges ◽  
Educational Challenges ◽  
The Republic ◽  
College Managers ◽  
Jesuit College

In the early modern period, Catholic communities under Protestant jurisdictions were not alone in establishing collegial networks in Catholic centres. The Maronites, a Christian Church in communion with Rome faced educational challenges similar to those of Catholic communities in western Protestant states. A Maronite College was founded in Rome in 1584, on the model of others Catholic colleges created in Rome in the second part of the sixteenth century. Until now, traditional Maronite and Lebanese historiography has tended to treat the institution in isolation from the other collegial networks and from the global perspective of the papacy on the challenge of educating national clergies in non-Catholic jurisdictions. This essay presents an overview of the Maronite College in Rome, outlining the context for its foundation (the Roman Catholic mission in the Near East) and the links with others colleges. To plot the evolution of the institution, two versions of the college rules (1585 and 1732) are compared. They were influenced by the changing attitudes of the papacy, the foundation of Propaganda Fide, the activities of the Jesuits and changes within the Maronite patriarchate itself. The second part establishes a profile of the early modern staff and students of the college. Details are available on 280 Maronite students received by the institution between 1584 and 1788. For the young Maronites, life in Rome was difficult, with changes in diet and conditions, financial worries and cultural challenges. There were frequent interventions by the Lebanese authorities with the Jesuit college managers. Special attention is paid to the course of studies in Rome and academic links with other Roman institutions, especially neighbouring Jesuit colleges. The third part discusses the links between the Roman college and changes in the middle-eastern Maronite community. The Maronite college was the main European gateway for the Maronites. Some eastern Catholics chose to remain in Europe, often to follow academic careers. Attention is also paid to the relationship between the College and the Maronite diaspora and its links with intellectual life in the West. In the latter context, the role of the College library and its manuscript collection in facilitating Western academic access to oriental languages and thought is described. Like other networks, the Maronite college fulfilled a broad range of functions that went well beyond the simple training of clergy.

Modern Biblical Criticism and the Legacy of Pre-Modern Interpretation

2019 ◽  
pp. 703-722
Author(s):  
Michael C. Legaspi
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Biblical Criticism ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
Biblical Literature ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Hugo Grotius ◽  
Christian Culture ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Changing Attitudes

Although biblical criticism in the early modern period is often identified with the rejection of tradition, a closer examination reveals a more complex effort to investigate the literal sense while retaining the authority of Christian culture and Antiquity. This chapter traces the development of early modern biblical criticism in relation to changing attitudes toward early Christian interpreters. Focusing on the Republic of Letters and figures such as Erasmus and Hugo Grotius, it also examines the pivotal contribution of French Oratorian Richard Simon. Simon is important not only for his critical histories of biblical literature but also for his articulation of the relation between criticism and traditional authority. Finally, this chapter considers the ways that Simon’s conception of criticism paved the way for academic interpreters in the eighteenth century, notably Johann Salomo Semler.

‘Wer Socinianische Bücher sucht, findet sie bey ihm am ehesten’

Quaerendo ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-157
Author(s):  
Rietje van Vliet
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
International Market ◽  
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The Republic

Abstract The microhistory of the Amsterdam-based Sebastiaan Petzold († 1704) demonstrates that in the Early Modern Period booksellers without a network were hardly able to manage professionally in the Republic of Letters. Petzold relied especially on patronage from Socinianist circles. The Socinian theologian Samuel Crellius (1660-1747) saw to it that Petzold was able to publish three highly controversial Socinian works, including the notorious Platonisme devoilé (1700). Petzold was also introduced to some prominent English booksellers thanks to Crell, which provided him with access to the international market. Another patron was the Berlin court preacher Daniel Ernst Jablonski (1660-1741), who recommended Petzold to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. In Amsterdam the literary society ‘In Magnis Voluisse Sat Est’ commissioned Petzold to publish the complete works of Lucretius, an Epicurean work which was a favourite in anti-clerical circles. In spite of this support, in the end Petzold was besieged by creditors, instead of authors thronging at his door.

The Information Revolution in Early Modern Europe

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul M. Dover
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Information Revolution ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
Historical Significance ◽  
History Of ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Transformative Impact

This provocative new history of early modern Europe argues that changes in the generation, preservation and circulation of information, chiefly on newly available and affordable paper, constituted an 'information revolution'. In commerce, finance, statecraft, scholarly life, science, and communication, early modern Europeans were compelled to place a new premium on information management. These developments had a profound and transformative impact on European life. The huge expansion in paper records and the accompanying efforts to store, share, organize and taxonomize them are intertwined with many of the essential developments in the early modern period, including the rise of the state, the Print Revolution, the Scientific Revolution, and the Republic of Letters. Engaging with historical questions across many fields of human activity, Paul M. Dover interprets the historical significance of this 'information revolution' for the present day, and suggests thought-provoking parallels with the informational challenges of the digital age.

