Companion to the Catholic Enlightenment in Europe

'Touchstones of truth': The Enlightenment of Jean-Baptiste-Louis Gresset, Leger-Marie Deschamps, and Simon-Nicolas-Henri Linguet

Publication Date 2014-04-29 Availability Embargoed Embargo Period 2017-04-28 Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PHD) Department History (Arts and Sciences) Date of Defense 2014-04-03 First Committee Member Guido Ruggiero Second Committee Member Mary Lindemann Third Committee Member Hugh Thomas Fourth Committee Member Steve Stein Fifth Committee Member Laura Giannetti Abstract The continuing resilience, significance, and variety of religious culture in the age of the Enlightenment in the Republic of Venice are the overarching themes of this dissertation, which consists of a series of case-studies. Though the stories examined here are diverse and cover several aspects of devotions, practices, and beliefs, they all grew out of negotiations that took place at all levels. Each chapter showcases negotiations of the sacred among secular authorities, the clergy and their flocks, bishops and inquisitors, higher office holders in the Roman Church and in local branches of the Inquisition, and various members of ecclesiastic institutions. Together, these represent a more complicated religious Enlightenment than usually envisioned. Negotiations of the sacred unfold against the background of unapologetic quests for the miraculous and divine manifestations. Hence, the pursuit of modernity, which is still seen as the hallmark of the Age of Reason, actually never was very far removed from the sphere of religion and consciousness of the spiritual world. The examination of so many varied aspects of devotion, practices, beliefs, and the numerous uncertain attempts to constrain them within more rigorous boundaries (or to remove them from popular control) during the eighteenth century ultimately confirms that we – “moderns” – are the children of the Enlightenment in more complex ways than we might imagine.

Companion to the Catholic Enlightenment in Europe

Citations

'Touchstones of truth': The Enlightenment of Jean-Baptiste-Louis Gresset, Leger-Marie Deschamps, and Simon-Nicolas-Henri Linguet

Negotiating the Sacred: Spirituality and Reform in the Age of Enlightenment in the Republic of Venice

The English Reformation

The Concept of Grace

The Modern Period

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