The Catholic Historical Review

This is an important and wide-ranging book which offers a fascinating variety of different perspectives on what was one of the most important phenomena of the great religious ferment of the Early Modern period, namely, the legacy and interpretation [End Page 370]of the Council of Trent. Deriving from a conference of the same name, the book explicitly seeks not to privilege Eurocentric evaluations of the council but rather to investigate its echo outside Europe. Yet of the six sections into which the volume is divided, only the last (albeit the longest) can be seen as having fulfilled this remit. This section does contain nine essays, running to over 150 pages, so the topic is hardly neglected even if it actually constitutes only a quarter of the volume. The section opens with a very useful English-language survey by Giovanni Pizzorusso of Propaganda Fide'sconceptualization of mission territories and the problems of Tridentine reform in a "non-Tridentine space," conceived primarily as a juridical-normative context. Other highlights of this section are the complementary essays on the Chinese rites by Michela Catto, which explores the limitations of Tridentine orthodoxy in dialogue with the "religion-less," despite the best efforts of the Society of Jesus to reconcile different imperatives, and Sabina Pavone's excellent analysis of the tensions unleashed by Tridentine preoccupations with stricter regulation of sacramental practice and the vast new universe opened up by missionary activity in India.

A secondary concern of the conference and volume was clearly to consider the council from beyond a Catholic confessional perspective, and Section Five of the book does offer a whole series of insights into Protestant reactions to Trent. This is opened by an interesting survey by Emidio Campi of the thinking in this respect of Martin Luther, Martin Chemnitz, Heinrich Bullinger, and John Calvin, which is then supplemented by a very nuanced discussion of Martin Bucer, by Ian Hazlett, which argues that Protestant rejection of any council that did not treat Scripture as the unique source of authority, or that admitted any papal oversight, predated Trent, and was not in any sense a result of it. The neglected topic of Italian reformers' reaction to Trent is examined through the lens of Giacomo Cantimori by Diego Pirillo in an article which highlights the irénisme étatiqueand Erastian conceptions of the relationship between church and state which he came to espouse as a shield against more radical Anabaptist and Anti-Trinitarian positions. Sitting somewhat obliquely with these contributions is a consideration by Geneviève Gross of the leadership of the Genevan church by Théodore de Bèze through the lens of a clerical deposition from 1564, which is rich with insights but somewhat tangential to the history of the council itself, and a thought-provoking investigation by Elizabeth Tingle of the reinvention of indulgences as a tool of Catholic reform after Luther.

Outside these sections, most of the other contributions do not in fact correspond to the avowed intention to avoid Eurocentrism and to be receptive to interpretations from Protestant perspectives. Although eclectic in their scope, none are without interest, however. Juan de Ribera, more famous in non-Spanish historiography for his influence on the expulsion of Moriscos from Spain, emerges as a highly "Tridentine" bishop from the essay of Emilio Callado Estella; there are a series of insights into pivotal figures such as Giovanni Morone, Gaspar Contarini, Diego Laínez, and Ignatius de Loyola in the articles by Masssimo Firpo, Matteo al Kalak, Paul Oberholzer, and Enrique García Hernán, as well as illuminating investigations [End Page 371]of Sforza Pallavicino's fashioning of a Catholic historiography of the council a century after its close, the hagiography of Pietro Aretino, and much on images in the contributions of Wietse de Boer and Pierre Antoine Fabre. The volume is also fortunate to...