Gallo 2017, Jesuit Theater

Jesuit Theater
Oxford Handbooks Online

Jesuit Theater
Anne-Sophie Gallo
The Oxford Handbook of the Jesuits
Edited by Ines G. Županov
Subject: Religion, Roman Catholic Christianity Online Publication Date: Apr 2018
DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190639631.013.22
Abstract and Keywords
The Jesuits were famous for didactic and college theater performances, but they also
practiced other forms of theater in their scholasticates, close to the convent and amateur
theater. Jesuit theater generally refers to the early modern period that corresponds to a
specific moment in the Society’s history. But Jesuits continued to write and perform
theater during the late modern period, even if the suppression of the Society of Jesus
created deep changes in the Jesuits’ relation to theater. If Jesuit drama productions
during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are more limited and different in nature,
they also reveal new accommodations the Society faced after the suppression and
restoration. This chapter proposes an approach to Jesuit theater from a longue durée
perspective that allows an understanding of how this practice has characterized Jesuit
cultural identity in the early modern period but no longer in the late modern period,
although a Jesuit theater still exists.
Keywords: Jesuits, Jesuit theater, school drama, college theater, convent theater, Jesuit colleges, theatrical
performances, Ignatian spirituality
Introduction
Theater is one of the most important cultural practices in the history of Jesuit
involvement in education.1 During the early modern period, this complex phenomenon
grew to such an extent in the colleges of the Society of Jesus that it appears as a
characteristic feature of Jesuit cultural identity. Jesuit theater has therefore given rise to
a large bibliography.2 This abundance of works can be considered an obstacle—how much
more can be said about Jesuit drama? But it can also provide an opportunity to think
globally and to go beyond traditional historiography on the subject.
The purpose of this chapter is to suggest elements for a synthesis on Jesuit theater from a
longue durée perspective, and thus try to provide new understanding and ways of
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Jesuit Theater
deepening and reframing former approaches. The year 1773, the year of suppression of
the Society of Jesus by Pope Clement XIV (1705–1774), is usually taken as the end date of
the studies on Jesuit theater.3 However, this practice continued to exist. Postrestoration
theater has been largely ignored, although plays and performances in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries deserve the attention of the scholars. Reflecting on Jesuit theater
over centuries requires that we also look into the way its history has been written: why
are the plays written after 1773 usually ignored by researchers? In parallel with the
essential question of what is Jesuit drama—its texts, genres, and performances in various
spaces—it is important to reconsider in a global context the evolutions and continuities in
the relationships between the theater, the Jesuits, and the Jesuit order. Also, to put Jesuit
drama into perspective, it must be compared to other forms of Jesuit cultural expression
and non-Jesuit producers of plays to do justice to the history of the practice of the theater
among the Jesuits, as well as its uses and functions.4
The first part of this chapter shows how Jesuit theater has followed the Society’s
ambitions in education, aesthetics, and communication despite a constant concern to be
critical toward theater. The second part deals with contemporary Jesuit theater, which
reveals how the order accommodated to societal values after its suppression. Finally, the
third part focuses on an ignored practice, the scholasticate theater. This type of theater,
performed by the Jesuit students during their training, will be considered through a brief
comparative study using two sources from the eighteenth and twentieth centuries.
The Theatrical Phenomenon in the Jesuit

Culture: An Adventure in the Early Modern
Period
Jesuit theater had many functions within the Society of Jesus. According to Bruna Filippi,
it is at “the crossroads of a set of pedagogical principles and religious options of the
Society of Jesus” in an early modern society characterized by absolutism and the
Tridentine reform.5 To understand why this type of theater, prevalent in many schools and
university colleges since the end of the medieval period,6 may have appeared to
contemporaries and scholars as an essential and original component of Jesuit culture, it
may be useful to consider this practice from the point of view of its incorporation and
institutionalization within the Society of Jesus.7 What characterizes Jesuit theater during
the early modern period, compared to other contemporary forms of school theater, is its
elaborate formalization, extent, and systematization, which make it a “clear and
structured program.”8 It gave Jesuit theater a visibility and an almost unavoidable role in
the urban space at the time of only scarce professional theaters in Europe and in
overseas missions. Until late in the eighteenth century, the stages of Jesuit colleges often
represented the only theatrical opportunity in the province.9
It is important to note that the notion of institutionalization implies a process rather than
a result or an outcome. This process “tends momentarily towards greater stabilization of
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Jesuit Theater
practices and norms,” toward “balance rather than sustainable consolidation of a set of
activities.”10 Thus, Jesuit theater is characterized by its constant quest for balance. Its
institutional consolidation can be glimpsed from three different angles: permanence,
consistency, and quest for discipline.
Toward an Established Practice
Theater in Jesuit colleges gradually becomes an established practice—although, in fact,

we can think of this practice as restored or “re-established,” if one takes a Tridentine
perspective. This means a certain regularity and continuity in performances. There were
multiple theatrical events in colleges since the end of the medieval period: at the
beginning of the school year or at Christmas, for example.11 Despite the tendency to
increase the number of performances especially during solemn festivals (civil or
religious), theatrical performances in Jesuit colleges were mostly requested for two main
events of the year: Carnival and the school prize-giving ceremony. Demand came from
both inside and outside the Society of Jesus. For example, in 1586, the rector of the
Roman Seminary decided, with Superior General Claudio Acquaviva’s (1543–1615)
permission, to organize theatrical performances each year during the Carnival.12
According to François de Dainville, the annual rhetoric and theatrical performances were
held for French civil authorities, sometimes based on clauses in the foundation contracts
of a college.13 The basis of Jesuit theater was thus twofold, both religious and academic,
and grounded in and relying on the importance of orality, primarily Latin orality.14 But its
institutionalization is also due to the ability of the Jesuits to promptly make it a
performance that goes well beyond the space of the college to become a public and
collective event. The Jesuit Constitutions and the Ratio Studiorum insist on the
importance of solemnity in the awarding of prizes and publicity of school exercises.15
Performances were made for a wider audience, not only aimed at college students.
Theater was an interface between school life and the public beyond the school walls.
These aspects were interpreted by the first generations of Jesuits in the light of
Tridentine Catholicism, with conquering intention and with a missionary and universal
ambition. Plays revealed not only students’ oratorical skills but also the literary talents of
their teachers for the purpose of cultural persuasion.16 In this context, the simple
exercises of declamation were not enough. The Jesuits needed more elaborate and
spectacular forms performed in the courtyard of the college in front of parents,
professors, and civil and religious authorities. Jesuits’ ambition had also been to compete
with the troops of professional actors, to offer an enticing alternative to secular theater
and thus to acquire a kind of monopoly.
Performing plays in Jesuit colleges was thus a manifold activity and meant doing several
things that are difficult to classify under the generic term “school theater.” First of all,
Jesuit theater was meant to be an oratorical exercise. It is useful for the training of the
elites, which is also that of the courtier and the honnête homme, based on the Latin
proficiency, oratorical techniques, and staging of the body. It concerned not only religious
values but also social integration. In parallel with its pastoral and spiritual function,
theater fostered urban sociability and political integration of the Society of Jesus. It was a
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form of advertising for Jesuit education, but also, through the allegorical subjects and the
prologues, a way of dialogue and alliance with civil and religious authorities.
The institutionalization of the Jesuit theater also meant that it became coherent through
codification. The Jesuits were recognized for their ability to articulate their practice in
theoretical reflection. It was above all the tragedy, and especially religious tragedy, that
benefited from the theorization, in close connection with the labor of “conversion.”
Several scholars stressed the importance of poetic theatrical models elaborated within
the Collegio Romano from the end of the sixteenth century. From the Cristus Judex by
Stefano Tucci (1573–1574) to the Rinnovazione dell’Antica tragoedia by Tarquino Galluzzi
(1633) and the Arte poetica by Alessandro Donati (1631), via the famous Crispus (1597)
and Flavia (1600) by Bernardino Stefonio, a specific dramaturgy was elaborated for
religious and martyr tragedies from the tragedy model theorized by Aristotle.17 Although
the religious and martyr tragedy represented a strong and clearly identifiable aesthetic
program, it has not been representative of the diversity of the Jesuit theatrical activities
in the early modern period. Jesuit theater had not followed to the letter the
recommendations of the Ratio Studiorum, which represented a first theoretical
framework for Jesuit dramatists—the use of Latin and of sacred and pious topics, the
absence of female characters and costumes and thus the prohibition of amorous
intrigues, and the authorization of only Latin and “decent” interludes. It is thus important
not to reduce Jesuit and school drama to its edifying and missionary purpose materialized
by noble genres such as religious and neo-Latin tragedies and regular comedies. For
instance, the development of dance and allegorical ballets showing the political and social
importance of Jesuit theater was noticed by scholars.18 But the diversity of the comics
and the recurrence of farcical and popular elements in Jesuit plays have not been
emphasized sufficiently. Recent French scholarship on medieval theater and church
theater at the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries call into question the
traditional, even “mythical,” opposition between a humanist theater, scholarly and
didactic, and a popular and liturgical medieval theater, the humanist drama taking
inevitably the place of medieval theater in colleges.19 It is necessary to pay attention to
the filiation of the school drama to allegorical mystery and morality pieces that persisted
over several centuries with their particular forms and characters. This type of drama was
present not only in mission countries but also in Jesuit scholasticates in Europe. It is also
found in plays written during the suppression period by the ex-Jesuits.20
One of the main difficulties, already mentioned by Jean-Marie Valentin in 1967, is to

