Reviews
Does a university that lasted only six years deserve a full-length academic study? In this case, the answer is clearly yes... Highly recommended.
A good professional piece of work.
Grendler's book provides a wealth of new information... Written by one of the most erudite scholars of Italian Renaissance education, this story of a failed institution is an unqualified success.
His study of the university and its connections with both the Society of Jesus and the Gonzaga, the noble family that ruled Mantua for generations, is meticulously researched and exquisitely detailed, and provides readers with a richly-textured exploration of political and intellectual life in northern Italy.
Shapin's indubitable reputation remains... untouched for inspiring fruitful and controversial debates in the community of the historians of science.
Reading Grendler's reconstruction of this courtly and intellectual adventure, we get the impression that we are witnessing a complex and carefully arranged experiment for testing the compatibility of the most representative elements of a cultural milieu.
Not only is this the first study of the university, but the deepest study of the relationship between an Italian family and the university it founded. I will certainly add this book to my shelf.
Book Details
List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Preface
Abbreviations
Values of Some Coins and Monies of Account ca. 1625
1. The Place and the People
I. The Duchy of Mantua
II. The Economy and the People
III. Monferrato
List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Preface
Abbreviations
Values of Some Coins and Monies of Account ca. 1625
1. The Place and the People
I. The Duchy of Mantua
II. The Economy and the People
III. Monferrato
IV. Jesuit Attempts to Enter Italian Universities
2. The Jesuits Come to Mantua
I. The Founding of the Jesuit College
II. Blessed Luigi Gonzaga
III. Growth of the College and School
3. Ferdinando Gonzaga and the Jesuits Create a University
I. University Dreams
II. Gonzaga Support of Learning
III. The Education of Ferdinando Gonzaga
IV. Duke Ferdinando Gonzaga
V. The Jesuit Part of the University
VI. The Public Academy of Mantua
4. Doctor Marta
I. Early Life and Works
II. Ecclesiastical and Civil Jurisdiction
III. A Spy for James I
IV. The Supplicatio ad imperatorem...contra Paulum Quintum
V. Was Doctor Marta a Doctor?
VI. The Compilatio totius iuris ex universi orbis
VII. The Move to Mantua
5. Fabrizio Bartoletti and Other Professors
I. Fabrizio Bartoletti
II. The Encyclopaedia hermetico-dogmatica
III. The Courting of Bartoletti
IV. More Searches
6. The Peaceful University of Mantua
I. Final Preparations and Crises
II. Finances
III. The Pacifico Gymnasio Mantuano Begins
IV. Students
7. Medicine, Law, and Tacitus
I. Botanical Medicine
II. Chemical Medicine
III. Bartoletti's Research on Angina Pectoris
IV. Law Professors and Marta's Research
V. The Tacitus Professorship
8. The Jesuit Professorships
I. The Jesuit Curriculum and Teaching
II. The Career Paths of Jesuits and Lay Professors
III. Two Academic Cultures
9. The End of the University of Mantua
I. The Crisis of the Mantuan Succession
II. The Contenders
III. War, Plague, and the Sack of Mantua
IV. The Imprisonment and Death of Doctor Marta
V. The End of the University of Mantua
VI. After the Sack
Appendix: Jesuit Professors at Mantua, 1624–1630
Bibliography
Index