Being a Jesuit in Renaissance Italy: Biographical Writing in the Early Global Age, by Camilla Russell

Abstract

In 1588, a Jesuit named Giovanni Battista Eliano (1530–89) put to paper an account of his remarkable life at the request of Claudio Acquaviva (1543–1615), the fifth superior general of the Jesuit order. Eliano, the only Jesuit in the pre-suppression period to have been born Jewish, produced a life narrative that covered his conversion to Catholicism after a period of youthful rebelliousness, his calling to join the Society of Jesus, and his missionary work in Cairo. His memoir deals with complex themes, from the guilt that can arise from leaving the religious faith of one’s family to Eliano’s clear understanding of the social rewards he could accrue by joining the dominant religious faith of his time and place.