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Enlightenment On The Margins: The Catholic Enlightenment As Reflected In Ludovico Antonio Muratori's Il Cristianesimo Felice Nelle Missioni De' Padri Della Compagnia Di Gesù Nel Paraguai, Joshua Edward Britt

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

My research analyzes the way in which Ludovico Antonio Muratori portrayed marginal peoples of the New World in his Il Cristianesimo Felice nelle Missioni De' Padri della Compagnia di Gesù nel Paraguai, published in 1743. I argue that Muratori used his portrayal of the native people of Paraguay as a means to express his ideas of how to reform the Catholic Church, at a time when Catholicism was just experiencing the first waves of enlightened influence from the north. I engage with scholarship on the Enlightenment that has addressed specifically the cultural impact of what has been called the Catholic …