discern a Jesuit specificity and coherent approach within this diversity. That is why this
author preferred to talk about the “theater of the Jesuits” rather than “a Jesuit theater,”
which is used in this chapter out of convenience.21 There are indeed several reasons for
being careful when trying to make an effort at a synthesis of the genres and contents of
Jesuit plays. Some inventories compiled for the French, German, or Roman cases, for
example, allow for comparative studies.22 But, as Valentine pointed out, the main danger
is to forget to take into account each specific context of performance. It is important to
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study individual plays to understand the complexity of a theatrical event in its local and
temporal implications.
However, to be able to think globally about Jesuit theater, the concept of repertoire is the
most useful entry. A repertoire consists of canons that vary over time, of plays and genres
legitimized according to a historical and political context. First, as recommended by
Valentin, a particular type of play reveals necessarily the desire to please the public but
also a direction of the transformation in representations, which is why the context of
appearance of a type of play is decisive. In the early studies the focus had been mostly on
the circumstances in which the theatrical model of martyr and religious tragedy, central
to the Jesuit repertoire, appeared. However, what is interesting for our purpose is the
evolution of this classical heritage from the end of the seventeenth century. In this sense,
the “ascetic theater” and “meditational plays” developed in Munich by the Jesuit prefect
Franciscus Lang (1654–1725) and his successors, Franz Neumayr (1697–1765) and Franz
Xaver Gachet (1710–1774), could constitute an alternative to the martyr tragedy. The
creative context of the performance—the Marian congregations—was certainly particular,
but what is interesting is the appearance of a “new dramatic aesthetic” based on the
Spiritual Exercises and characterized especially by the use of tableaux vivants.23 In the
eighteenth century short comedies influenced by the fair theater and the Comédie-
Italienne proliferated, and parodic theatrical forms were introduced in the French Jesuit
repertoire—such as opera-comiques or parodies of the great tragedies performed on the
Jesuit stage.24 This is considered a step toward dismantling conventional theatrical
canons.25 Moreover, although older genres continued to persist, their meaning can evolve
over time. Beyond variations of forms and themes, their “spirit” and function also
changed.26 This is the case, in particular, in the martyr tragedy between the early 1700s
and the 1750s.
Despite differences in local contexts, the plays became more uniform in this period. Jesuit
theater is prolific because, like most other theater productions, it alternates between new
and old plays, restages plays, and translates or rewrites plays.27 The Jesuit repertoire
developed from the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century
through circulation of topics and handwritten or printed plays, illustrating the importance
of the Society’s communication network.28 Nigel Griffin found, for example, the
handwritten plays of Miguel Venegas (1531–after 1589) in various Jesuit centers. The play
Achabus, of which eight copies still exist today throughout Europe, was thus represented
in Coimbra (1561), in Mainz and in Würzburg (1590s), and at the Collegio Germanico in
Rome (1566).29 The example of Zeno by Joseph Simons (1594–1671) reveals also how
common it was to translate and adapt plays on both Jesuit and secular stages, especially
in the first half of the seventeenth century. First staged in Latin at Saint-Omer in 1631,
the play was then represented in the English College in Rome, before being published in
the same city in 1648. Several adaptations are known, with the most famous in Greek, by
a Jesuit student, on Zakynthos island in 1683, and in English in London in 1669.30 If in the
first period the Jesuits focused on disseminating the know-how and dramatic materials, in
the second period they tried to consolidate their theatrical patrimony. Just before the
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suppression of the Society of Jesus in France, for example, the great Latin plays of the
previous generation were carefully translated, adapted, or sometimes rewritten.
Printing and the editorial policy of the Society of Jesus played an important role.
Combined, they gave a better visibility to Jesuit theater than to other school plays that did
not get printed. Jesuit theatrical communication was constituted of different kinds of
texts: theoretical statements, controversies, scenarios of the plays, published separately
or in collections, and programs distributed during the representations. They reveal the
importance of the text in Jesuit culture, and it had a dual purpose for the Society. They
framed the theatrical performance and its reception, and strengthened the intellectual
and literary image of the Society. However, mostly tragedies such as martyr and religious
dramas were printed, rather than other types of plays. The literary image of the Society is
thus mainly associated with these genres.
The Paradox of Jesuit Theater
The Society of Jesus incorporated theater by trying to “convert” secular theater

production and by providing norms and guidance to ensure its missionary nature. This
sort of appropriation was parallel to the wider process of disciplining taking place within
Catholicism from the sixteenth century, providing the foundation for the Jesuit religious
project.31 In this sense, Jesuit theater developed with an in-built complex and paradoxical
condition. Scholars such as Ferdinando Taviani, Michael Zampelli, and Ruth Olaizola
argued that the Jesuit theater was born of and built on the opposition to the profane,
mainly professional theater.32 The condemnation of the secular theater became “the place
of the celebration of the Society” and its theater.33 The Tridentine ambition—highlighted
by many studies—to “cure,” “convert,” “re-establish,” or even “rebaptize” the theater for
the purpose of religious and spiritual reconquest led to denouncing theatrical practice.34
According to Ruth Olaizola, in their effort at “killing (mise à mort)” theatricality, the
Jesuits in fact reinvented theater, particularly religious tragedy, and its theory. She
concluded, “From this point of view, the theater practiced by the Jesuits seems to be
perpetually reflecting on itself, constantly searching for itself.”35 It is important to keep in
mind this antitheatrical and even antimodern dimension of Jesuit theater to understand
its significance and limitations today.36
The complex and paradoxical Jesuit attitude to theater can be understood in the context
of images and imagination linked to Ignatian spirituality after the Council of Trent.37
Some studies have shown that the use of visual or verbal images, such as paintings or
plays, to promote and stimulate inner images for meditation in the “theater of the soul” is
not coherently argued in Ignatius Loyola’s (1491–1556) Spiritual Exercises.38 The
function of images is based on a paradox, inherited from the mystical tradition, that
characterized the post-Tridentine spirituality: image, as a sign, must fade and surpass
itself; hence, it does not have a central function. In the same way, theater occupies a
“place of a parenthesis” in the rhetorical education: it does not take the place of the
rhetorical exercises that are the foundation of the educational method of the Ratio
Studiorum; it only reinforces them, augments them.39 Assuming the power of images, the
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Jesuits have established a functional relationship with theater, which is at the origin of an
artistic and theatrical development. For Ralph Dekoninck, “the image remains, above all,
in [the] eyes [of the Jesuits] a matter of practice and not of law or essence.”40 Theater is
used because of its effectiveness, which is not absolute but dependent on certain
conditions. Even if, therefore, theater became an established practice in the Society of
Jesus during the seventeenth century, its place was nonetheless precarious and its
institutionalization limited. In Claudio Mongini’s words, theater had a “provisionally
absolute status,” typical of Ignatian thinking, at the moment when it became
indispensable for the end pursued or, on the contrary, a “relative status” when it can be
abandoned because it no longer fulfills the purpose for which it was established.41
The status of the theater, therefore, depended on historical context and the importance of
orthodoxy. The foundation of Jesuit theater was accompanied by the establishment of
control and regulation of its practice and content, which was supposed to ensure its
orthodoxy. It required a careful drafting and the respect of normative precepts contained
in the Ratio Studiorum and in the Society’s rules.42 In fact, the Society of Jesus followed
in the steps of the “disciplining” efforts already imposed at university colleges at the
beginning of the sixteenth century, and which resulted in the banning of licentious and
seditious performances, as well as all excesses.43 First, time and location of the theatrical
performances were decided: they were to take place in the college’s yard or in a salle des
actions, not in the church. While the Ratio Studiorum recommends a limited number of
performances, in 1630 Father General Vitelleschi (1563–1645) restricted the number to
two per year.44 Second, plays had to be examined by the provincial or his representative
before being put on stage.45 Censorship was thus legitimately exercised by the
authorities, although through the efforts at developing a particular unified theoretical
framework, Jesuit dramatists were oriented during the writing process toward
conventional forms and topics. Finally, the reception of Jesuit plays was also controlled by
the publication of programs, prefaces of published plays, or articles in newspapers. The
legitimacy and longevity of Jesuit theater may be explained, at least in part, by this
regulation and guidance.
But the numerous excesses in Jesuit theatrical practice must not be forgotten because
they reveal the constant tensions that resulted from the imposition of rules and standards
and the way theater always exceeded this Jesuit framework. Several sources are most
helpful: correspondence between superiors and the annual letters, but also external, non-
Jesuit sources such as the Jansenist newspaper Nouvelles ecclésiastiques. They provide
important information on the materiality and economy of performances: scenography and
costumes, the size of the audience, and, sometimes, the price to be paid for seats. But
they also provided information on the way the Jesuits conceive their action in the Society
and how they built their reputation. The restored Society turned out to be less flexible
toward excesses and concerned about the absolute respect of rules.
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Beyond Suppression and Restoration:

