In this essay Villani highlights how the possibility for “heretics” to travel, trade and settle in a Catholic country, was theoretically impossible in early modern period but in reality things went quite differently. Since the sixteenth century the draconian regulations on travel were accompanied by a correspondingly flexible practice that left “heretic” travelers who acted with prudence completely unmolested. However, the existence of strict regulations, even if they were always disregarded, left ample room for abuse and selective prosecution over the years spurring Protestant countries to, often successfully, introduce some modicum of protection for Protestants travelling to or residing in Catholic countries. The vicissitudes of the Protestant English and Dutch communities in Leghorn in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and their conflicts with the Inquisition and the religious and political authorities in Tuscany demostrated, concretely, how religious questions for these foreign communities assumed an identitarian dimension. Consequently they should be understood primarily in a political context.
Religione e politica: le comunità protestanti a Livorno nel XVII e XVIII secolo
VILLANI, STEFANO
2003-01-01
Abstract
In this essay Villani highlights how the possibility for “heretics” to travel, trade and settle in a Catholic country, was theoretically impossible in early modern period but in reality things went quite differently. Since the sixteenth century the draconian regulations on travel were accompanied by a correspondingly flexible practice that left “heretic” travelers who acted with prudence completely unmolested. However, the existence of strict regulations, even if they were always disregarded, left ample room for abuse and selective prosecution over the years spurring Protestant countries to, often successfully, introduce some modicum of protection for Protestants travelling to or residing in Catholic countries. The vicissitudes of the Protestant English and Dutch communities in Leghorn in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and their conflicts with the Inquisition and the religious and political authorities in Tuscany demostrated, concretely, how religious questions for these foreign communities assumed an identitarian dimension. Consequently they should be understood primarily in a political context.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
