Alessandro Valignano, S.J., sometimes Valignani, was an Italian Jesuit priest and missionary born in Chieti, part of the Kingdom of Naples, who helped supervise the introduction of Catholicism to the Far East, and especially to Japan.
Francesco Antonio Zaccaria was an Italian theologian, historian, and prolific writer.
Noël Alexandre, or Natalis Alexander in Latin was a French theologian, author, and ecclesiastical historian.
The Ratio atque Institutio Studiorum Societatis Iesu, often abbreviated as Ratio Studiorum, was a document that standardized the globally influential system of Jesuit education in 1599.
Antonio Possevino was a Jesuit protagonist of Counter Reformation as a papal diplomat and a Jesuit controversialist, polemicist, encyclopedist, and bibliographer. He was the first Jesuit to visit Muscovy, Sweden, Denmark, Livonia, Hungary, Pomerania, and Saxony in amply documented papal missions between 1578 and 1586 where he championed the enterprising policies of Pope Gregory XIII.
Bibliotheca selecta is a bibliographical encyclopedia by the Jesuit Antonio Possevino, printed in two folio volumes at the Typographia Apostolica Vaticana by Domenico Basa in 1593. It represents an authoritative and up-to-date Jesuit compendium of Counter-Reformation knowledge.
Edmond Auger, was a French Jesuit priest and confessor of Henry III of France.
Bonizo of Sutri or Bonitho was a Bishop of Sutri and then of Piacenza in central Italy, in the last quarter of the 11th century. He was an adherent of Gregory VII and an advocate of the reforming principles of that pope. He wrote three works of polemical history, including Liber ad amicum, which detailed the struggles between civil and religious authorities. He was driven out of both of his dioceses, once by the emperor and once by opponents of Gregorian-style reform.
The Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu (MHSI) is a collection of scholarly volumes on critically edited documents on the origin and early years of the Society of Jesus, including the life and writings of St Ignatius of Loyola.
The Jesuit Historical Institute, also known as IHSI, is an international group of Jesuit historians committed since the end of the 19th century to bring out scientifically critical editions of the foundational texts of the Society of Jesus, and to promote research on the history of the Jesuits. Originally based in Madrid, the institute is now quartered in Rome.
Benedict Pereira was a Spanish Jesuit philosopher, theologian, and exegete.
Bibliotheca universalis (1545–1549) was the first truly comprehensive "universal" listing of all the books of the first century of printing. It was an alphabetical bibliography that listed all the known books printed in Latin, Greek, or Hebrew. It listed 10,000 titles by 1,800 authors.
The Jakub Wujek Bible was the main Polish Bible translation used in the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church in Poland from the late 16th century till the mid-20th century.
Ars Historica was a genre of humanist historiography in the later Renaissance. It produced a small library of treatises underscoring the stylistic aspects of writing history as a work of art, but also introducing the contributions of philology and textual criticism in its precepts and evaluations.
Artis Historicae Penus is a compilation of 18 ars historica works issued in Basel by the humanist printer Pietro Perna, This later edition appeared in 2 volumes with a copious index. A third volume adds the final work by Antonio Riccoboni. Beforehand, in 1576, Perna brought out a single volume that ran to 1140 pages and featured the Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem (1566) of Jean Bodin in its title, followed by twelve other treatises. Perna writes a letter to the lover of histories. The 1576 letter of Protestant editor Johann Wolff dedicates the later collection to Frederick I, Duke of Wurttemberg. He states that he has included all the princely dedications and prefaces of the single works from the source editions for the sake of completeness.
Christian Francken was a former Jesuit who became an anti-Trinitarian writer.
Balthasar Moretus or Balthasar I Moretus was a Flemish printer and head of the Officina Plantiniana, the printing company established by his grandfather Christophe Plantin in Antwerp in 1555. He was the son of Martina Plantin and Jan Moretus.
Juan Alfonso de Polanco, SJ was a Spanish Jesuit priest. From 1547 to 1556, he was the secretary of Ignatius of Loyola and one of his closest advisers. Later, he was the secretary of the first two superiors general of the Society of Jesus after Loyola, Diego Laynez, and Francis Borgia. He also chronicled the early history of the Jesuits.
Rodrigo de Arriaga was a Spanish philosopher, theologian and Jesuit. He is known as one of the foremost Spanish Jesuits of his day and as a leading representative of post-Suárezian baroque Jesuit nominalism. Accordig to Richard Popkin, Arriaga was “the last of the great Spanish Scholastics”.
Ottavio Gaetani was an Italian Jesuit and historian, writing exclusively in Latin and most notable for his Vitae Sanctorum Siculorum. He is held to be the founder of hagiography in his native Sicily and one of the island's main 16th-century and early 17th-century historians.
