1st Edition

A Cultural History of Tolerance Ideas, Conflicts, and Protagonists

By Lucia Felici, Girolamo Imbruglia Copyright 2026
262 Pages
by Routledge

262 Pages
by Routledge

Covering the entire European system and its relations with the East and America, this first global history of tolerance in early modern Europe describes how the ideal of tolerance and its realisation transformed both the religious and political life of the modern world. In the 16th century, Christianity was split apart by the Lutheran revolt, a fracture which would become a political one.... Read more

Introduction: Background: The Genesis of the Idea of Tolerance from the Gospel Age to the Middle Ages

Part I: The 16th and 17th Centuries

1. From Catholic Unity to the Multiplicity of Worlds

2. Religious Freedom and Tolerance in the Age of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation

3. Practising Coexistence, Theorising Tolerance

4. The 17th Century: From Religious Tolerance to Modern Freedom

Part II: From Religious Toleration to Political Freedom

5. The 16th Century: Community, Civic Religion, and the Need for Toleration

6. The 17th Century: The Strength of Faith

7. The 17th Century: Tolerance and Sovereignty

8. The 18th Century: Holland, Germany, and Empire

9. The 18th Century: After the Glorious Revolution – Great Britain

10. The 18th Century: France

11. The 18th Century: The American Revolution and Diderot

Biography

Lucia Felici is Professor of Modern History at the University of Florence. Her research interests concern the religious, cultural, and social history of Early Modern Europe. Among her recent publications are: Senza frontiere: L’Europa di Erasmo (1538-1600) (2021); La Livornina: Alle origini di Livorno, città cosmopolita in età moderna (ed.; 2024), and Olimpia Fulvia Morata: Una vita tra Rinascimento e Riforma (2024).

Girolamo Imbruglia is Emeritus Professor of Modern History at the University ‘L’Orientale’. His research interests concern the history of political ideas and the history of Christianity in Early Modern Europe. Among his recent publications are: The Jesuit Missions of Paraguay and a Cultural History of Utopia (1568–1789) (2017), Utopia. Una storia politica da Savonarola a Babeuf (2021), and ‘Fausto Sozzini, la teoria del sacrificio e il socinianesimo’ (2021).