Il controllo interno della produzione libraria nella Compagnia di Gesù e la formazione del Collegio dei Revisori generali (1550-1650)

It is a well-known fact that the Society of Jesus played an important role in the ecclesiastical censorship, collaborating with the Congregation of the Index of prohibited books and offering many of its members as “lectures teachers” for the lays. Less known is that the first Jesuits organised an internal circuit of censorship, according to which every book written by a Jesuit should be examined in advance by a commitee of brethren. According to the normative, the purpose of such a measure would have been the preservation of the “doctrinal uniformity” inside the Company. But this official position conceals another reason why the books had to be controlled. As recent researches have shown, the Company of Jesus was - at its very beginning - suspected by the Inquisition. The new, influent position reached by the Jesuits inside of the Church must not be compromised by incidents with the Congregation of the Holy Office and of the Index, caused by the publication of books that risked to bring back the memory of ancient divergences in matter of doctrine. By controlling themselves in advance, the Jesuits did not run the risk to be controlled later by the ordinary ecclesiastical tribunals. This paper tries to see theory and practice of the internal jesuitic censorship, tracing the evolution of normative, its concrete exercise, the obstacles frequently met and its relationship with the changes occurred into the Company and into the Roman tribunals of the faith during almost a century.