Dissimulation and Deceit in Early Modern Europe

A Luso-Malay cosmographer who claimed to have discovered Ophir, a Franciscan friar who headed a delegation of shabby fraudulent emissaries from the Orient, a Dominican tertiary's confirmed stigmata eventually revealed as fraud but later venerated again as saintly, a Jewish convert who was suspected of both demonic possession and of feigned sanctity, poor folk who survived by converting time and again in order to enjoy the benefits accorded to neophytes, religious chameleons who adapted themselves to the surroundings in which they found themselves, and a number of possessed girls – these are some of the figures re-enacting their charade in the pages of this volume.
Twelve distinguished scholars analyse categories and individual cases of imposture in the age of geographical discoveries, of debates over the category of sanctity, and of forced conversions, thus offering a more nuanced understanding of the meaning of identity and pretence, truth and falsehood, in early modern Europe.

Professor (Emerita) Miriam Eliav-Feldon taught early modern history at Tel Aviv University, Israel, for several decades and served as Chairperson of its history department in the years 1996-2000. Her publications include several books and many articles in Hebrew, English and French, on Renaissance utopias, pacifism and peace plans, origins of racism and invented identities.

Tamar Herzig is Associate Professor of early modern history at Tel Aviv University, Israel, where she also serves as Director of the Morris E. Curiel Institute for European Studies. Her publications include Savonarola's Women: Visions and Reform in Renaissance Italy (2008; published in Italian 2014) and 'Christ Transformed into a Virgin Woman': Lucia Brocadelli, Heinrich Institoris, and the Defense of the Faith (2013), as well as numerous articles.

1. Introduction; Miriam Eliav-Feldon
2. Superstition and Dissimulation: Discerning False Religion in the Fifteenth Century; Michael D. Bailey
3. 'Mendacium officiosum': Alberico Gentili's Ways of Lying; Vincenzo Lavenia
4. Dissimulation and Conversion: Francesco Pucci's Return to Catholicism; Giorgio Caravale
5. The Identity Game: Ambiguous Religious Attachments in Seventeenth- Century Lyon; Monica Martinat
6. From 'Marranos' to 'Unbelievers': The Spanish Peccadillo in Sixteenth Century Italy; Stefania Pastore
7. Recidivist Converts in Early Modern Europe; Moshe Sluhovsky
8. A Hybrid Identity: Jewish Convert, Christian Mystic and Demoniac; Adelisa Malena
9. Beyond Simulation: An Enquiry Concerning Demonic Possession; Guido Dall'Olio
10. Genuine and Fraudulent Stigmatics in the Sixteenth Century; Tamar Herzig
11. Real, Fake or Megalomaniacs? Three Suspicious Ambassadors, 1450-1600; Giorgio Rota
12. Between Madrid and Ophir: Erédia, a Deceitful Discoverer; Jorge Flores