Conversion and Sanctity in Print: The Episode of Ignatius of Loyola and Isaac, the Roman Jew ca. 1600
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Jonathan E. Greenwood
Abstract
Roman engraver Francesco Villamena (ca. 1565–1624) produced a print in 1600 that illustrated the life and miracles of Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556), the founder of the Society of Jesus. It featured a conversion of a local Jew named Isaac described as the movement, possibly miraculously, of another’s heart by Ignatius. Villamena’s engraving, however, must be contrasted with lives of Ignatius written by Pedro de Ribadeneyra (1526–1611). A Jesuit of Jewish ancestry, Ribadeneyra’s accounts, like the Roman print, spoke of the conversion of Isaac. Its 1601 iteration, however, explicitly situated the event among the founder’s miracles. This article examines the place of persons of Jewish ancestry in conceptions of Early Modern sanctity. With this case study, I will compare the print cultures of Rome and Madrid as well as visual and written accounts of this conversion to help us better understand the role of religious minorities in the determination of Catholic sainthood.
Acknowledgment
I would like to thank Eleonora Rai and Franco Motta for the invitation to contribute to this special issue. I am also grateful to journal’s anonymous reviewers, Ruth Noyes, Emily Michelson, Yonatan Glazer-Eytan, Laura Ackerman Smoller and the University of Rochester Department of History Workshop for their helpful comments and suggestions.
© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Preface
- The Birth of Modern Sanctity: The 1622 Canonizations
- Introduction
- A Holy Flood of Saints: The 1622 Canonizations
- Research Articles
- The Quintuple Canonization of 1622: Between the Renewal of the Making of Saints and Claims for Pontifical Monopoly
- War Saints: The Canonization of 1622
- Framing Sainthood in 1622: Teresa of Ávila, Ignatius of Loyola, and Francis Xavier
- The Distinctive Features of Religious Festivities in the Spanish Netherlands: The Douai Celebrations for the Canonisation of Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier
- Conversion and Sanctity in Print: The Episode of Ignatius of Loyola and Isaac, the Roman Jew ca. 1600
- Glorifying Francis Xavier’s (1506–1552) Good Deeds or Miracles? The Negotiation of Sanctity in Daniello Bartoli’s Asia (1653)
- Dying in the Odor of Sanctity: Philip Neri and the Performance of Saintly Death in Catholic Reformation Rome
- 1622, the Fatal Year for the Discalced Carmelites: The Canonisation of Teresa, the Crystallisation of Conventual Typologies, and the Reinvention of Iconography
- On the Canonization of the Founders of Religious Orders in Early Modern Times
- Retraction
- A Personal Union: Reformed Christology and the Question of the Communicatio Idiomatum
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Preface
- The Birth of Modern Sanctity: The 1622 Canonizations
- Introduction
- A Holy Flood of Saints: The 1622 Canonizations
- Research Articles
- The Quintuple Canonization of 1622: Between the Renewal of the Making of Saints and Claims for Pontifical Monopoly
- War Saints: The Canonization of 1622
- Framing Sainthood in 1622: Teresa of Ávila, Ignatius of Loyola, and Francis Xavier
- The Distinctive Features of Religious Festivities in the Spanish Netherlands: The Douai Celebrations for the Canonisation of Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier
- Conversion and Sanctity in Print: The Episode of Ignatius of Loyola and Isaac, the Roman Jew ca. 1600
- Glorifying Francis Xavier’s (1506–1552) Good Deeds or Miracles? The Negotiation of Sanctity in Daniello Bartoli’s Asia (1653)
- Dying in the Odor of Sanctity: Philip Neri and the Performance of Saintly Death in Catholic Reformation Rome
- 1622, the Fatal Year for the Discalced Carmelites: The Canonisation of Teresa, the Crystallisation of Conventual Typologies, and the Reinvention of Iconography
- On the Canonization of the Founders of Religious Orders in Early Modern Times
- Retraction
- A Personal Union: Reformed Christology and the Question of the Communicatio Idiomatum
