Beyond Catholicism : Heresy, Mysticism, and Apocalypse in Italian Culture

The essays within Beyond Catholicism trace the interconnections of belief, heresy, and mysticism in Italian culture from the Middle Ages to today. In particular, they explore how religious discourse has unfolded within Italian culture in the context of shifting paradigms of rationality, authority, time, good and evil, and human collectivities. Bringing together scholarly contributors from a wide variety of disciplines, Beyond Catholicism excavates the interconnections between religious belief, heresy, and mysticism in Italian culture from the Middle Ages to the present. In particular, these essays explore how religious discourse has unfolded within Italian culture in the context of shifting paradigms of rationality, of authority and time, of good and evil, and of human collectivities. Ranging from Biblical interpretation and eschatology to secular messianism, religious politics, and modern/postmodern narratives, they expand our understanding of the relationship between the history of faith and Italian culture, as well as between religious belief and secularism Front Matter....Pages i-ix Introduction....Pages 1-12 Front Matter....Pages 13-13 Romancing the Gospel: Italian Vernacular Scripture in the Middle Ages....Pages 15-31 Preaching, Heresy, and the Writing of Female Hagiography....Pages 33-53 Michelangelo’s Last Judgment: A Lutheran Belief?....Pages 55-76 Exchanging Poetry with Theology: Ludovico Castelvetro between Humanism and Heresy....Pages 77-103 Ferrante Pallavicino’s La Retorica Delle Puttane (1642): Blasphemy, Heresy, and Alleged Pornography....Pages 105-124 “Providential Divining”: Heresies and Controversies in Giambattista Vico’s Scienza Nuova....Pages 125-144 Front Matter....Pages 145-145 Metaliterary Fogazzaro: Bovarysme and Mysticism in Malombra (1881)....Pages 147-169 Catholicism and Neorealism: Zavattini’s Contribution to Universalia-Produced Prima Comunione (Blasetti, 1950)....Pages 171-193 No New Earth: Apocalyptic Rhetoric in Italian Nuclear-War Literature....Pages 195-215 Defining the Apocalypse: An Old Word in New Contexts, According to Eco, Baricco, Fo, and Fallaci....Pages 217-238 Wu Ming’s Reformation: Mythopoesis, Utopia, and Global Politics....Pages 239-271 Believing in Weakness: Gianni Vattimo’s Postmodernist Interpretation of Christianity....Pages 273-286 Silent Revolution in the Country of the Pope: From Catholicism as “The Religion of Italians” to the Pluralistic “Italy of Religion”....Pages 287-313 Back Matter....Pages 315-332