BRB0396

This notification prohibits fifty-five books and mandates the expurgation of six others. The prohibited titles range from No. 9, the obscene French novel Voyage dans le Boudoir de Paulina, to No. 14, Edward Gibbon’s six-volume History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (London, 1776–1789). The latter work, widely considered one of the foundations of modern historical method, was banned on account of its negative characterization of the early Church.