Perspectives for a Study of the Late Modern
Period
One of the main limits of historiography on Jesuit theater is the fact that most of the
studies do not go beyond the year 1773. Recent publications on the suppression and
restoration of the Society of Jesus are a sign that this obstacle for the study of Jesuit
theater after 1773 may soon be lifted.46 The interval between suppression and restoration
is little studied, in particular regarding Jesuit theater. According to an interpretation
influenced by the “discontinuity” thesis, “the end of the Society mean[s] the end of … the
Jesuit drama,” or the decline of it at best.47 Thus, the late modern practice of theater
within the Jesuit order is either obscured or minimized, sometimes denigrated because of
its less elaborate nature and occasional occurrence. It is often presented as a simple
survival of a flourishing long-gone practice and, as such, deserving little attention.
Moreover, nothing is written about the surviving theatrical practices during the
suppression, whether in exile or not. When Kevin J. Wetmore speaks of the “historic Jesuit
theater,” he means the period before the suppression, as if he contained Jesuit theater to
a specific time and state of culture, as if the theatrical practice of Jesuits beyond
suppression can no longer be named “Jesuit theater.”48 Besides its teleological
perspective, this interpretation has at least the merit of signaling the disparity between
the theatrical practice in the “old Society” and that in the new one. A certain kind of
theater seems to have died with the suppression.
The common interpretation of the demise of the ancien régime Jesuit theater does not
provide satisfactory answers regarding the reasons for the massive but not total
abandonment of the practice and the significant changes in its status. This is the reason it
is more helpful to evaluate the late modern practice, including the period during the
suppression, on its own terms, not through the eyes of the former practice. I turn to this
understudied period in the following section.49
The Eighteenth Century: A Turning Point for the Jesuit Theater
Two interpretations are usually opposed concerning the eighteenth century. For some
scholars, Jesuit theater before the suppression experienced a period of vitality and
innovation, while for others, it was a period of “dispersion” and a lack of renewal.50 These
two interpretations, however, may not be in contradiction. In fact, the question of
adaptability of Jesuit theater to the cultural and intellectual context is embedded in a
wider problem concerning the status and the place of the theater, and more generally
school drama, in a changing cultural, political, and religious context. The eighteenth
century can be considered as a period of rapid change, not immediately perceivable due
to an intense theatrical activity. Of course, in different national contexts, these
developments had different chronological timelines. The suppression accentuated and
precipitated some of these changes while allowing many ex-Jesuits to step away from the
practice of school theater, the consequences of which were felt in the Jesuit theatrical
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practice of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, a traditional periodization

overestimated the suppression by making it the main cause of the gradual disappearance
of the Jesuit theater. For this reason, it neglected pedagogical, cultural, and social factors
at play.
By analyzing the eighteenth-century practice and the writings of the French Jesuits and
ex-Jesuits, in particular the pedagogical books published during the second half of the
century, it is clear that the links between theater and eloquence were gradually
weakened. They used to be very close in the context of classical oratorical pedagogy. The
school theater ceased to be efficient, in the eyes of many pedagogues, for learning the art
of speech, while a certain rhetoric came to be considered false, fabricated, and excessive,
too “spectacular” in a sense.51 Theater appeared increasingly as an inadequate and
expensive oratorical exercise in terms of time and resources. A traditional interpretation
sees here a triumph of Jansenist ideas in the field of education, leading to the prohibition
of theatrical representations in French colleges run by the French University after 1762.
Jesuits, however, were not immune to this reasoning. Jean-Marie Valentin detected
evidence of adaptation. The trend that, starting in the sixteenth century, led from
declamation to theater in the Jesuit colleges was completely reversed: this led to “a new
reshuffling” for the benefit of other basic rhetorical exercises of the Jesuit education.52
The result was the use of more modest and reduced dramatic forms and the diminution in
the number of theatrical performances, especially for the purpose of school programs.
In the German-speaking regions, the number of theatrical performances in Jesuit colleges

