There is much to commend in this book; there is much to caution against. Prosperi's work first appeared in two volumes in Italian in 2013 and 2016 under the title Delitto e perdono: La pena di morte nell'orizzonte mentale dell'Europa cristiana, XIV–XVIII secolo. A direct translation of that title would be something like “Crime and Pardon: The Death Penalty in the Point of View (or Perspective) of Christian Europe, 14th–18th Centuries.” One simple complaint, then, about the title selected by Belknap Press is that a medievalist (such as this reviewer) expects a book about medieval Europe when, in fact, the book's focus and original research lies squarely in the early modern period. Belknap Press (or the translator) also selected a more intriguing title. “Christianizing Execution” sounds tantalizing; it remains unclear to this reviewer whether, across the more than 500 pages of text, the author ever clearly explains or makes the case that “execution” was “Christianized.” Harvard University Press's website and Prosperi's own prologue and introductory chapters seem to promise delivery on this point. The marketing blurb reads, “A provocative analysis of how Christianity helped legitimize the death penalty in early modern Europe, then throughout the Christian world, by turning execution into a great cathartic public ritual and the condemned into a Christ-like figure who accepts death to save humanity” (https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674659841, accessed March 1, 2021). In this reviewer's opinion, the book does not support such a statement. The heart of the book would support the following thesis: based on late medieval precedents of charitable associations devoted to the care, comfort, and burial of the condemned, Christians in early modern Europe participated in private and public comforting rituals for those condemned to die that, regardless of intention, functioned to bolster early modern state power while accepting and even advancing both religious and political rationales for the death penalty.

Prosperi is not shy about his own convictions. He opens the book with a provocative comparison of the American response to the killing of Osama bin Laden compared to the Italian one. In the early chapters of the book, Prosperi repeatedly points to the inconsistencies within a religion devoted to worship of a condemned man and yet eager to justify the legality of government-authorized executions. He turns to Cesare Beccaria, who wrote one of the most important early criticisms of the foundations of the death penalty. He points out the centrality of the notion of vengeance (uindicta) in capital punishment, contrasting vengeance with forgiveness. From the perspective of a medievalist, the first several chapters present an impassioned but wandering attempt to lay a foundation in the early Christian and medieval period for what follows. Within a few pages, Prosperi jumps from an inaccurate discussion of Peter Abelard (it is a misrepresentation to say that Abelard “had strongly criticized the exercising of ecclesiastical authority itself” [28]) in the twelfth century to a mid-thirteenth-century pope and the initial stages of the Inquisition and then back to Augustine in the early fifth century. These early chapters include such generalized statements as: “But the division of tasks [apparently applicable from Pope Gelasius to at least the Hohenstaufen emperors] created two different forms of rhetoric: that of forgiveness, the preserve of the Church, and of rigor, which belonged to the empire” (42). Any medievalist worth their weight would know that such a statement is, at worst, simply false or, at best, needing serious nuance and qualification. The early chapters are filled with these kinds of claims.

Prosperi hits his stride in the final two-thirds of the book, where the actual object of his study comes into focus, namely the confraternities of justice operating primarily in Italy in the late medieval and early modern period. Prosperi successfully documents the operations of these groups and accurately finds their origin in the variety of confraternities that emerged in the towns of Italy beginning in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. These groups consisted of those individuals who, wishing to maintain their lay status, joined together into a semi-formal society devoted to a particular pious work. These kinds of confraternities were important throughout Europe for the founding of hospitals, for instance. One type of these confraternities focused its attention on comforting those condemned to die and taking care of their bodies after their execution. Members spent the night before the execution with the criminal, attempting to lead them to repentance if they had not yet confessed their sins and assuring them of their salvation if they were in fact repentant. Records of such associations all around the cities of Italy, casuistic manuals devoted to various scenarios the comforters might face, narrative accounts of “comforters,” and artistic representations of executions with comforters at their side all increase in the early modern period when, as political infighting and rebellions increased, the scaffolds in city squares witnessed far more executions than ever before. Prosperi also notes the changing socio-economic constitution of these confraternities; more and more, members of the elite class filled their ranks. Italy takes center stage, but Prosperi also discusses the spread and modifications of comforting rituals to other regions in Europe, with special attention to the Jesuits and to changes in Protestant-dominated regions.

The work is written eloquently and passionately, and Carden is to be commended for a translation where such eloquence and passion are retained. The book will be most useful for its historically sound discussion of the confraternities of justice in the early modern period, but historians should be cautious about accepting claims Prosperi makes about the early Christian or medieval period. They might also question Prosperi's theoretical framework: that Christians were willing participants in rituals around executions is certain; that this participation can be framed as the “Christianizing of execution” or that these rituals turned the convict into a Christ-like, scapegoat figure is less certain.