The early modern period is a complex and multi-faceted age that many times defies periodization and is complex from the international to the local level. New types of art and literature, the protestant rebellion, the Council of Trent and Catholic renewal, and the development of the nation-state are major upheavals proceeding from the medieval life of Europe. The present work by Silvia Mostaccio is a wonderful example of new methods and a new perspective applied to the subject of Jesuit obedience from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth century.

This monograph is made up of a preface, an introduction, four chapters, and a conclusion. The time period is the Generalate of Claudio Acquaviva, 1581–1615. Acquaviva's was then the longest generalate by far, lasting thirty-four years as opposed to the previous length of seven, except for Loyola himself, who ruled for fifteen. Thus, immediately, the importance of Acquaviva's rule is noted; it is more than twice that of the founder and five times that of the any of the previous three. Also, the Society tripled in size under Acquaviva; it was longevity with growth. The preface, by Flavio Rurale (University of Udine, Friuli, Italy), a noted specialist in religious orders during the sixteenth century, sets the stage of the monograph by stating that the book will set the boundaries between “what is within and what is outside” (vii). Both Rurale in the preface and Mostaccio in the introduction emphasize the selective nature of this short monograph. However, this does not mean it lacks depth, is unaware of large amounts of source material, or is not familiar with the secondary literature appropriate to the thesis. A simple perusal of the bibliography (169–195) shows work in primary sources, including manuscripts and printed sources such as Jesuit and other religious order histories and documents. Secondary sources include works by Bangert, Châtellier, De Guibert, Delumeau, Monter, and O'Malley. These works span decades and languages. The bibliography provides a solid base for the work.

Mostaccio begins by asking this question in the first few paragraphs of the introduction: “Why should anyone be interested in Jesuit obedience at all?” (1) She answers with the observation that, unlike many other religious, Jesuits were embroiled in religious/political controversies in both Europe and the New World, in the context of mission to Catholic and protestant, and from the “elites and the lower orders” (2). Jesuit thinking, Jesuit teaching, and Jesuit missions mattered to a great many people. Mostaccio discusses method and charts its course. She is not attempting a systematic or exhaustive work: “Rather, the route I have chosen runs between what was within the Society and outside it; between the religious space and the political in terms of the broader acceptance of the meaning of obedience, and between theoretical elaborations, models and behavioral practices” (3). For example, she speaks of Catholic redefinition of Roman Catholicism, an adaptation that produced “hybrid Catholicisms” that proceed from a “global physiognomy” due to “its missionary expansion” (9). This produced “reform and repression” the church's “two complementary elements of Roman strategy” (9). This idea comes from Robert Bireley's “Redefining Catholicism: Trent and Beyond” (R. Po-Chia Hsia, ed., The Cambridge History of Christianity: Volume 6; Reform and Expansion 1500–1660 [New York: Cambridge University, 2007], 145–161).

In Chapter 1, Mostaccio states, “The methodology formulated by Quentin Skinner in the 1970s provides the prompt that lies behind the work that follows” (18). His work, according to Mostaccio, highlights the birth and evolution of the state and the men who administered it. She then moves to the impact of this thinking as it moves from “political thought to political life” and includes Jesuits in the political life of these forming nation-states (18–19). This is the starting gate for her work here. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 are built on this theoretical foundation. In chapter 2, “‘Perinde Ac Si Cadaver Essent,’” Mostaccio works through the complex edifice of Jesuit obedience through the four vows, Jesuit tradition, and Jesuit texts. Mostaccio states, “In my view, the complexity of this obedience-that of a person as a subject who acts as if he were a corpse, but staying fully an individual, attentive to the interior motions of his soul as well as the context of his existence-has to be examined through a comparison of the sources” (81). Chapter 3, “Heirarchies of Obedience in the Society of Jesus during the Pontificate of Sixtus V, (1585–90),” focuses on Sixtus V reorganization of the government of the church to be more centralist. (83) His relationship to the Jesuits was less cordial than previous popes, seeing the Society as a “peculiar order” that resisted control despite its fourth vow of papal obedience (84). In Chapter 4, “A Gendered Obedience? The Spiritual Exercises by Jesuits and by Women: Two Case Studies and their Context,” Mostaccio examines the relationship between obedience to exterior authority and obedience to an individual's conscience within Jesuit thought in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries” (105–106). She gives two examples of women who stood “shoulder to shoulder with some Jesuits” producing “the construction of a shared and socially relevant devout identity” (154). Women retained the importance that they had to Ignatius in a pastoral and service relationship, but it was not the same obedience expected of men.

In the conclusion, Mostaccio reviews the “unremitting tension” between obedience to conscience and obedience “to their political and religious masters” (166). She definitively demonstrates the near impossibility of being obedient to one's king, to the pope, to one's religious superior, to one's conscience, and finally, to God. Though not a long work and admittedly not exhaustive, Mostaccio has whetted our appetites for more and after reading this book one wants to know more about how obedience worked in the early modern period. One hopes more is forthcoming, especially from such a solid and insightful historian as Silvia Mostaccio.