decreased between 1725 and 1770 by about 30 percent.53 In some French colleges,
during the five years before the suppression, the theatrical performances for the school
prize-giving ceremony were no longer an annual event except in the Louis-le-Grand
college. In the Jesuit college in Prague, according to annual letters sent to Rome by the
Bohemian province, the comedic productions, from 1750, “were banned because of the
time that they wasted” but also due to alleged abuses.54 What Nienke Tjoelker considers
as innovations and signs of vitality—the growing number of theatrical performances
compared to the seventeenth century and the appearance of a new kind of play—can be
interpreted differently.55 First, during the eighteenth century, original creations needed to
be distinguished from Latin texts reworked and adapted in vernaculars that increased
during this period. Second, large cities and provincial cities did not have the same
capacity and resources to support a theater. Provincial Jesuit stages remained relevant
since there were few theatrical opportunities. At the same time, there was a successful
return of short rhetorical exercises such as the oratorical plea, considered by many
French Jesuit professors such as Gabriel Le Jay (1657–1734), Charles Porée (1675–1741),
or, later, Jacques Lenoir Duparc (1702–1789) as a way of adapting teaching while
remaining faithful to the Jesuit oratorical tradition. The publication of the Theatrum
asceticum (1747) by Franz Neumayr (1697–1765) and the Exercitationes theatrales
(1750–1755) by Anton Claus (1691–1754) occurred in this same context and can be taken
also as a sign of a “withdrawal” to less spectacular forms and a return to plays for
internal use.56 Even if these plays allowed for innovation, they were related to a specific
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context, such as Marian congregations and classrooms, and were intended for particular
and chosen audiences.
The eighteenth century is also the period when the Jesuits expanded two activities that
deepened their involvement in the literary life: the publication of Jesuit plays and
dramatic criticism in journals. These changes took place in the context of a
transformation of the teaching of rhetoric into the teaching of literature. The transition
from “the age of eloquence,” theater, and conversation to that of literature and the novel
affected the status and importance of the school drama.57 The increase in published
editions of the Jesuit dramatic and theatrical productions is due to the fact that Jesuit
theater was increasingly seen as a literary object competing with other productions
outside colleges. In the prefaces, Jesuit plays were often presented not as school dramas
but as dramas like the others produced in public theaters.58 At the same time, printed
books also contributed to the formation of a Jesuit and national literary heritage.59 The
creation of the French journal Mémoires de Trévoux in 1701 is a case in point about the
tendency toward literary criticism. It was influential in framing the reception of
successful plays performed on French stages, as well as the more general literary taste
and judgment of its readers. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, the multiplication
of books of the type of “select” and “well-chosen library” is a similar phenomenon, albeit
with a restrictive dimension: to control reading, rather than developing students’
judgment.60 This led Jesuits to privilege a new relationship with the theater: that of the
critics rather than the practitioners. With the rise of the professional theater and as
theater halls mushroomed in the cities, Jesuit reorientation toward theater criticism made
sense. Despite intense theatrical activity, the Jesuits, and the church in general, lost their
control and monopoly over the leisure time, which would be filled in with other urban-
centered and secular activities.61 The Jesuit stages were no longer able to compete with
the emergent theatrical industry in the eighteenth century. It is also through theater
criticism that Jesuits were able to continue to try to control and shape the profane
theater. This period was therefore a turning point: while the Jesuits reduced sensibly their
theatrical productions in colleges, their plays, through printing, acquired finally a literary
status. This printing was also a way to preserve the memory of a particular theater that
was disappearing as another relationship between Jesuits and theater developed—that of
criticism.
The school theater also appeared to the late eighteenth-century audience as an “old
custom” and an outmoded art form close to amateur stagecraft and considered
unpersuasive. A criticism of the education of a courtier, focused on learning rhetoric,
detached from the dialectic, also looms large in the background of this rejection. There
was also an anti-Jesuit dimension within the critique of school drama, especially in
France, as a reform of education had been discussed. But the question of a certain Jesuit
conservatism—which is both a cultural withdrawal and a political option—must be raised.
Certainly, the vitality of the eighteenth-century Jesuit theater has been emphasized by a
few recent scholarly studies. Several attempts at renewal and revitalization of vernacular
and Latin tragedy appear around the 1750s in Italy, in the cultural context of the
Academy of Arcadia. Jesuit theater thus played a role in the emergence of a “national”
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theater. It is significant, perhaps, that the Jesuits remained attached to the tragedy, a
genre “in difficulty” and closely attached to the political and religious system of the
ancien régime.62 Giovanna Zanlonghi has pointed to the increased attention to subjects
imbued with eighteenth-century values such as sensibility, but the moral and
anthropological background remained unchanged and distant from Denis Diderot’s
(1713–1784) aesthetic of sensibility.63 Some scholars have raised the question of the
Jesuit participation in the dissemination of a culture of opposition, also known as the
early counterrevolutionary culture, which can be found in the analysis of the French plays
of the mid-eighteenth century.64 Whereas Porée’s Brutus (1708) could serve both the
republican and monarchist theses, leaving spectators the possibility of reflection, the
tragedy of Brutus (1715) by Antoine Valoris (1681–1761) was used to legitimize the
monarchy as well as Folard’s Œdipe (1722) written against Voltaire’s Œdipe (1718).65
From this period Jesuit theater safeguarded a national and cultural heritage, which had a
conservative political dimension, although the virulence of the political message changed
with the historical context. The figure of the martyr lost some of its traditional social and
religious appeal in eighteenth-century society, but the martyr tragedy still persisted in
Jesuit drama and acquired another function.66 More generally, Jesuit theater continued to
be marked by a still-operative Baroque piety, while a more interior devotion, avoiding
emphasis and theatricality, began to appear gradually. Two spiritual attitudes seem to
coexist among the Jesuits and ex-Jesuit dramatists. For the most reactionary and militant
of them, the martyr and religious tragedy become a way to express their identity. But at
the same time, another spirituality seems to be expressed through theatrical forms such
as Neumayr’s Theatrum asceticum and through the less systematic use of theatrical
performances in colleges.
The evolution of the theater especially in Jesuit education and communication can be
understood by looking into the interval of suppression. Sabina Pavone mentions the
existence of the Jesuit theatrical performances in exile, in the colleges of Russia.67 In
France, Jesuit theatrical activity survived because, in spite of the fact that the Society of
Jesus did not exist anymore, the Jesuits were not expelled as in Spain and Portugal. The
suppression, in fact, provided the opportunity for the French ex-Jesuits to become
spiritual writers, but not dramatists. Among the French Jesuits, only Louis Philipon de la
Madelaine (1734–1818) would end up writing plays marked by revolutionary ideas. He
was one of these young Jesuits and novices who was not ordained and whose path moved
away radically from the majority of his colleagues. In the same way, some French ex-
Jesuits continued to publish works such as sermons and spiritual writings of their former
confreres, but no plays appeared in print. Some manuscripts, such as those of the
tragedies performed in Marseille and Avignon in the mid-eighteenth century, followed the
path of exile and appeared in the college of the nobles of Milan a few years before 1773.
It is in certain aristocratic families and in female convents that some traces of a theatrical
activity among ex-Jesuits can be found. An ex-Jesuit, Augustin Barruel (1741–1820), wrote
in 1775 occasional plays for the children of the prince of Saxe while he was their
preceptor. Pierre de Clorivière (1735–1820), a central figure in the restoration of the
Society in France, and Jean-Baptiste Fouet de la Fontaine (1739–1821) have written plays
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for the Carmel of Saint-Denis and the community of Montargis, where they worked as
preachers and confessors in the last two decades of the eighteenth century. Some
changes observed in the nineteenth century were already taking shape in these plays,
such as the importance of theatrical forms close to the théâtre de société. However, from
the middle of the eighteenth century, opinions were radicalized. The plays of this period
express the anxiety about the process of secularization of the society and participate in
the rebirth of a prophetic culture and penitential religiosity of the end of the century.68
An “Old Custom” in a “New Society”?
There are no major studies on Jesuit theater in the nineteenth century. Some authors
mention it when writing on the Society’s history and education in Jesuit colleges after
1814, the year of the papal brief Dominus ac redemptor, which restored the Society.69 In
this part, a close look will be cast on this first moment of revival of the Jesuit theater in
France between 1814 and 1828. The French context is specific because Jesuits were
barely tolerated by the monarchy. They were officially only secular priests, even if Louis
XVIII and a part of public opinion favorable to them knew their real identity. They were
therefore not allowed to open colleges, only minor seminaries, destined for the education
of future priests. But these institutions were actually used by French Jesuits as colleges.
This was decisive for the Jesuit eclipse from these institutions in 1828, when the French
University had a monopoly on secondary education. This semiclandestine subsistence of
French Jesuits limited their theatrical activity. It is nevertheless possible to indicate the
specificities of the Jesuit late modern theater practice, which differ in part from the Jesuit
early modern practice.
The “restoration” and its relation to the past is the central question the Society of Jesus
tried to sort out all through the nineteenth century.70 After 1814 Jesuit theater did not
return to the former practices and repertoires. Deep changes had taken place since the
eighteenth century, and Jesuits had to deal with the traumatic memory of exile and a
clandestine subsistence during the period of suppression. Jesuit superiors had to tread
carefully when concerning the decision to resume Jesuit theatrical activities. The question
of resuming these theatrical activities is thus a good indication of the careful way the
Society of Jesus was restored in France. John W. Padberg pointed to the fact that the
dramatic productions “occupied a very ambiguous position” and were a source of tension
within the Society.71 The French example is a case in point. In 1825, when relations
between ultra-royalists and anticlericalists were extremely tense, French superiors
decided to prohibit theatrical performances in minor seminaries, in line with the
decisions emanating from Rome. With this prohibition, they tried to reaffirm the
continuity of religious discipline with the “old” Society and its founding texts. Superiors
wanted to enforce the limits suggested by the Ratio Studiorum: rarity of performances,
use of Latin, and control of content by a superior. Contrary to the early modern period,
during which the multiplication of plays in Latin and in the vernacular served the Jesuit
ambition to persuade, in the early nineteenth century, not respecting the Ratio
Studiorum’s rules carefully was more problematic. Furthermore, to avoid arousing the
suspicions of police and the attacks of their enemies, and risk further expulsion, Jesuits
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adopted a certain “culture of secrecy” and discretion. As explained by French superiors,

if there were theatrical performances in minor seminaries, as used to be the case in Jesuit
colleges before, it was the occasion “to tell to the public our secret” that “we are Jesuits”
and that the minor seminaries are Jesuit colleges.72 When a new cultural identity of the
Society emerged, the theater ceased to be its central element.
Two essential features can be noticed concerning the late modern period and indicate the
way theater had been integrated into the Jesuit educational system and the type of
function it occupied in it: the disappearance of the theater of the school prize-giving
ceremony and the private nature of theatrical performances. Jesuit education—more
precisely, private education—continued to be attached to the oratorical exercises in a
political context in France, which favored public eloquence. Based on the Ratio
Studiorum but also on the Gallican Traité des études by Charles Rollin (1661–1741), Jesuit
minor seminaries focused on declamation exercises in the classroom and in front of an
audience. The school prize-giving ceremony remained a major social event for families
and local authorities. But theatrical performances almost completely disappeared from
these ceremonies in favor of other public oratorical exercises such as speeches or
oratorical pleas. There was a significant decrease in theatrical performances compared to
ancien régime colleges. Less central in the curriculum because of the changes that took
place during the previous century, theatrical performances were more the result of the
initiative of educational institutions and the motivation of gifted rhetoric professors.
Theater became an occasional event. This is probably the cause for removing tragedy in
1825 on the pretext that it did not contribute to oratorical teaching.73 Similarly, the
rector’s rule on theatrical performances was removed in 1832 from the revised version of
the Ratio Studiorum.74
Theatrical performances, however, remained linked to academies, reserved for the best
students, and they were then restored in Jesuit minor seminaries. Plays were performed
during two main festivities, Carnival and Rector’s Day. If the first one had been an old
tradition, the second was new and demonstrated the retreat of the theater to “family
celebrations.”75 Students and the seminary’s staff constituted the audience of these
events. The play contributed in particular to strengthening the identity of the group
gathered around the rector. It promoted community and sociability in a seminary, a
relatively closed and confined space, more so than that of the ancien régime college, and
organized essentially by the boarding school system. In contrast, during the early years of
the Society’s restoration in France, several theatrical performances took place during the
royal family celebrations, such as the baptism of the duke of Bordeaux in 1821. The
audience was usually numerous and prestigious. This indicates that some Jesuits wished
to return to the splendor of the ancien régime colleges, which had been known for
elaborate celebrations at the heart of a ceremonial system.76 But this seems to be an
exception, specific to the ultra-royalist context, and thus prohibited by the superiors. In
Jesuit missions, however, theater found its former glory. It played a role not only in the
teaching of foreign language skills, as before for Latin, but also as a tool for cultural
persuasion, such as in the St. Joseph University of Beirut (a “Jesuit mission of Syria”) at
the end of the nineteenth century.77 Finally, theater was also instrumental for literary
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education, which was no longer simply rhetoric education. As Father Longhaye (1839–
1920) stated, performing a play was a way to analyze literature.78
The contemporary Jesuit theater could be qualified as a private—or “community”—and

