This substantial book describes the interactions between the Jesuit order, Italian universities, and civic governments across more than a dozen cities on the Italian peninsula from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth century. As Grendler notes early in the book, such interactions could range from serene collaborations to ferocious hostility. Some civic leaders and universities welcomed the Jesuits for their intellectual acumen and willingness to teach philosophy, humanities, mathematics, and theology; others resented the arrival of these Catholic schoolmasters and jealously guarded their traditional privileges. Grendler’s methodical approach and crystal-clear prose, combined with meticulous archival research and broad knowledge of relevant scholarship, will make this work a standard reference for years to come.

The book begins with an introduction to Italian city-states and to the Jesuit order, targeted at readers who have no familiarity with those topics. The initial chapter summarizes the experience of the earliest Jesuits at universities in Paris and Padua, for those years shaped their subsequent ideas about how curricula should be organized. Ignatius Loyola and his brethren were deeply dissatisfied with what they viewed as lax and dissolute Italian universities, and they set out to offer a very different educational experience. The next twelve chapters are organized geographically, with each one recounting the history of Jesuit attempts to establish, or to join, universities in Messina, Turin, Padua, Parma, Mantua, the Marches, Palermo, Chambéry, Bologna, Rome, Perugia, Ferrara, Pavia, and Siena. Grendler deftly explains the local context, the motivation(s) of the protagonists, the complex sequence of events, and the significance of the outcome. Rhetorical assaults, protest marches, and duplicitous negotiations were standard fare. The final two chapters shift to a thematic analysis of how the Jesuits taught philosophy and theology, respectively.

Most of the Jesuit attempts to enter Italian universities were a failure; in only four of sixteen universities were they able to obtain (and maintain) multiple professorships. Particularly in the sixteenth century, the Jesuits were often viewed as outsiders acting on behalf of Spain or the papacy. The Jesuits fared better with princely families than with city councils, for the latter were more likely to protect local professors and local privileges. As Grendler notes in the conclusion, the Jesuits also changed tactics in the seventeenth century: working more closely with civic leaders to create civic-Jesuit universities, accepting a secondary role in university governance, and training more Italian novices all helped to win acceptance in Italian towns.

Grendler utilizes primary sources often, quoting from Jesuit correspondence, princely decrees, and contracts. As in his prior books on schooling (1989) and universities (2002, 2009), Grendler is careful to define his terms. In this book he shows us how the Jesuit college and the Jesuit school might overlap but were not the same. It is important to remember that the Jesuits were unusual in their efforts to participate so actively in university life. Although the medieval mendicant orders established studia to train their own novices in theology, and the new Catholic Reformation orders (Somaschans, Barnabites, Piarists) embraced secondary school teaching, no other orders tried to create universities in Italy.

Combining two of his long-held interests in Italian Renaissance education and Jesuit activities, Grendler provides us with great detail about the history of higher education, the history of institutions, and the history of culture in early modern Italy. Some of the events that he describes, such as the rejection and eventual expulsion of the Jesuits in Padua, are reasonably well known to scholars, but much of this book explores new territory, particularly for the provincial universities. He maintains a calm and measured tone even when the actions of the professors or civic leaders demonstrate hypocrisy, jealousy, and betrayal.