Introduction
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Introduction The contributions to this volume grew out of an international conference entitled The Jesuits: Culture, Learning, and the Arts, 1540-1773' that we editors orga- nized at Boston College in late May 1997. Some hundred and twenty-five scholars from around the world participated, and about fifty formal papers were delivered. A special event during the conference was the production of San Ignacio de Loyola, the only extant opera from the Paraguayan missions, com- posed in the first half of the eighteenth century by Domenico Zipoli, S.J., and Martin Schmid, S.J. In the past decade an unprecedented number of scholars in many different disciplines have been turning to the history of the Society of Jesus. Less influ- enced by confessional and other prejudices so often operative in the past, they have approached the subject with new questions and methods. The importance of the Society for the history of modern Christianity has never been in dispute, but scholars have been re-evaluating its significance in many different sectors, including those related to the sciences and the arts. In our multicultural, post- colonial condition, scholars have also been looking at the Jesuits as emblematic of certain traits of early modern Europeans, especially as those Europeans inter- acted with 'the Other' in Asia and the Americas. It was this development, manifesting itself particularly among younger schol- ars, that persuaded us to organize the conference. We observed, moreover, that in this new situation the Jesuits were being studied according to the compartments of various academic specialties, even though they were not compartmentalized themselves - a person like Jose de Acosta might be studied as a naturalist by one historian, a theologian by another, and a missionary or playwright by others, thereby losing the fullness of his identity as a Jesuit. For that reason we wanted to create a context, which we hope is reflected in this volume, in which scholars from different disciplines would be encouraged to interact with one another so xiv Introduction that we might move towards a more holistic understanding of the Jesuits of the 'Old Society,' that is, of the Society of Jesus before its suppression in 1773 by papal edict. We therefore wanted an interdisciplinary conference, but we judged it would be counterproductive to try to bring together scholars from all the disciplines in which the Jesuits were of interest. We decided to focus on a few areas and leave the rest to some other time and place. Not surprisingly, we chose the disciplines and the aspects of Jesuit history we ourselves were most interested in - the history of art and architecture, the history of music, and the history of science. We wanted, moreover, to give special attention to the Jesuits' interaction with non-European cultures, both because such attention reflects a new historio- graphical trend and because the Jesuits were founded essentially as a missionary order and from the very beginning had a global presence that was stunning. The specific aspects of the Jesuit enterprise that we wanted to highlight, therefore, were (1) the Jesuits' use of the arts in evangelizing and in communicat- ing faith and devotion, (2) their pursuit of the sciences in their schools and overseas missions and its relationship to their faith, and (3) their theory and practice in making Christianity acceptable to the Filipinos, to the Chinese and other Asians, and to the indigenous peoples of North and South America, as well as to Europeans. The focus we thus decided upon for the conference and, consequently, for the volume that was to follow, broad though that focus is, necessarily excluded many aspects of the Jesuits' story, some of which may be more fundamental than the ones found here. It excluded theology, for instance, as well as other aspects of the Jesuits' own training; it excluded economics and finances, at the other end of the spectrum; and it bypassed much in between. That is regrettable, but we believe our focus provides the volume with a coherence uncommon in such collections and also allowed a select few issues to be discussed in complemen- tary fashion from several different angles. Jesuit art and architecture, for in- stance, is examined in Eastern Europe, Germany, Rome, South America, Mexico, India. We invited our scholars to give special attention to historiography, with the result that the subject recurs in these contributions, even outside our introduc- tory section 'Refraining Jesuit History,' and is examined from many different perspectives. But the focus goes beyond subject-matter. The Jesuits of this period liked to think they had a 'way of proceeding' - or better, ways of proceeding - special to themselves. The expression actually goes back to Ignatius of Loyola himself and originally meant, as the term implies, certain procedures or ways of doing things - or of not doing things. Jesuits, for example, did not recite or chant the Liturgical Hours in common. Jesuits were obliged to keep in touch with their Introduction xv superiors and one another through frequent correspondence. And so on. But the expression can be understood at the profoundest level of style - style as manifes- tation of taste, values, and the core of one's identity. This understanding tran- scends the long-debated question about whether there was a Jesuit style of architecture. Can you detect in your materials, we asked our speakers at the conference, a Jesuit way of proceeding? If your answer is affirmative, can you identify some of its component parts? Was there a Jesuit style, a Jesuit corporate culture? This was a tall order, but it provided a centre for the conference and now provides a thread that implicitly or explicitly runs through this collection of studies. The collection ends with reflections on these issues from three participants in the conference who did not present formal papers. That is how we have assembled this volume. Even within the parameters we established for it we are keenly aware of having exposed only the tip of the proverbial iceberg and of having committed enormities of omission. Rubens, for instance, connected to the Jesuits in so many ways, is scarcely mentioned. The same is true for Jesuit theatre. Roger Joseph Boscovich, perhaps the greatest of the Jesuit scientists, fares even worse. Japan, a mission and martyrs' field of which the Jesuits were especially proud, is treated only in passing, Africa not at all. The list could go on - and on. We ask the reader to take the volume for what it contains, not for what is missing. We ask the reader to consider it as a sounding of certain aspects of contemporary scholarship on the Society of Jesus, not as a synthesis of them. THE EDITORS This page intentionally left blank .