“heritage” event. This is why it can be related to certain forms of amateur theater,
characterized by the use of domestic repertoire for internal use. Many plays are
occasional productions celebrating the rector through a transparent allegory or depicted
school life. Such a repertoire was used in Jesuit colleges even before, but in the
nineteenth century it became dominant. The aesthetic forms based on the frequent
practice of breaking the theatrical illusion, typical of amateur theater, strengthened the
private dimension of the performances.79 A typical theme was how to prepare for a
festivity, referring to school preparations in which the actors embody roles close to their
own student life. The fact that they addressed the audience directly, especially in a
prologue, to apologize for the insignificance of the play confirms the inadequacy of the
Jesuit theater compared to the early modern period. The ambition was no longer to
compete with professional troops but to perform as a private and amateur theater with its
own identity, as Longhaye defined it in 1891: “These plays were written for the colleges,
pious circles, sponsors and for other gatherings of young Christians; it is their natural
environment and they will not go beyond.”80 On the contrary, in the twentieth and twenty-
first centuries, there was an intensification of collaboration with professional theater, as
Kevin J. Wetmore demonstrated in his study.81
The late modern tragic repertoire is mostly defined by the religious and martyr tragedies,
contrary to the modern-era repertoire, which also included secular subjects. The ancient
history performed on Jesuit stages was mostly inspired by the early Christians’ history,
with hagiographies as the most important sources. The ancient secular history, an
important part of the early modern repertoire, had almost entirely disappeared from the
revived Jesuit theater of the nineteenth century. The revival of Jesuit plays in French
minor seminaries during the first half of the nineteenth century confirms the importance
of the Jesuit theatrical heritage for the new generation. In the minor seminaries, the
Jesuits focused on searching for, preserving in library collections, and staging the plays
published during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This heritage was also a
fruitful source of inspiration for postsuppression Jesuit playwrights such as Léonard
Loumeau (1796–1829), who translated Porée’s Agapitus (1710) and wrote the tragedy of
Saint Eustache, a frequent subject in the Jesuit repertoire. To Arsène Cahour (1806–
1871), author of Diocletiani Diem Supremum (1863), the glory of the Society of Jesus had
been in its Latin tragedies and in its zeal to disseminate the “tragic Christian ideal.”82
These remarks are a reminder that the Jesuit repertoire was also used to defend
traditional values in a political environment that was becoming increasingly anticlerical
and anti-Jesuit. According to the latest scholarship on amateur theater, it was the
conception of time that distinguishes amateur from professional stagecraft. The late
modern Jesuit repertoire focused almost exclusively on religious and martyr tragedies
because they advance a religious conception of time in a secularized period. They also
have a heritage value for the Jesuit community. The same point is made by Michael A.
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Zampelli, who reflected on his experience of staging seventeenth- and eighteenth-century

Jesuit plays in the early twenty-first century.83
Theater in French Scholasticates: A Brief Analysis
A scholasticate is a central institution in the Jesuit pedagogical system, more so than a

college. It is the place where, after novitiate, Jesuit students pursue their studies in
philosophy and theology. During this phase, the students were required to stage or write
plays. The same was required by students in other religious orders.84 The two sources on
which this analysis is based suggest that the theater in the scholasticates has both its
particularities and common points with the school theater. The first source is a collection
of eight plays in French, written by some thirty theology students of the Jesuit Louis-le-
Grand college in Paris between 1756 and 1759 and collected and copied by hand by the
library prefect.85 The second is a diary in which successive theater prefects of the
scholasticates of Enghien (Belgium), where the French Jesuits of the province of
Champagne found refuge after the decrees of Jules Ferry, and of Chantilly (France),
where they settled upon return to France, described some thirty theater performances in
the Jesuit communities between 1934 and 1960—with an interruption during World War II
—and added their comments on the plays and recorded the views of spectators.86 These
sources allow for understanding this kind of theater at a micro level. By comparing the
two collections, we can also glimpse the evolution and persistence of the Jesuit theatrical
practice in scholasticates. Together with the school drama, the study of the scholasticate
performances contributes to our understanding of the broader historical links that
persisted between the Society of Jesus and the theatrical scene in the late modern period.
The Jesuit scholasticate productions were comparable to productions by the novices of

