An older historiography stressed the prominent role of the printing press and of the pulpit in the Protestant Reformation; by implication or by explicit assertion, sixteenth-century Catholicism was portrayed as at least relatively impoverished in its experience and appreciation of preaching and of print. Focusing on vernacular Italian preaching that was published between the mid- and late 1500s, this book argues that preaching was “central to Italian communal and religious life” (53), and that printing presses in sixteenth-century Italy were very busy indeed in publishing both volumes of sermons and books on how to preach, works that were often re-printed many times, thus demonstrating that a major market existed for such materials. With the help of some well-designed graphs (29–31), the author shows that after approximately 1540 there was a major increase in the number of sermons printed, an increase that did not abate until the end of the century.

Emily Michelson alludes a number of times to two types of preaching that were well-developed in Italy before the Reformation: popular vernacular preaching by itinerant preachers, often friars, such as Bernardino of Siena, and learned pulpit oratory delivered in Latin to smaller, elite audiences. Popular preaching was not short on drama, as the preachers “might hold their noses, feign playing a trumpet, assume a fetal position, wear dramatic costumes or remove parts of their clothes, sing, spit, groan or cry” (24). Michelson shows how the sixteenth-century orators she has studied, such as Franciscan friar Francesco Panigarola (1548–1594), ridiculed such sensational antics in the pulpit, and emphasized instead a carefully measured tone and moderate gestures. With sermons that lasted an hour or two or longer, Panigarola's feats were verbal, as he cited a wide range of authorities, used alliteration and metaphor effectively, in order to exhort and inspire his audiences. He was “perhaps the greatest Italian preacher of the Baroque period” (144).

From the 1540s, a concern with rooting out “heresy” or preventing it by teaching Catholic doctrine animated many preachers. Denouncing heresy as an especially virulent form of pride, the worst of the seven deadly sins, indeed the root of sin, pulpit orators sought to promote the humility that accepted Catholic teaching as handed down over the centuries. The author identifies a Conventual Franciscan, Cornelio Musso (1511–1574), as the best known Italian preacher of the mid-century, a friar who was also a bishop and who emphasized doctrine, indeed a kind of catechism, in his own preaching. Musso was among the bishops at the Council of Trent. Michelson argues that the influence of Trent on preaching was multi-faceted and variable, and did not mean a uniform style or content of preaching was henceforth prescribed or followed. Italian preachers took seriously the Council's efforts to clarify Catholic doctrine and to distinguish it from heresy, and they saw the pulpit as a privileged place for explaining both scripture and doctrine. Exegetical, line by line preaching on verses of scripture was not common or frequent in Italy, but neither was it excluded. Trent's insistence on the importance of preaching as a central part of what bishops and those with cura animarum were to do did not include detailed instructions for how or even what to preach. The Council “trusted preachers to use their judgment and to present the material in whatever way seemed most likely to reach their audience” (174).

There are some weaknesses in this very well-written book. Most of Michelson's preachers were members of mendicant orders, especially the Franciscans, but also the Augustinians, Carmelites, and others. She sometimes refers to various mendicants as monks (see, for example, 15, 20), which they were not. She mentions the Jesuits and some other orders or congregations created in the sixteenth century, but readers interested in their preaching will have to look elsewhere. The author states that “Jesuits considered preaching the most important of their mandates” (141–142), yet she includes little on Jesuit sermons; she instead points out the growing network of Jesuit schools, the involvement of Jesuits in theater, and in new devotions such as the Forty Hours. Another instance of whetting the reader's appetite but then not providing anything to satisfy it is in an otherwise excellent section where Michelson discusses the physical appearance and characteristics of books of printed sermons, including woodcut flourishes and borders, various fonts and typefaces, and illustrations. Photographs of several title pages of sermon books offer some insight, but there is a paucity of other reproductions of “illustrations” or even descriptions of what they were. A lost opportunity! Martin Luther's rejection of the canonical status of certain books in Catholic Bibles—a controversy that was important background to Trent and what it had to say on scripture, as Michelson correctly points out—she overstates by including John among Luther's demoted books (68). In fact, he emphasized the gospel of John as one of the most important books in the Bible for an understanding of Christian doctrine.

In her concluding pages the author suggests that the vernacular sermons she has studied shed light on a shift from fear of heresy at mid-century to a triumphant confidence in Catholicism by century's end. And yet such triumphalism she deftly demonstrates did not mean imposition from above of stifling uniformity of content or form in the pulpit. On the contrary, a careful reading of sixteenth-century Italian sermons helps one to set aside “black legends and stereotypes about lockstep and unthinking Catholic conformity” (175). The book is well worth the attention of a wide range of scholars and students.