PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Camilla Russell is Publications Editor for Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu at the Roman Jesuit Archive. She is the author of Giulia Gonzaga and the Religious Controversies of Sixteenth-Century Italy and Fellow in History at the University of Newcastle, Australia.
Camilla Russell's collective biography tells a remarkable story about the early Italian Jesuits. Examining why a variety of individuals joined the order, what they did there, and why some of them left, this book brings their world back to life. -Peter Burke, author of The Italian Renaissance It is daring to write in a single breath the early history of the Society of Jesus, which encompassed thousands of exemplary lives in all their diversity, fluidity, and mobility. Fortunately, Camilla Russell dared. Looking closely at unpublished documents and foundational texts, she creates an illuminating fresco of the lives of Italian Jesuits. Her lucid account reveals how individual members both shaped the Society and, in turn, were shaped by it. -Ines G. Zupanov, coauthor of Catholic Orientalism In the first century of the Society of Jesus, thousands signed up to join the new order. This richly textured study draws on a treasure trove of biographical records to reconstruct the motives and experiences of those who lived and died as Jesuits. -Mary Laven, author of Mission to China Utterly original in its approach, this study fundamentally changes our understanding of how the Jesuits saw themselves and the Society in its first hundred years. Russell's insightful analysis shows that the early Jesuits not only negotiated their identities with reference to authoritative texts, but also viewed these texts through the lens of quotidian experience. -Simon Ditchfield, author of Liturgy, Sanctity and History in Tridentine Italy
