RT Article
T1 Beheading the Hydra: Antonio Castelvetro, The Congregation of the Index, and an Imagined Future for Print Censorship
JF Religions
VO 14
IS 5
A1 Marcus, Hannah
LA English
PB MDPI
YR 2023
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1844737497
AB In 1587, Antonio Castelvetro, a little-known physician from a well-known Modenese family, circulated a manuscript treatise that proposed a radical new vision for a Catholic press and a reformed system of press censorship: The Brief Treatise on the Reform of the Press (Trattato breve sopra la riforma della stampa). Historians have typically treated this text with a combination of amusement and outright ridicule, but this essay explains the ways that Castelvetro’s text captured a particular ethos of expertise and reform at the end of the sixteenth century in Italy. Although never implemented, Castelvetro’s treatise represents a moment of creative tactics in confrontation with the hydra of print. Censorship lay firmly within the project of the Counter-Reformation—a response directed at undermining and controlling the immediate and long-term effects of religious upheaval across Europe. However, systemic solutions to managing the press were part of the creative process of Catholic Reform. As Castelvetro’s treatise shows, some of these suggestions were more far-fetched and self-aggrandizing than others, but each contributed to a flourishing landscape of ideas aimed at combatting heresy and restructuring Catholic life.
K1 Tommaso Garzoni
K1 Sixtus V
K1 Heresy
K1 Medicine
K1 Expertise
K1 Modena
K1 Antonio Castelvetro
K1 Counter-Reformation
K1 Censorship
DO 10.3390/rel14050620