When Maria Lorenza Longo was poisoned, she seemed doomed to a life of suffering until she was miraculously cured at the Holy House in Loreto. Maria became the mother of the poor, sick, and dying dedicating her life to serving the incurables and founding both a hospital and a religious order. From her contemporary St. Cajetan, founder of the Theatines, and from the Capuchin Friars, she drew her spiritual support and strength. She also played an important role in the early history of the Capuchin Order. This is authorized English translation of La Venerabile Maria Lorenza Longo by Agostino Falanga, OFM Cap., which was first published in Italy. Replete with new illustrations and a list of "rays of grace" (favors obtained through the intercession of the Venerable Maria), this book will further the cause for her canonization. While especially edifying for Franciscans and Theatines, this biography portrays a women who is an inspiration to all people. Book jacket.

Long neglected in the history of Renaissance and early modern Europe, in recent years scholars have revised received understanding of the political and economic significance of the city of Naples and its rich artistic, musical and political culture. Its importance in the history of science, however, has remained relatively unknown. The Science of Naples provides the first dedicated study of Neapolitan scientific culture in the English language. Drawing on contributions from leading experts in the field, this volume presents a series of studies that demonstrate Neapolitans’ manifold contributions to European scientific culture in the early modern period and considers the importance of the city, its institutions and surrounding territories for the production of new knowledge. Individual chapters demonstrate the extent to which Neapolitan scholars and academies contributed to debates within the Republic of Letters that continued until deep into the nineteenth century. They also show how studies of Neapolitan natural disasters yielded unique insights that contributed to the development of fields such as medicine and earth sciences. Taken together, these studies resituate the city of Naples as an integral part of an increasingly globalised scientific culture, and present a rich and engaging portrait of the individuals who lived, worked and made scientific knowledge there.

Between the twelfth and the sixteenth centuries, women assumed public roles of unprecedented prominence in Italian religious culture. Legally subordinated, politically excluded, socially limited, and ideologically disdained, women's active participation in religious life offered them access to power in all its forms. These essays explore the involvement of women in religious life throughout northern and central Italy and trace the evolution of communities of pious women as they tried to achieve their devotional goals despite the strictures of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The contributors examine relations between holy women, their devout followers, and society at large. Including contributions from leading figures in a new generation of Italian historians of religion, this book shows how women were able to carve out broad areas of influence by carefully exploiting the institutional church and by astutely manipulating religious percepts.

This collection of essays offers a thorough study of the patron-artist relationship through the lens of one of early modern Italy’s most powerful and influential historical families. Contributors present a longitudinal study of the della Rovere family’s ascent into Italian nobility. The della Rovere was a family of popes, cardinals, and powerful dukes who financed some of the world’s best-known and greatest artwork. The essays explore the issue of identity and its maintenance, of carving a permanent spot for a family name in a rapidly changing atmosphere. Although these studies depart from art patronage, they uncover how the popes, cardinals, dukes, and signore of the della Rovere family constituted their identity. Originally a nouveau-riche creation of papal nepotism, the della Rovere first populated the ranks of cardinals under the powerful popes Sixtus IV and Julius II. Within the framework of later papal relations, the family negotiated its position within the economy of Italian nobles.

Good Government in Spanish Naples provides a narrative historical overview which links six essays from the latest research of prominent scholars in the rich, contemporary school of Neapolitan historiography. The essays examine the political and administrative structure of the Kingdom of Naples, problems of agricultural production and demographic rationale in the countryside, and social welfare and fiscal manipulation in the capital that lead to the 1647 Masaniello revolt. The riches of Neapolitan culture and the crisis and catastrophe of its politics initiates us into the reasons for the decline of the Italian South and Italy as a whole after the Renaissance. Naples emerges not as a decadent, «refeudalized» state, but as a test case for understanding the limits of the early modern state in managing conflict and moderating crises.