Sacred History Uses of the Christian Past in the Renaissance World

Representing and distilling the work of leading scholars in the emerging field of Renaissance 'sacred history', these thirteen chapters consider how humanism, religious reform, national expansion, and other cultural trends influenced European writing about early Christian history from 1450 to 1650.

Katherine Van Liere is professor of history at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She specializes in the intellectual and cultural history of early modern Spain, and has published numerous articles on Renaissance humanism, education, and historiography. Her current research focuses on the historical writings of Ambrosio de Morales and Antonio Agustin.


Simon Ditchfield is reader in history at the University of York, England. He specialises in Roman Catholic history writing and uses of the past in early modern society (especially Italy). He is currently completing a history about the making of Roman Catholicism as a world religion for the Oxford History of the Christian Church series to be published by OUP. His next project will be a study of the world history of the Society of Jesus by Daniello Bartoli (1608-85).

Howard Louthan is professor of history at the University of Florida. He specializes in the cultural and intellectual history of early modern central Europe. His most recent book examines the Catholic Reformation in seventeenth and eighteenth-century Bohemia. His current research focuses on the Reformation in Poland.