Pioneering and unprecedented, Jesuitization aims to bring to light the Jesuits’ deep influence on modern canonization law and the development of the hagiographical model of the aristocratic Jesuit or Jesuit-influenced saint as a means of strengthening the order’s pact with Italian aristocracy after the Council of Trent (1545-63) and shaping it according to a series of Jesuit religious-cultural values. It also explores how the Ignatian
aristocratic model was reinterpreted in Italian non-aristocratic society by lay congregation-founder B. Cacciaguerra. It does so by assessing a) the long-considered lost but recently-rediscovered treatise Directorium canonizationis by Jesuit V. Cepari, a keystone and yet unstudied source for the canonization legal system in the Early Modern Era; b) three case studies of Jesuit (male) or female Jesuit-influenced models of sanctity, viz. the aristocratic Jesuits Roberto Bellarmino and Luigi Gonzaga and Carmelite nun Maria Maddalena De’ Pazzi; c) Cacciaguerra’s manuscript utobiography. Based on the never-studied Directorium, manuscript canonization records, printed hagiographies, and autobiographies, it employs an nterdisciplinary approach that integrates methods from the history of ideas, legal history, hermeneutics applied to legal texts, gender studies (including the history of women in religion and history of masculinity) and sociology. Jesuitization will impact both the scientific community and wider public: it will signal a paradigm shift in ways of looking at the Jesuits’ role in the development of the idea of modern sanctity and share new knowledge via peer reviewed articles, a conference, critical editions or digitalization of unpublished manuscripts, and new teaching and learning
materials; it will raise awareness of the importance of historical research via a communication plan targeting university and high school students, the City of Turin and tourists. Planned activities include a public exhibition on Jesuit saints.