What God Kept for Himself

Atheism, Sodomy, and Radical Dissent in Renaissance Italy
Erscheinungsjahr 2026
ISBN: 978-0-674-30286-0
Verlag: Harvard University Press

Buch, Englisch, Band 36, 240 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 236 mm, Gewicht: 454 g

Reihe: I Tatti Studies in Italian Renaissance History

A revelatory account of sexual nonconformity and radical religious dissent in Renaissance Italy, drawing on never-before-studied Inquisition trials. Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, a series of highly controversial Inquisition trials took place throughout the Italian peninsula. The defendants were all accused of the same heresy: claiming that Adam and Eve’s original sin had been committing sodomy, a “celestial” pleasure reserved for God alone. Such claims were not merely subversive sexual innuendo. Rather, they were the most radical expressions of a much broader critique—one that not only targeted repressive sexual taboos but also denounced the corruption of the Church, questioned the authority of the pope, and suggested that organized religion itself was a hoax designed to maintain elite power. As Umberto Grassi shows, these dissenters’ beliefs about sexual freedom came to play a crucial role in the development of skeptical and atheistic positions. Many of the accused argued that, by violating God’s exclusive right to engage in sodomy, Adam and Eve dared to make themselves like gods. This view, which led to charges of atheism, radicalized a more widely held belief that the ruling classes banned sodomy to prevent the masses from enjoying it. In turn, such heresies fueled indictments of Christian morality as an all-too-human invention, whose purpose was to reinforce a social order in which the ruling classes controlled both sexuality and religious truth. Tracing a radical tradition of thought on trial, What God Kept for Himself establishes the firm relationship between sexual nonconformity and religious dissent in the early modern Mediterranean world.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Grassi, Umberto

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Systematische Theologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religion & Politik, Religionsfreiheit
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Weltgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionsgeschichte

Über Autor(innen)

Grassi, Umberto
Umberto Grassi is an independent scholar based in Pisa, Italy. He is the author of <i>Bathhouses and Riverbanks: Sodomy in a Renaissance Republic</i> as well as the editor of <i>Cursed Blessings: Sex and Religious Radical Dissent in Early Modern Europe</i> and <i>Mediterranean Crossings: Sexual Transgressions in Islam and Christianity</i>.