Biography

Giacomo Mariani is a freelance researcher and archivist. He obtained his PhD from the Fondazione San Carlo (Modena) and the Central European University (Budapest) in 2019. Since then, he has held postdoctoral positions at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, at the Fondazione Michele Pellegrino (Turin), at the University of Münster and at the Ecole Française de Rome. His research interests encompass religious, social and intellectual history, with special attention to preaching, religious dissent and the debates on Christian afterlife. He has published a monograph on the life and works of the Franciscan Roberto Caracciolo da Lecce and an edition of the oldest trials of the Holy Office of Imola.

Project Summary

The patristic principle of nulla salus extra Ecclesiam set strict boundaries between Christians and others. The negation thereof, supporting the possibility for men and women who lived a morally good life to obtain afterlife salvation regardless of their faith, arguably gave way to ideas of tolerance, relativity of religions and even unbelief. Such an idea, which has roots in the Christian and Islamic medieval traditions, found a moment of special fortune in Renaissance Florence, supported by intellectuals such as Marsilio Ficino and embraced even by a more general public. My attention is devoted especially to the latter, whose rarely preserved voice can be reconstructed through the attentive reading of the texts intended for its religious instruction, namely the sermons written and uttered by itinerant preachers. The study will provide a new appreciation of the popular contribution to the early ideas of religious tolerance and relativism that went on to assume special significance from the sixteenth century onwards.