L'argine e il remo. Inquisizione e gesuiti nella Restaurazione romana

The riverbank and the oar. The Inquisition and the Jesuits in Restoration Rome.Some months before the publication on August 7th 1814 of the papal bull Sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarum, which restored the Company of Jesus, a number of much less well-known provisions put the Roman Inquisition back into action, after it had been suppressed in 1809 by the Napoleonic government. This article retraces the intersections between those two simultaneous restorations, starting from the role played by some Holy Office staff in the complex process of developing the text of the Jesuits' bull and in the strong conflicts it occasioned, as revealed by new sources. The revival of both institutions in the XIXth century was promoted, among others, by the "zealous " cardinal Pacca and was strongly fostered during Leo XII's pontificate, while a seat among the consultants of the Inquisition was reserved for the Jesuits from 1835 on. The inquisitors' action was conditioned in many aspects by the changes in the political and social context as compared with that of the Old Regime. Nonetheless, examining in parallel the renewed vicissitudes of the two main institutions of the Counter-reformation contributes to understanding the XIXth century history of the Company of Jesus itself, making it possible to integrate the pedagogic and the repressive aspects of a single strategy of response to the shock of the Revolution.