The so-called Counter- or Catholic Reformation has traditionally been viewed as a monolith. John O'Malley, a distinguished scholar of the Renaissance and Reformation, has decisively challenged this interpretation, emphasizing the variety, vitality, and complexity of Catholicism in the early modern era. The essays in Early Modern Catholicism, written in O'Malley’s honour, present new research on subjects ranging from art in China to popular religion, from new religious orders to colonial architecture, and suggest new interpretations of the accepted picture of various societies, institutions, and individuals which together constituted the Catholic Church in the period from the fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries.

The book examines a wide variety of themes through many different methodologies and perspectives including social, art-historical, legal, educational, musicological, and philosophical. Unique in both scope and subject, it is a significant contribution to the growing field of interdisciplinary studies of Early Modern Catholicism, and will be especially useful in a number of courses in history and religion.