Unparteilichkeit und das Problem der Trennung von Person und Sache

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-80
Author(s):  
Daniel Stader ◽  
Anita Traninger
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Pierre Bayle

Abstract This article seeks to show how the republic of letters as an ideal of communication took shape between the early modern period and the early enlightenment by transforming the culture of debate within universities. While oral university disputations arbitrarily distributed the roles of respondent and opponent, thus intentionally dissociating the man and the position defended, the republic of letters, which operates through texts and preferably in the periodic press, presupposes all speech acts to be assertive. It is taken for granted that all defended positions are actually held by the speaker. Drawing on the works of Pierre Bayle, Christian Thomasius, and Christian Gottfried Hoffmann, this article will argue that the separation of person and argument is reconceived in the service of a newly emerging public sphere. Impartiality is introduced as a specific quality of judgement that is required of all participants as a type of self-regulation, thus compensating the loss of the institutional frame that was previously provided by disputation.

Circles of Confidence in Correspondence

Nuncius ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles van den Heuvel ◽  
Scott B. Weingart ◽  
Nils Spelt ◽  
Henk Nellen
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Knowledge Exchange ◽  
Technological Knowledge ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
Religious Conflicts ◽  
Hugo Grotius ◽  
The Republic

Science in the early modern world depended on openness in scholarly communication. On the other hand, a web of commercial, political, and religious conflicts required broad measures of secrecy and confidentiality; similar measures were integral to scholarly rivalries and plagiarism. This paper analyzes confidentiality and secrecy in intellectual and technological knowledge exchange via letters and drawings. We argue that existing approaches to understanding knowledge exchange in early modern Europe – which focus on the Republic of Letters as a unified entity of corresponding scholars – can be improved upon by analyzing multilayered networks of communication. We describe a data model to analyze circles of confidence and cultures of secrecy in intellectual and technological knowledge exchanges. Finally, we discuss the outcomes of a first experiment focusing on the question of how personal and professional/official relationships interact with confidentiality and secrecy, based on a case study of the correspondence of Hugo Grotius.

scholarly journals Symbolika i znaczenie konia w kulturze i sztuce na przestrzeni wieków

2020 ◽  
pp. 373-387
Author(s):  
Arleta Witek
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Horse Riding ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Social Meanings ◽  
Ancient Times ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Middle Ages

In the ancient times horse riding took over the heart of aristocracy. The horse was considered as a unique creation, which was a representation of noble origin. In ancient Greece, the rider was identified with a warrior. Around the horses appeared a lot of political and social meanings, especially important in the Middle Ages and the early modern period. An important role, that horses used to have in the society, was reflected in the art: painting and sculpture. The Republic of the Nobles was a country that loved horses more than others, gave them new symbols and meanings.

scholarly journals Russian Orthodoxy and Autobiographies in the Early Modern Period from a Mediterranean Perspective

Slovene ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 474-486
Author(s):  
Relja Seferović
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
The United States ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Russian Society ◽  
Russian Orthodoxy ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Religious Sects ◽  
Changing Society

[Rev. of: Faith and Selfhood in a Changing Society: Autobiography and Orthodoxy in Russia from the End of the Seventeenth to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century, ed. Laurie Manchester and Denis A. Sdvizhkov. Moscow: NLO, 2019. 408 pp. (in Russian)] The collection of papers “Faith and Selfhood in a Changing Society: Autobiography and Orthodoxy in Russia from the End of the Seventeenth to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century” served as a stimulus for reflection on Orthodoxy in Russia and autobiographies as a literary genre at the beginning of the early Modern Age from a Mediterranean point of view. Studying the contributions of fifteen prominent scholars from Russia, Poland, Germany, Canada and the United States on various aspects of the immensely rich Russian spiritual heritage from the mid-17th until the first half of the 20th centuries, the author recognizes their fundamental connection in a sincere interest in the gradual modernization of the Russian society, deeply rooted in the Russian Orthodox faith, as well as in the gradual development of individualism, both in its institutional and non-institutional forms: within the framework of the Russian imperial state and official patriarchal church institutions, but also on the periphery of political movements and religious sects. Despite the relatively narrow area of research devoted to various forms of autobiographies (written mainly by the clergy, less often by the members of secular aristocratic and bourgeois circles), this collection of papers represents not only a carefully written and reliable way to understand one of the fundamental aspects of the Russian spiritual culture, but it also invites for comparison with other similar environments. This prompted the author of the review to make a journey through the parallel literary world of the Republic of Dubrovnik (as the only independent Slavic state in that period, with the exception of the Russian Empire) from the 16th to the 19th centuries, with the conclusion that the predominance of biographies to the detriment of autobiographies in Dubrovnik at that time also speaks of strong pragmatism and aspiration to take care exclusively of the state interests in the literary sphere.

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