The Jesuits and the Arts, 1540-1773

by John W. O'Malley

Originally edited by Giovanni Sale when it was published in Italian in 2003 (by Editorial Jaca Book of Milan), the English edition has been edited by O'Malley (church history, Weston Jesuit School of Theology, Cambridge, Mass.) and Bailey (Renaissance and Baroque art, Clark U., in Worcester, Mass.). Both editors also contributed chapters: on Saint Ignatius and the cultural mission of the Jesuits, Italian Renaissance and Baroque painting sponsored by Jesuit patrons and its influence in Europe, Jesuit art and architecture in Asia, and the impact of the Jesuits on the art and architecture of North America. Other chapter topics describe the Jesuits and music, Jesuit art and architecture in Spanish America, Jesuit culture and missions in the 17th and 18th centuries, and the iconography of the Society of Jesus. The volume is heavily illustrated with color plates of somewhat secondary quality. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Genres: Art History

477 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2005

About the author

Rev. Father John W. O’Malley, SJ, PhD was a professor of theology at the University of Detroit, Weston Jesuit School of Theology, and Georgetown University. His specialty was the history of religious culture in early modern Europe, especially Italy. He received best-book prizes from the American Historical Association, the American Philosophical Society, the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, the American Catholic Historical Association, and from the Alpha Sigma Nu fraternity. His best known books are The First Jesuits (Harvard University Press, 1993), which has been translated into twelve languages, What Happened at Vatican II (Harvard, 2008), now in six languages, and The Jesuits: A History from Ignatius to the Present (Rowman & Littlefield, 2014), now in seven languages. A companion to the book on Vatican II is his Trent: What Happened at the Council (Harvard, 2012), in five languages. He has edited or co-edited a number of volumes, including three in the Collected Works of Erasmus series, University of Toronto Press. Of special significance is The Jesuits and the Arts, (Saint Joseph’s University Press, 2005), co-edited with Gauvin Alexander Bailey, and Art, Culture, and the Jesuits: The Imago primi saeculi, 1640) (Saint Joseph's University Press, 2015). In 2015 he also published Catholic History for Today's Church: How Our Past Illuminates Our Present (Rowman & Littlefield). He edited a series with Saint Joseph's University Press entitled Early Modern Catholicism and the Visual Arts, in which thirteen titles have appeared to date.

John O’Malley lectured widely in North America and Europe to both professional and general audiences. He held a number of fellowships, from the American Academy in Rome (Prix de Rome), the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and other academic organizations. He was a past president of the Renaissance Society of America and of the American Catholic Historical Association. In 1995 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, in 1997 to the American Philosophical Society, and in 2001 to the Accademia di san Carlo, Ambrosian Library, Milan, Italy. He held the Johannes Quasten Medal from The Catholic University of America for distinguished achievement in Religious Studies, and he holds a number of honorary degrees. In 2002 he received the lifetime achievement award from the Society for Italian Historical Studies, in 2005 the corresponding award from the Renaissance Society of America, and in 2012 the corresponding award from the American Catholic Historical Association. He was a Roman Catholic priest and a member of the Society of Jesus.

Reviews

[Mills College Library]

704.08827 I247 2005