Jesuit culture between texts and arts

It is an essential and specific feature of so-called Jesuit art that it served evangelisation in a broad sense, both in Europe and outside Europe – basically within the entire world at that time. This unique, so to speak, global reach of Jesuit art is a striking characteristic in the context of the history of modern art and culture in the European tradition subordinated mainly to the category of national and local taste. This global reach is probably the reason why the Jesuits achieved such spectacular momentum in their artistic and cultural activities. The Order boldly adapted European cultural patterns to foreign traditions. Jesuits were not afraid of combining and crossing many styles, sometimes really distant in an aesthetical sense. Moreover, they did not feel disgusted before popular art, perceived maybe even as low art in those times, seeing in it an excellent communication tool with the recipient.

from the Word of Introduction

Word of Introduction from Editors / 7

Part I: Jesuit Culture and Theatre

Tomasz Jeż
The Topic of America in the 18th-Century Jesuit Drama / 11

Hanna Walsdorf
Teaching Morality through Dance on Stage: The Jesuit Ballet de College in 18th-Century Paris / 19

Maria Delimata
In Theatre We Trust. The Impact of Jesuit Culture on the Holy Week Performances in the Philippines / 31

Part II: Jesuit Culture Mirrored in the Texts

Anna Gawarecka
The Jesuits – the Czech Books’ Oppressors? The Ambivalent Part of the Jesuit Order in Constructing the Cultural Landscape of the Czechs / 45

Björn Freter
Quid aliud agat or How One Should Live. An Analysis of the Jesuit Drama of Georg Bernardt from the Perspective of Existential Philosophy / 63

Sergiy Seryakov
The Image of the Jesuit School Theatre in the Polish Historiography of the 19th–20th Centuries / 73

António Manuel de Andrade Moniz
Classical References in Two Travel Accounts by Jesuit Portuguese Writers in the 16th Century / 85

Part III: Jesuit Culture between the Arts

Jakub Zdzisław Lichański
Book Bindings from the Collections of the Library of Collegium Societatis Iesu in Braniewo, as a Missionary Tool of the Jesuit Order. An Introduction to Research / 99

Cristina Osswald
Jesuit Devotion and Art in Goa: Between East and West (1542–1759) / 119

Małgorzata Lisecka
On the Aesthetics of Opera in Le rivoluzioni del teatro musicale italiano by Esteban Arteaga ý Lopez / 129

Małgorzata Lisecka

Magdalena Lisecka