other Catholic orders and by university students. They were different from the Jesuit
college theater, in particular regarding the circumstances of performances, the
repertoire, and partly its objectives. The actors were all young Jesuit theology students,
aged between twenty-five and thirty, and they spent four years together in theological
training, ending with their ordination. This “little army, well educated, somewhat
rebellious” had been allowed to practice playacting under the strict eye of the superior
and before their definitive entrance into the Society.87 Their audience was composed
mostly of Jesuit fathers of the scholasticate’s community, other fellow students, teachers
and coadjutors of the scholasticate, and sometimes guests, such as a visiting Jesuit
superior.88 Unlike most theatrical performances in the colleges during the early modern
period, the theater in scholasticates was a limited social event, as evidenced by the
location and the time of the performances, characterized by their private dimension.
Moreover, in the nineteenth century, the scholasticate separated from the college become
more like any other Catholic seminary. For the eighteenth-century Parisian Jesuits, the
performances took place in Gentilly, the country house of the Louis-le-Grand college used
by Jesuit fathers and the boarders of the college. It was common to organize festivities in
this house, one or two times a year, in the summer and during Carnival.89 Similarly, in the
twentieth century, the scholasticate of Enghien used its country house of Warelles. The
performances took place as well in the novitiate and the college of Florennes near
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Charleroi, where comedies were performed for the regents during their holidays. Just as
in Jesuit colleges, these performances took place during Mardi Gras and mid-Lent
Sundays and during the summer holidays. But in the twentieth century, performances
multiplied, punctuating the life of the Jesuit community: on January 1 and at community
festivals such as Father Rector’s Day and Coadjutor’s Day. The Day of the Fourth Vow is
another occasion for theater performance. In Enghien and Chantilly, two to five
performances took place per year.
From the Enghien and Chantilly diaries, it is clear that these performances were
important for the Jesuit community given the time spent on writing or adapting plays,
repetitions, and money spent for stage sets and costume rental. The theater in the
scholasticate had a different purpose compared to that of the school theater, even if the
superiors defined it as “a way of training” rather than leisure. Nevertheless, it was meant
to enhance socialization and sociability. The scholastics had to manifest (and play out)
their desire to belong to the Jesuit community. But at the same time a space was provided
for scholastics to play with the community rules and even to transgress them before
entering regular Jesuit life. Finally, it was also a relaxing time for the community. The
texts from Louis-le-Grand and some remarks in the diary of Enghien and Chantilly reveal
that there was quite a liberal and unrestrained tone allowed in the performances,
including, for example, cross-dressing for female roles. Nevertheless, censorship was
present. In Enghien and Chantilly, a “father censor” (Père censeur) was present during
the general rehearsal. Self-censorship was even more important, such as when a more
respectable version of The Taming of the Shrew was chosen over the one performed at
the same time at the Athénée theater, a Parisian theater directed especially by Louis
Jouvet. This theatrical practice may be compared to the eighteenth-century théâtre de
société and the private amateur theater in the French Jesuit minor seminaries. A staged
play was a part of a celebration that also included a supper, music, and sometimes a film
projection. However, there was one notable difference: in the eighteenth century the
students wrote the plays they performed, while in the twentieth century the students
usually performed the “hits” from the Parisian theater repertoire. The texts were bought
for the occasion—especially through the magazine La Petite Illustration—or were
borrowed from the scholasticate’s library. Of course, some translating and editing was
always in order.
The repertoire and texts were specific. They were mostly comic, with no tragedies but
some dramas, and exclusively in French. The scholastics preferred entertainment genres
such as farce, street, and boulevard theater and musical genres. Louis-le-Grand’s
repertoire was in fact a collection of opera-comiques, while Enghien scholastics played
several operettas. This playful dimension is essential in the choice of theatrical forms and
aesthetic models, just as in the private amateur theater. Preference was given to plays
using mirror effects that entail a dialogue with the audience, which interferes with the
theatrical illusion. Occasional productions or pièces de circonstances fit perfectly into this
repertoire. By way of think allegory, the community could also recognize itself, such as in
the play Tricolin (Louis-le-Grand, undated) or Le Sultan de Mandragore (Enghien, 1948).
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In addition, the plays had to make immediate sense, in terms of lived experience and
values, to the audience. The theater pieces performed by the scholastics had nothing to
do with the heritage of the Jesuit college repertoire. They were inspired, instead, by
French theater “classics.” Molière is the common link between the two collections. His
plays were particularly popular with the Jesuits of Enghien and Chantilly, as were
Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew and Beaumarchais’s Barbier de Séville. Plays
written or chosen by scholastics also referred to the history of the Society of Jesus and
more generally of Christianity. They evoked a common past through founding events and
built a particular chronology.90 The spiritual figure of Jean-Joseph Surin in Les Deux
Surins (Louis-le-Grand, 1758), the mythical story of Jesuit missions in Paraguay with Fritz
Hochwälder’s (1911–1986) Sur la terre comme au ciel (Enghien, 1954), and the death of
Thomas Becket in an adaptation of T. S. Eliot’s play Murder in the Cathedral (Enghien,
1950) were all ways of defining and strengthening a collective identity. Finally, plays close
to medieval mysteries but adapted to modern taste, such as L’Annonce faite à Marie by
Paul Claudel (1968–1955) (Enghien, 1937), were also part of the repertoire, characteristic
of the amateur theater.
Concluding Remarks
Recently, Paul Shore noted that without the ideological framework of the Catholic
reformation program of the Society of Jesus, “Jesuit drama had no natural home.”91 In
fact, the massive and regular practice of theater corresponds in a certain way to a
moment in Jesuit’s history. During less than two centuries, theater appeared
“temporarily” essential not only for an expansive and militant Catholicism but also for an
education focused on Latin and rhetoric, for an urban sociability characterized by the
representation of elites and absolutist power, and for a “Baroque” spirituality. Once this
framework cracked, theater lost an important part of its foundation, especially since
theater had no “natural home” in Ignatian spirituality. Even if the Ignatian spirituality
focused on imagination, images, and the “theater of the soul,” it did not necessarily lead
to theatrical performances.
However, Jesuit theater lived beyond and independently of this ideological framework.
Due to many changes in eighteenth-century society, the place and role of the theater in
the Jesuit education and communication order was gradually inflected and reshaped, but
the theater did not completely disappear. It was no longer quite the same as before and
got closer to another kind of theater performed by Jesuits in their scholasticates. As
private and heritage theater, it led to small productions, rarer and less necessary too. It
opened, however, to other connections with theater, crucial for the preservation of a
Jesuit cultural heritage. The longue durée history of the Jesuit drama and of the Jesuit
relation to theater reveals, as Michel de Certeau argued, “how a spiritual continuity can
emerge through a cultural discontinuity.”92
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Druilhet, 1830–1833, François Renault, 1833–1836.
D-Pa 281: Théâtre au scolasticat, Diaire du théâtre (Enghien, Chantilly).
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EF 16: Pièce de théâtre jouée en l’honneur du P. Loriquet, 5 mai 1824.
G Cl 167: La Sainte Vierge présentée au Temple à l’âge de 3 ans, pièce en 3 actes avec
des chœurs; Noëls et cantiques.
I-Pa 191: Léonard Loumeau, pièces de théâtre.
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Ms 12° 436: Opéras comiques à Louis-le-Grand, 1754–1759.
Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Rome, Italy (ARSI).
Franciae 1001–1002: Epistolae, 1814–1819; 1820–1827.
Russia 1001–1008: Epistolae, 1773–1820.
Departmental Archives of the Aube, France.
EE 2014, Vers, compliments, à propos adressés au prince Xavier et à la comtesse de

Lusace, « Les Vœux de l’enfance ou l’amour filial, drame en deux actes par l’abbé de
Barruel ».
Printed Sources
Agathocle, tragédie en cinq actes représentée au collège des nobles de la Compagnie de

Jésus pendant le Carnaval de l’an 1769. Milan: Joseph Mazzucchelli, s.d.
Duparc, Jacques Lenoir. Nouveau recueil de plaidoyers françois, auxquels on a joint

plusieurs recherches très-utiles aux jeunes Elèves de l’Eloquence, Par M. l’Abbé Lenoir
du Parc, J. ancien professeur de Rhétorique au Collège Louis-le-Grand. Paris: Veuve
Thiboust, 1786.
Philipon de la Madelaine, Louis. De l’Education des Collèges. Par l’Auteur des l’Education
du Peuple. London, Paris: Moutard, 1784.
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Régis, Joseph-Charles. Venance, tragédie en cinq actes représentée par MM. Les
pensionnaires du collège des nobles pendant le carnaval de l’année 1768. Milan: Joseph
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Gesù. Teorie e prassi fra XVI e XIX secolo. Bologne: Il Mulino, 2012.
Beam, Sarah. Laughing Matters. Farce and the Making of Absolutism in France. Ithaca,
NY, London: Cornell University Press, 2007.
Boer, Wiets de, Karl A. E. Enenkel, and Walter S. Melion, eds. Jesuit Image Theory.
Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2016.
Burson, Jeffrey D., and Jonathan Wright, eds. The Jesuit Suppression in Global Context.
Causes, Events, and Consequences. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
Dekoninck, Ralph. Ad imaginem. Statuts, fonctions et usages de l’image dans la

littérature jésuite du XVIIe siècle. Genève: Droz, 2005.
Fabre, Pierre-Antoine, and Patrick Goujon. Suppression et rétablissement de la

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Filippi, Bruna. “Du modèle à la pratique théâtrale jésuite.” In Théâtre et enseignement,

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Piéjus, Anne, ed. Plaire et instruire: le spectacle dans les collèges de l’Ancien Régime.
Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2007.
Sohn, Andreas, and Jacques Verger, eds. Die universitären Kollegien im Europa des
Mittelalters und der Renaissance. Bochum: Winkler, 2011.
Tjoelker, Nienke. Andrea Friz’s Letter on tragedies (ca. 1741–1744). Leiden, Boston: Brill,
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Weaver, Elissa B. Convent Theatre in Early Modern Italy. Spiritual Fun and Learning for
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Weaver, Elissa B. Scenes from Italian Convent Life: An Anthology of Convent Theatrical
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Restoration, 1762–1803. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013.
Zanlonghi, Giovanna. Teatri di formazione. Actio, parola e immagine nella scena gesuitica
del Sei-Settecento a Milano. Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 2002.
Notes:
(1) On Jesuit education see the chapter by Cristiano Casalini in this volume.
(2) Nigel Griffin refers to more than 1,900 titles on specialized and generalist works on
Jesuit theater in his Jesuit School Drama: A Checklist of Critical Literature (London: Grant
& Cutler, 1976–1986).
(3) On the suppression and survival of the Society of Jesus, see the chapter by Niccolo
Guasti in this volume.
(4) This approach is based in particular on studies focusing on images and pictorial
representation. See, in this volume, the chapter by Ralph Dekoninck and Walter S.
Melion.
(5) Bruna Filippi, “La Scène jésuite: le théâtre scolaire au Collège Romain au XVIIe
siècle” (PhD diss., EHESS, 1994), 6.
(6) Marie Bouhaïk-Gironès, “Sources et problèmes de l’histoire du théâtre dans les

