Dealings with the Inquisition or, Papal Rome, Her Priests, and Her Jesuits

Achilli, Giacinto, 1803-Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.2
Word count
853K words
Chapters
86

Tags

English Originals World HistoryReligion Historical TestimonyFaith ConflictPower OppressionMoral DilemmaMemoir AccountDocumentary NarrativeReligious TrialReformationChurch PowerRoman Curia

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971, and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today. Dealings with the Inquisition; Or, Papal Rome, Her Priests, and Her Jesuits. Author: Achilli, Giacinto, 1803-. Language: English. Class: BX: Philosophy, Psychology, Religion: Christianity: Churches, Church movements. Release Date: Sep 26, 2017

Editor's review

This book is a first-hand account by the nineteenth-century Italian priest Achilli of the workings of the Roman Inquisition and the Jesuits, part memoir and part critique of religious institutions. Its value lies not in literary style but in the perspective of an insider: the interrogation procedures, the daily life of priests, and the activities of the Jesuits are described in concrete detail and can be read alongside contemporary church history and the history of Italian unification. Readers gain a view of one side of the nineteenth-century European conflict between church and state, and of the tension between personal faith and institutional authority. Note that the author's stance is pronounced and his narrative has a defensive and accusatory tone; it is best used as a historical source rather than a neutral history. Suitable for readers interested in religious history, the history of church institutions, and nineteenth-century European political thought, to be read by topic, and as English primary material for studying the image of the Inquisition.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Read the introduction and table of contents first to establish the author's identity and motive, then proceed to the main text.
  2. Read alongside a general church history or a history of Italian unification, marking subjective judgments.
  3. Read by topic: interrogation procedures, priestly life, and Jesuit activities can be taken in separate blocks.
  4. Note specific names, institutions, and events for later verification.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

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FAQ

Is this book a neutral historical work? No. It is an account written by an eyewitness with a clearly critical stance and a self-defensive tone. It should be read as a source representing one perspective, not as a balanced general history, and ideally cross-checked against other materials.
Can I read it without a background in religious history? Yes, but it will be difficult. The book refers to many church institutions, offices, and terms, and without background knowledge it is easy to lose the thread. It is best to first learn the basic outline of nineteenth-century Italian church-state relations, which will make the book easier to follow.
How difficult is the original English? It is nineteenth-century written English with long sentences and dense religious and institutional vocabulary, but the grammar is generally regular. Readers with a basic command of English can manage with a dictionary; proceed chapter by chapter rather than trying to finish it in one go.

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About the author

Achilli, Giacinto, 1803- Author

Giacinto Achilli (born 1803) is an author about whom little biographical information survives. Chinese-language library records give no reliable details of his nationality, dates of birth and death, or education; the confirmed information comes mainly from a single work attributed to him, Dealings with the Inquisition; Or, Papal Rome, Her Priests, and Her Jesuits. Written in the first person, the book recounts the author's experiences with the Roman Inquisition and portrays the clergy and Jesuits of papal Rome, placing it within the polemical writing of the nineteenth-century English-speaking world on Catholicism and ecclesiastical authority. Works of this kind typically combine memoir with religious criticism and are useful for studying the religious controversies and public opinion of the period. Given the limited public records, further research is needed on the details of his life and the full range of his writing.