Beyond Catholicism ― Heresy, Mysticism, and Apocalypse in Italian Culture

Bringing together scholarly contributors from a wide variety of disciplines, Beyond Catholicism excavates the interconnections between religious belief, heresy, and mysticism in Italian culture from the Middle Ages to the present. In particular, these essays explore how religious discourse has unfolded within Italian culture in the context of shifting paradigms of rationality, of authority and time, of good and evil, and of human collectivities. Ranging from Biblical interpretation and eschatology to secular messianism, religious politics, and modern/postmodern narratives, they expand our understanding of the relationship between the history of faith and Italian culture, as well as between religious belief and secularism.

Fabrizio De Donno is Lecturer in Italian at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK.

Simon Gilson is Professor of Italian at Warwick University, UK.