Giuseppe Mazzanti's book is a welcome addition to the thorny field of the doctrinal quarrels related to Tridentine marriages. If, in the last decades, the historiography has viewed Tametsi's decree as the crucial watershed between an ‘old’ order and a ‘new’ order, Mazzanti's analysis instead demonstrates that this division was not so neat and that, even after the Council of Trent, there continued to be room for the so-called illicit marriages made in the previous centuries.

Structured in eight chapters, the book relies on an impressive number of primary sources, among which are many doctrinal and theological treatises. Chapter i begins with a close examination of Tametsi's decree, and how and to what extent its implementation had a real impact on the marriage process. The second chapter brings the reader into a complex and multifaceted reality and demonstrates that, in many areas of the Italian peninsula, the older forms of marriages still continued even after the issuing of the Tridentine decree. In that sense Mazzanti, using many doctrinal and canonical views, clearly elucidates the slow and difficult reception of Tametsi's decree in the Italian dioceses. In chapter iii the author focuses on what was sought on a theoretical level, but which, instead, found a difficult application in the reality. Mazzanti explains all the difficulties, from the point of view of canon law, in removing old practices which were deemed prohibited, but which survived in certain areas. The author specifically sheds light on a type of clandestine marriage which was associated with the illegal transfer of canonical domicile. In chapter iv Mazzanti explores the world of the wanderers and all the canonical and legal problems which they faced once they got married. This was a serious matter and extremely difficult to handle: parish priests struggled to identify the wanderers’ place of origin. In chapter v the author examines the marriages contracted by Catholics who lived in Protestant or non-Christian areas. Drawing on the opinions of the most influential canonists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Mazzanti shows how this theme was much debated, but no one succeeded in finding a solution.

In chapter vi Mazzanti explores and assess the arguments which were used to validate or to void marriages in certain cases. First, the author analyses cases where a marriage was declared illegal when it was celebrated without a parish priest or in urgent circumstances. Once again Mazzanti uses a wide array of texts to display how the views of the most prominent canonists were extremely heterogeneous and subject to many interpretations. On the other hand, Mazzanti considers the opinions of the few canonists who deemed a marriage valid even in the absence of the parish priest. Chapter vii, the logical continuation of chapter vi, provides a brief but detailed overview of how and to which extent the authorities of the Holy See, in particular the Sacred Congregation of the Council, reacted and sought to elaborate a set of responses which, nevertheless, had to adapt to changing circumstances. In chapter ix, Mazzanti focuses on another specific – and controversial – case study: that is, when the parish priest was forced to celebrate the marriage by the parties involved. Even in this case, the author makes ample use of the arguments and opinions of a series of canonists and theologians to highlight that, except some noteworthy exceptions, this kind of forced marriage was deemed valid, thus following the general guidelines of the Sacred Congregation of the Council.

In conclusion Mazzanti's analysis has clarified the troubled period which followed the issuing of the Tridentine decrees on marriages. Through well-articulated and extremely detailed research, the author has been able to debunk the myth of the Tridentine decrees as the final solutions to the complex matter of marriages celebrated before the Council. Indeed, Mazzanti has demonstrated that the old marriage practices did not disappear, but instead survived and, in most of the cases, were incorporated into the new Tridentine pattern. The fact that the book has been published by the Bononia University Press is a further demonstration of the high scholarly level of this work.