collèges à la fin du Moyen Âge,” in Die universitären Kollegien im Europa des Mittelalters
und der Renaissance, ed. Andreas Sohn and Jacques Verger (Bochum: Winkler, 2011),
107–120.
(7) This notion was highlighted by Bruna Filippi; see in particular “Du modèle à la
pratique théâtrale jésuite,” in Théâtre et enseignement, XVIIe–XXe siècles, Actes du
colloque international, 5 et 6 octobre 2001, ed. Marie-Emmanuelle Plagnol-Diéval
(Créteil-Champigny: CRDP de l’Académie de Créteil, 2003), 71.
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(8) Filippi, “La Scène jésuite,” 32.
(9) François de Dainville, L’Éducation des jésuites (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1978), 477.
(10) Virginie Tournay, Sociologie des institutions (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,
2011), 3.
(11) L.-V. Gofflot, Le Théâtre au collège du Moyen âge à nos jours (Paris: Honoré
Champion, 1907), 1–2. See also Katell Lavéant, “Contexte et réception du théâtre scolaire
de Noël. De François Briand à Barthélemy Aneau,” Journal of Medieval and Humanistic
Studies 22 (2011): 379–393.
(12) Filippi, “Du modèle à la pratique théâtrale jésuite,” 71.
(13) Dainville, L’Éducation des jésuites, 481. In exchange for a free education provided by
the Jesuits, the city generally provided the buildings and an annual income specified in
the foundation contract.
(14) On Neo-Latin Jesuit literature see the chapter by Yasmin Haskell in this volume.
(15) See, e.g., in the Ratio Studiorum, rule 322 about the “Reward standards,” in Ratio
Studiorum, Plan raisonné et institution des études dans la Compagnie de Jésus, ed.
Adrien Demoustier et al. (Paris: Belin, 1997), 151. On Ratio Studiorum see the chapter by
Cristiano Casalini in this volume. On the Constitutions see also the chapter by Markus
Friedrich in this volume.
(16) Filippi, “Du modèle à la pratique théâtrale jésuite,” 72.
(17) Bruna Filippi, “Le Corps suspendu: le martyr dans le théâtre jésuite,” Littératures
classiques 73, 3 (2010)): 229–239 and Giovanna Zanlonghi, “Il teatro nella pedagogia
gesuitica: una ‘scuola di virtù’,” in I Gesuiti e la Ratio studiorum, ed. Manfred Hinz,
Roberto Righi, and Danilo Zardin (Rome: Bulzoni, 2004), 159–190.
(18) See, e.g., Judith Rock, Terpsichore at Louis-le-Grand: Baroque Dance on the Jesuit
Stage in Paris (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1996) and Laura Naudeix,
Dramaturgie de la tragédie en musique (1673–1764) (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2004).
(19) “Is it not conceivable that the humanist college theater could have had medieval
roots?” asked Jelle Koopmans, then adds: “Could this theater also be analyzed from the
longue durée?” Jelle Koopmans, “Polémiques universitaires sur la scène,” in Le théâtre
polémique français, 1450–1550, ed. Marie Bouhaïk-Gironès, Jelle Koopmans, and Katell
Lavéant (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2008), 77. See more generally Jelle
Koopmans’s research program at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Art and Sciences
(2008–2015), “Law and Drama: How Theatrical Practices Are Defined by, with, and
against the Law in France & French-Speaking Regions (13th–16th Centuries),” https://
www.nwo.nl/en/research-and-results/research-projects/i/71/3871.html.
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Jesuit Theater
(20) Carlos Miguel Salazar Zagazeta, “El teatro evangelizador y urbano en los Andes:
encuentros y desencuentros,” Criticón 87–89 (2003): 775–786.
(21) Jean-Marie Valentin, “Etudes récentes sur le théâtre des jésuites: problèmes et
méthodes,” Etudes germaniques: Allemagne, Autriche, Suisse, pays scandinaves et
néerlandais 22 (1967): 247–253.
(22) Louis Desgraves, Répertoire des programmes des pièces de théâtre jouées dans les
collèges en France (1601–1700) (Genève: Droz, 1986); Jean-Marie Valentin, Le théâtre des
Jésuites dans les pays de langue allemande (1554–1680): salut des âmes et ordre des
cités (Berne: Peter Lang, 1978); Elida M. Szarota, Das Jesuitendrama im deutschen
Sprachgebiet: Eine Periochen-Edition: Texte und Kommentare (Mïchen: Wilhelm Kink,
1979–1987); and Bruna Filippi, Il Teatro degli argomenti: gli scenari seicenteschi del
teatro gesuitico romano (Rome: IHSI, 2001).
(23) Jean-Marie Valentin, Les Jésuites et le théâtre (1554–1680). Contribution à l’histoire

culturelle du monde catholique dans le Saint-Empire romain germanique (Paris:
Desjonquères, 2001), 98–101 and Anne-Claire Magniez, “Les Considerationes de Franz
Lang SJ (1695–1717): histoire des méditations munichoises, Analyse du Theatrum
Solitudinis Asceticae et de la musique de Johannes-Andreas Rauscher à partir des
Exercices spirituels d’Ignace de Loyola” (PhD diss., Université de Paris 4).
(24) In France, the Italian actors’ troops settled at the end of the sixteenth century,
becoming Comédie-Italienne, and the Théâtre de la Foire, where entertainments mingled
with annual commercial activities. They offered to the Parisian public a repertoire
different from that of the Comédie-Française. It was characterized especially by
improvisation typical of commedia dell’arte, satire and parody, and a great deal of
creativeness. Short autonomous plays such as prologues, plays mixing song and spoken
words (vaudeville, etc.), opera-comique, and plays that parody theatrical and musical
success present characteristics that can sometimes be found in the comic French Jesuit
repertoire of the mid-eighteenth century. See Isabelle Martin, Le Théâtre de la Foire. Des
tréteaux aux boulevards (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2002).
(25) David Trott, Théâtre du XVIIIe siècle: jeux, écriture, regards (Montpellier: Editions
espaces 34, 2000), 201.
(26) Valentin, “Etudes récentes sur le théâtre des jésuites,” 253.
(27) Anne Piéjus, ed., Plaire et instruire: le spectacle dans les collèges de l’Ancien Régime
(Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2007), 20.
(28) See the chapter by Paul Nelles in this volume.
(29) Nigel Griffin, “Miguel Venegas and the Sixteenth-Century Jesuit School Theatre,”
Modern Language Review 68, no. 4 (October 1973): 803.
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Jesuit Theater
(30) Walter Puchner, “Jesuit Theatre on the Islands of the Aegean Sea,” Journal of Modern
Greek Studies 21, no. 2 (October 2003): 208.
(31) I would like to thank especially Patrick Goujon for his remarks on this process.
(32) Ferdinando Taviani, “Il Teatro per I gesuiti: una questione du metodo,” in Alle origine
della Università dell’Aquila: cultura, università, collegi gesuitici all’inizio dell’età
moderna in Italia, ed. Filippo Iapelli et al. (Rome: Institutum Historicum S.I., 2000), 225–
250; Michael Zampelli, “‘Lascivi Spettacoli’: Jesuits and Theatre (from the Underside),” in
The Jesuits II. Cultures, Sciences and the Arts, 1540–1773, ed. John O’Malley et al.
(Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press, 2006), 550–571; and Ruth Olaizola
Sánchez, “Les Jésuites au théâtre dans l’Espagne du Siècle d’Or: théories et pratiques,
1588–1689” (PhD diss., EHESS, Paris, 2005).
(33) Olaizola Sánchez, “Les Jésuites au théâtre dans l’Espagne du Siècle d’Or,” 332 and 8.
(34) In addition to Olaizola’s doctoral dissertation, see especially Marc Fumaroli, “La
querelle de la moralité du théâtre au XVIIe siècle,” Bulletin de la société française de
philosophie 84 (July–September 1990): 67–97 and Jean-Marie Valentin, “La Scène jésuite
et la ‘renovatio mundi’: le dehors et le dedans,” in Baroque vision jésuite, du Tintoret à
Rubens, ed. Alain Tapié (Paris: Somogy éditions d’art, 2003), 67–71.
(35) Olaizola Sánchez, “Les Jésuites au théâtre dans l’Espagne du Siècle d’Or,” 606 and
609.
(36) I would like to thank here Pierre-Antoine Fabre for making me aware of this
dimension.
(37) See, e.g., Wiets de Boer, Karl A. E. Enenkel, and Walter S. Melion, eds., Jesuit Image
Theory (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2016) and in this volume the chapter by Ralph Dekoninck
and Walter S. Melion.
(38) See Pierre-Antoine Fabre, Ignace de Loyola, le lieu de l’image. Le problème de la

composition de lieu dans les pratiques spirituelles et artistiques jésuites de la seconde
moitié du XVIe siècle (Paris: Vrin and éditions EHESS, 1992) and Pierre-Antoine Fabre,
Décréter l’image? La XXVe session du Concile de Trente (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2013),
X. See also the chapter by Silvia Mostaccio in this volume.
(39) Bruna Filippi, “‘Grandes et petites actions’ au collège romain. Formation rhétorique
et théâtre jésuite au XVIIe siècle,” in Cérémonial et rituel à Rome (XVIe–XIXe siècle), ed.
Maria Antonietta Visceglia and Catherine Brice (Rome: Ecole française de Rome, 1997),
199.
(40) Ralph Dekoninck, Ad imaginem. Statuts, fonctions et usages de l’image dans la

