Yale University Library Research Guides: Early Modern Christian History: Catholic Theologians

Subject Headings

The Cambridge Companion to the Jesuits by Thomas Worcester (Editor) Examines the religious and cultural significance of the Jesuits. The first four sections treat the period prior to the Suppression, while section five examines the Suppression and some of the challenges and opportunities of the restored Society of Jesus up to the present.
The Jesuits: A History (Online) by Markus Friedrich; John Noël Dillon (Translator) The most comprehensive and up-to-date exploration of one of the most important religious orders in the modern world.
The Oxford Handbook of the Jesuits (Online) by Ines G. Zupanov (Editor) Examines the Jesuits' dynamism and innovative spirit, grounded in Catholic theology and Christian spirituality, but also profoundly rooted in society and cultural institutions. It also explores Jesuit contributions to education, the arts, politics, and theology, among others.
The First Jesuits by John W. O'Malley The most comprehensive account ever written of the Society of Jesus in its founding years.

A Companion to Ignatius of Loyola (Online) by Robert Aleksander Maryks (Volume Editor) Places Ignatius's life, his writings, and spirituality in a broader context of important late medieval and early modern movements.
Empire of Souls: Robert Bellarmine and the Christian Commonwealth (Online) by Stefania Tutino Offers the first full-length study of the impact of Bellarmine's political theory in early modern Europe.
Matteo Ricci: A Jesuit in the Ming Court by Michela Fontana Offers a thorough, knowledgeable biography of this fascinating and influential man, telling a deeply human and captivating story that still resonates today. Michela Fontana traces Ricci's travels in China in detail, providing a rich portrait of Ming China and the growing importance of cultural exchanges between China and the West.
Harmonious Disagreement: Matteo Ricci and His Closest Chinese Friends by Yu Liu Followed closely as the investigative thread of this book, the many kinds of disagreement between Ricci and his Chinese friends cast an unusual light on an otherwise long familiar subject and are instructive for the at times tense and even hostile, but in reality always mutually energizing relationship of both competition and complement between China and the West in the early twenty-first century.

Savonarola: The Rise and Fall of a Renaissance Prophet (Online) by Donald Weinstein Presents an original interpretation of Savonarola's prophetic career and a highly nuanced assessment of his vision and motivations.
Fire in the City: Savonarola and the Struggle for the Soul of Renaissance Florence (Online) by Lauro Martines Going beyond caricatures of Savonarola, this biography shows the prophet as a complex and subtle man: compassionate, wise, a poet and scholar, and even, at critical moments, a force for moderation.

Erasmus of Rotterdam: The Spirit of a Scholar by William Barker A popular biography of widely influential northern Renaissance scholar Erasmus of Rotterdam.
Erasmus of Rotterdam: Advocate of a New Christianity by Christine Christ von-Wedel Provides the first analysis of the development of Erasmus' historical methodology and its impact on Roman Catholic and Protestant theologians. Combining a biography of Erasmus with the larger theological debates and the intellectual history of his time, it reveals many of previously unexplored influences on Erasmus, as well as his influences on his contemporaries.
Thomas Cromwell: A Life by Diarmaid MacCulloch The most comprehensive biography of Cromwell to date.
The Cambridge Companion to Thomas More by George M. Logan (Editor) This Companion offers a comprehensive introduction to the life and work of Thomas More. Combining breadth of coverage with depth, the book opens with essays on More's family, early life and education, his literary humanism, virtuoso rhetoric, illustrious public career and ferocious opposition to emergent Protestantism, and his fall from power, incarceration, trial and execution.
Thomas More by John Guy

Bartolomé de Las Casas: A Biography by Lawrence A. Clayton A major English-language and scholarly biography of Las Casas' life.
Another Face of Empire: Bartolomé de las Casas, Indigenous Rights, and Ecclesiastical Imperialism (Online) by Daniel Castro A revisionist assessment of the friar's career, writings, and political activities. Argues that Las Casas was an imperialist who was intent on converting the Indians to Christianity, the religion of the colonizers.