Religious Orders and Roman Curia: Jesuits and Papal Nepotism in the Seventeenth Century; The Opinion of General Superior Gian Paolo Oliva (1676)

Starting from a historiographical reflection that focuses on the studies of R. Bireley and A. Lynn Martin, and through research conducted in the Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu (relating to the generalship of G. P. Oliva), the essay intends to explore the theme of the multiple political allegiances of religious orders and Jesuits in particular in the early modern age. The simplified reading of a Jesuit order obedient to the papacy should be revised in favour of a more complex and less ideologised view of the history of the post-Tridentine Church.