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 and China.
Friedrich Spee was a German Jesuit priest, professor, and poet, most well known as a forceful opponent of witch trials and one who was an insider writing from the epicenter of the European witch-phobia. Spee argued strongly against the use of torture, and as an eyewitness he gathered a book full of details regarding its cruelty and unreliability. He wrote, "Torture has the power to create witches where none exist."
Francesco Antonio Zaccaria was an Italian theologian, historian, and prolific writer.
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, 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.
Pietro Perna was an Italian printer, the leading printer of Late Renaissance Basel, the Erasmian crossroads between Italian Renaissance humanism and the Protestant Reformation. His books promoted the Italian heretical thinkers at the origins of Socinianism and the theory of Tolerance. He was a major publisher of Protestant historians like Flacius Illyricus and David Chytraeus and promoted the ars historica treatises of the period, notably the 18 authores de historia in Artis Historicae Penus (1579).
Tommaso Tamburini was an Italian Jesuit moral theologian.
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 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 (1545–49) 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.
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 brought out in 1579 by the late Renaissance Basel printer Pietro Perna. This compendium in octavo appeared in 2 volumes with a copious index. A third volume adds the final work by Antonio Riccoboni, often missing in library collections as a separate edition. Three years earlier, in 1576, Perna brought out a single volume in the same format that ran to 1140 pages and featured the central work of Jean Bodin in its title, along with twelve other authors. Perna writes a letter to the lover of histories. Editor Johann Wolf dedicates the second collection to Frederick I 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.
Guglielmo Gratarolo or Grataroli or Guilelmus Gratarolus was an Italian doctor and alchemist.
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 superior generals 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”.
