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Collection: "Heresy and Error": The Ecclesiastical Censorship of Books, 1400–1800
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00753
This pamphlet on the proposed marriage between Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603) and Francis, Duke of Anjou (1555–1584), argued that English sovereignty, religion, and morality would be undermined by the queen's union with this Catholic French suitor.…
01802
In 1643, church authorities ensured that the poet John Milton was refused a license to publish a controversial essay in favor of the right to divorce. In response, Milton composed the pamphlet entitled Areopagitica (after the ancient Athenian court…
06314
The first papal decree to list forbidden writings was the Decretum Gelasianum, attributed to Pope Gelasius (d. 496). While this list canonized the works of St. Augustine, St. Jerome, and other "orthodox fathers," it also enumerated which Christian…
06401
This translation of the Legenda aurea by William Caxton (c. 1422–1491) is the first English edition of Jacobus de Voragine's highly popular compendium of saints' lives. In Bridwell Library's copy, as in several others that survive, several leaves…
06721
King Ferdinand V (1452–1516) invited the Bishop of Coria to write the Luzero de la vida cristiana ("Morning Star of the Christian Life") in order to "expel the darkness of ignorance" from Spain, particularly among Jews and Muslims who had endured…
07017
The text of the Psalms, printed in large letters, is surrounded with commentary by David ben Joseph Ḳimḥi (c. 1160–c. 1235) in smaller types. A Christian censor used ink and small sheets of paper to omit words from commentary and entire passages.
19461
In the first edition of the official decrees of the Council of Trent the necessity of an organized approach to censorship was clearly stated in the summary of the eighteenth Tridentine session.
30847
In this collection of forty-seven sermons on the Book of Job, a censor marked the beginning of Sermon 14 as "proibita" ("prohibited") in brown ink, and the bottom right corner of the first leaf of the sermon was torn away. It was later repaired, with…
30854
In this copy of Savonarola's sermons on the Book of Ezechiel, the three prohibited sermons in this collection were left undisturbed but a later note states that Sermons 21, 32, and 40 were cited in the Index librorum prohibitorum. The woodcut on the…
30855
The title page of this edition of Savonarola's Lenten sermons on the prophecies of Amos bears a woodcut depicting the author's public execution. While the assembled men and women look to his empty pulpit, the martyr, engulfed in flames, holds aloft a…
30858
Eight of the twenty-six sermons on Exodus in this edition (numbered 1-3, 6, 10, 12, 20, and 23) are marked "questa e prohibita" ("this is prohibited").
30860
In Bridwell Library's copy of Savonarola's sermons on the Books of Ruth and Micah, Sermon 7 on the third chapter of Ruth was censored by the removal of twelve leaves (folios 82-93). Only the beginning and the very end of the sermon remain.
30874
This sermon by Savonarola, never prohibited by the Index, was inscribed by an early owner "Si puo leggere senza scrupolo" ("You may read this without scruple").
30878
This copy of his De simplicitate vitae christiane, printed in Spain, bears a seventeenth-century inscription on its title page warning that the "Auctor iste damnatus" ("the author is damned"). However, citing the Historia pontifical y cathólica by…
30891
A censor tore ten leaves from this collection of Savonarola's sermons, removing the prohibited third sermon entitled "Ecce gladius Domini" ("Behold the Sword of God"), which had alarmed church officials with its apocalyptic warnings. Several other…
31600
The title page of this expanded edition of Pedro Mexía's history of the Roman and Christian emperors bears an ink inscription in Spanish stating that the book has been "corregido segun el expurgatorio de 1747" ("corrected according to the 1747…
33560
In Bridwell Library's copy of the 1785 Venetian edition of St. Alfonso María de Ligorio's work, the passage condemned by the Mexican Inquisition in 1804 has been thoroughly deleted in ink. As the broadside explained, the passage questions the…
ACY3341
A direct outcome of the Council of Trent, the Index librorum prohibitorum ("Index of Prohibited Books") provided a list of authors and works that were banned by the Catholic Church. The first Tridentine Index prohibited the complete writings of 610…
ACZ7178
This catalogue of heretical writings was compiled during the first years of the Protestant Reformation by Bernard of Luxemburg, a Dominican theologian and Inquisitor of Cologne. It was among the first publications to identify the "heretical" works of…
AER6426
In 1552, in an unprecedented action by a printer, Estienne published this response to the Sorbonne's condemnations, offering an introductory account of his two decades of conflict with the Parisian censors and a point-for-point defense of his Bible.…
AET7905
The Council of Trent broke prohibited books into three classes: books by heretical authors, individual prohibited books, and anonymous protected books. They were listed in these three categories until 1664 when books were listed in a single…
AEV5660
In this English translation of the Baron of Holbach's atheistic manifesto, Bon Sens, ou idées naturelles opposées aux idées surnaturelles, first published at Amsterdam in 1772, the lengthy footnote on page 137 explaining how priests were "enemies of…
AEX3672
In Bridwell Library’s copy of the 1584 Biblia Sacra compiled by Franciscus Vatablus, note 20 on Psalm 16 was expurgated after the words “deseres animam meam,” and note 22 was deleted entirely. Although these expurgations match those dictated by…
AEY8119
The more complete removal of the same prohibited sermon on Ruth in this earlier edition had drastic consequences for the physical book as a whole. When the censor cut out all seven leaves of Sermon 7, he also removed the ending of Sermon 6 and the…
AFD2103
In 1546 the Faculty of Theology at the Sorbonne condemned this edition of the Bible, declaring that it was "scattered with things that are erroneous, conducive to scandals, favoring Lutherans, and breathing heresies long ago condemned." Zurich…
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