Beyond Catholicism Heresy, Mysticism, and Apocalypse in Italian Culture

by De Donno, Fabrizio; Gilson, Simon

• ISBN13: 9781137342027
• ISBN10: 1137342021
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2013-12-18
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Bringing together scholarly contributors from a wide variety of disciplines, Beyond Catholicism excavates the interconnections between religious belief, heresy, and mysticism in Italian culture from the Middle Ages to the present. In particular, these essays explore how religious discourse has unfolded within Italian culture in the context of shifting paradigms of rationality, of authority and time, of good and evil, and of human collectivities. Ranging from Biblical interpretation and eschatology to secular messianism, religious politics, and modern/postmodern narratives, they expand our understanding of the relationship between the history of faith and Italian culture, as well as between religious belief and secularism.

Author Biography

Fabrizio De Donno is Lecturer in Italian at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK.
 
Simon Gilson is Professor of Italian at Warwick University, UK.

Table of Contents

Introduction Fabrizio De Donno and Simon Gilson
PART I: BIBLES, SAINTS AND HERESIES IN MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN ITALY
1. Romancing the Gospel: Italian Vernacular Scripture in the Middle Ages; Brenda Deen Schildgen
2. Heresy and the Writing of Female Hagiography; Beverly Kienzle and Travis Stevens Preaching,
3. Michelangelo's 'Last Judgement': a Lutheran Belief? ; Ambra Moroncini
4. Exchanging Poetry with Theology: Ludovico Castelvetro between Humanism and Heresy; Stefano Jossa
5. Ferrante Pallavicino's 'La retorica delle puttane' (parody of Cipriano Suarez S. J., 'De arte rhetorica libri tres'): Whores and Metaphors ; Letizia Panizza
6. Providential Divining: Heresies and Controversies in Vico's 'Scienza nuova'; Daragh O'Connell
PART II: RELIGIOUS EXPANSION AND PLURALISM IN MODERN ITALY
7. Metaliterary Fogazzaro: Bovarysme and Mysticism in Malombra; Olivia Santovetti
8. Catholicism and Neorealism: Zavattini's contribution to Universalia-produced 'Prima Comunione' (Blasetti, 1950); Daniela Treveri-Gennari
9. No New Earth: Apocalyptic Rhetoric in Italian Nuclear-War Literature; Florian Mussgnug
10. Defining the Apocalypse: An Old Word in New Contexts, according to Eco, Baricco, Fo and Fallaci; Gillian Ania
11. Wu Ming's Transnational Reformation: Mythopoesis, Utopia and Global Politics; Fabrizio De Donno
12. Believing in Weakness: Gianni Vattimo's Postmodern Interpretation of Religion; Michael Bacon
13. Silent Revolution in the Country of the Pope: From Catholicism as 'The Religion of Italians' to the Pluralistic 'Italy of Religions'; Stefano Allievi