From Rome to Eternity: Catholicism and the Arts in Italy, ca. 1550-1650

This book treats Rome, the arts and religious culture in Italy in the century or so after the Council of Trent. In that era, clerical bureaucrats may have sought to impose control and uniformity, but nine original essays in this volume demonstrate continuing vitality of a wide range of creative artistic production. The book is illustrated with more than 50 reproductions.
Part I and II explore themes of Italian Artists as Saints and Sinners, and Arts of Sanctity, Suffering, and Sensuality in Italy. Part III, Italy and Beyond: Rome and Global Catholic Culture, acknowledges world-wide dimensions of early modern Catholicism.
From Rome to Eternity elucidates the rich and multifaceted character of Catholicism in Italy, ca. 1550-1650. Papal Rome spoke, but even as Italian Catholics listened, they themselves also spoke, and wrote, sang, acted, painted.

Contributors include: Michael A. Zampelli, Gauvin Alexander Bailey, Fiora A. Bassanese, Peter Burke, James Clifton, Sheldon Grossman, Pamela Jones, Robert L. Kendrick, David M. Stone, and Thomas Worcester.

Pamela M. Jones, Ph.D. (1985) in Art History, Brown University, is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Her publications, including Federico Borromeo and the Ambrosiana (Cambridge, 1993), focus on Italian art and Catholic culture.
Thomas Worcester, Ph.D. (1994) in History, Cambridge University, is Associate Professor of History at the College of the Holy Cross. His publications on early modern religious culture include Seventeenth-Century Cultural Discourse: France and the Preaching of Bishop Camus (Berlin, 1997).

'...this wide-ranging collection of essays is certain to stimulate the thinking of scholars in a number of fields.'
Steven F. Ostrow, CAA Reviews, 2004.