littérature jésuite du XVIIe siècle (Genève: Droz, 2005), 375.
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Jesuit Theater
(41) Guido Mongini, “Le Teologie gesuitiche delle origini. Lo spiritualismo radicale come
matrice comune del dissenso e della fedeltà all’ortodossia,” in Avventure dell’obbedienza
nella Compagnia di Gesù. Teorie e prassi fra XVI e XIX secolo, ed. Fernanda Alfieri and
Claudio Ferlan (Bologne: Il Mulino, 2012), 41–47.
(42) See the chapter by Cristiano Casalini on the Ratio Studiorum and the chapter by
Markus Friedrich on the Constitutions in this volume.
(43) Sarah Beam, Laughing Matters. Farce and the Making of Absolutism in France
(Ithaca, NY, London: Cornell University Press, 2007). See also Matthieu Ferrand, “Le
Théâtre des collèges. La formation des étudiants et la transmission des savoirs aux XVe et
XVIe siècles,” Camenulae 3 (2009): 1–11, http://www.paris-sorbonne.fr/IMG/pdf/
Mathieu_2.pdf.
(44) Dainville, L’Éducation des jésuites, 504.
(45) See, e.g., rule 58 for the provincial in Règles de la Compagnie de Jésus (Paris: Jean
Fouet, 1620), 67.
(46) The bicentennial of the restoration of the Society of Jesus was the opportunity of
several symposia and publications. See Pierre-Antoine Fabre and Patrick Goujon,
Suppression et rétablissement de la Compagnie de Jésus (1773–1814) (Namur-Paris:
Lessius, 2014); Robert A. Maryks and Jonathan Wright, eds., Jesuit Survival and
Restoration. A Global History, 1773–1900 (Boston: Brill, 2015); and Jeffrey D. Burson and
Jonathan Wright, eds., The Jesuit Suppression in Global Context. Causes, Events, and
Consequences (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015).
(47) Kevin J. Wetmore Jr., “Jesuit Theater and Drama,” Oxford Handbook Online (2016): 15,
accessed October 31, 2016, doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935420.013.55. On the role of
“discontinuity” and “continuity” theses in the historiography on the suppression of the
Society of Jesus, see Pierre-Antoine Fabre, “Introduction: une situation
historiographique,” MEFRIM 126, no. 1 (2014), accessed February 7, 2017, http://
mefrim.revues.org/1750.
(48) Wetmore Jr., “Jesuit Theater and Drama,” 15.
(49) The following reflection is the result from my doctoral research on French Jesuit
theater between the suppression and the restoration, “Théâtre et identité jésuite:
pratique, discours et culture dramatiques de la suppression au rétablissement de la
Compagnie de Jésus en France (1757–1828)” (PhD diss., Université de Grenoble-Alpes,
2015). This reflection has benefited from advice from Pierre-Antoine Fabre, Patrick
Goujon, and Silvia Mostaccio, whom I warmly thank.
(50) Valentin, Le Théâtre des Jésuites, 950.
(51) See Marc Fumaroli, ed., Histoire de la rhétorique dans l’Europe moderne (1450–
1950) (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1999) and particularly the chapters by
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Jesuit Theater
Peter France, “Lumières, politesse et énergie (1750–1776),” 945–999 and Michel Delon,
“Procès de la rhétorique, triomphe de l’éloquence (1775–1800),” 1001–1017.
(54) Paul Shore, “Baroque Drama in Jesuit Schools of Central Europe, 1700–1773,” History
of Universities 20, no. 1 (2005): 178.
(55) Nienke Tjoelker, Andrea Friz’s Letter on Tragedies (ca. 1741–1744) (Leiden, Boston:
Brill, 2015).
(56) Tjoelker, Andrea Friz’s Letter on tragedies, 18. Lang’s successors to the Marian
congregations in Munich such as Neumayr partially abandoned his innovations (the
massive use of music for example) to return to shorter and modest plays with less stage
apparatus.
(57) Françoise Douay-Soublin, “La Rhétorique en France au XIXe siècle à travers ses
pratiques et ses institutions: restauration, renaissance, remise en cause,” in Histoire de la
rhétorique dans l’Europe moderne (1450–1950), ed. Marc Fumaroli (Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1999), 1182.
(58) In the preface of Jovien, a tragedy by Dominique de Colonia, no mention is made of its
creative context, that is, the Jesuit college of Lyon (Dominique de Colonia, Jovien,
tragédie [Lyon: Guerrier, 1696]). More significant are the plays written by French Jesuits
not meant to be performed on stage but to be directly published, such as Folard’s Œdipe
in response to Voltaire’s Oedipe (Oedipe tragédie [Paris: Josse le fils, 1722]), or the
satirical plays by Guillaume-Hyacinthe Bougeant, such as La femme docteur, ou la
théologie tombée en quenouille (Amsterdam: Ledet & Compagnie, 1731).
(59) In France, e.g., in the middle of the eighteenth century, the last two generations of
rhetoricians of the Louis-le-Grand college and other major Jesuit French colleges, Charles
de La Rue (1643–1725), Charles Porée (1675–1741), and Jean-Antoine Du Cerceau (1670–
1730) had their plays published and republished in posthumous collections of their
literary works. See, e.g., Caroli Porée Tragoediae (Paris: Bordelet, 1745, printed by the
Jesuit Claude Griffet).
(60) See Joseph Reyre (an ex-Jesuit), Bibliothèque poétique de la jeunesse ou Recueil de
Pièces et de Morceaux de poésie, propre à orner l’esprit et à former le goût des Jeunes
Gens, sans nuire à leurs mœurs. Par l’Auteur du Mentor des Enfans et de l’Ecole des
Jeunes Demoiselles (Paris: Eugène Onfroy, 1805).
(61) Taviani, “Il teatro per I gesuiti,” 229.
(62) Christian Biet, Œdipe en monarchie. Tragédie et théorie juridique à l’âge classique
(Paris: Klincksieck, 1994).
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Jesuit Theater
(63) Giovanna Zanlonghi, Teatri di formazione. Actio, parola e immagine nella scena
gesuitica del Sei-Settecento a Milano (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 2002). See also Louis J.
Oldani and Victor R. Yanitelli, “Jesuit Theater in Italy: Its Entrances and Exit,” Italica 76,
no. 1 (Spring 1999): 25.
(64) Bernard Hours, “Contre-Révolution avant 1789,” in Dictionnaire de la Contre-

Révolution XVIIIe–XXe siècle, ed. Jean-Clément Martin (Paris: Perrin, 2011), 195–202.
(65) For the study of five tragedies written by French Jesuits in the middle of the
eighteenth century and performed on the stage of the college of Milan between 1768 and
1773, see my doctoral thesis, Gallo, “Théâtre et identité jésuite,” 80–100.
(66) Martin Schieder, “Effacez sur les murs le sang dont ils sont teints. L’iconographie du
martyre au siècle des Lumières,” in L’art et les normes sociales au XVIIIe siècle, ed.
Thomas W. Gaehtgens et al. (Paris: Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 2001), 345–365.
(67) Sabina Pavone, Una strana alleanza: la Compagnia di Gesù in Russia dal 1772 al 1820
(Naples: Bibliopolis, 2008), 185.
(68) Marina Caffiero, La nuova era. Miti e profezie dell’Italia in Rivoluzione (Gênes:
Marietti, 1991) and Daniele Menozzi, Sacro Cuore: un culto tra devozione interiore e
restaurazione cristiana della società (Rome: Viella, 2001).
(69) See particularly John W. Padberg, Colleges in Controversy: The Jesuit Schools in
France from Revival to Suppression (1815–1880) (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1969).
(70) See Thomas Worcester, “A Restored Society or a New Society of Jesus?,” in Jesuit
Survival and Restoration. A Global History, 1773–1900, ed. Robert A. Maryks and
Jonathan Wright (Boston: Brill, 2015), 13–33.
(71) Padberg, Colleges in Controversy, 226.
(72) Anne-Sophie Gallo, “L’Interdiction du théâtre scolaire dans les petits séminaires
jésuites: mentalités et représentations au temps du rétablissement de la Compagnie de
Jésus sous la Restauration,” Rivista di Storia del Cristianesimo 2 (2014): 341–366.
(73) Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu in Rome (ARSI), Franciae 1002-IV 4, Father
Debrosse to the Father General Fortis, January 18, 1825.
(74) Programme et règlement des études de la Société de Jésus: comprenant les

modifications faites en 1832 et 1858 (Paris: Hachette, 1892), 20. Padberg’s opinion is that
this new late modern version would never become definitive because it will not be
submitted to the vote of the general congregation. The rector’s rule about theater is
almost the only part of the Ratio Studiorum where the theater is mentioned. It
recommends the use of Latin and pious topics, the scarcity of performances, and the
prohibition of female roles.
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Jesuit Theater
(75) These words are those of the superior of Saint-Acheul, the most famous of the French
minor seminaries. See in the Archivum Franciae Societatis Iesu in Vanves (AFSI), EF 6,
Annales du petit séminaire de Saint-Acheul ou Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de cette
maison depuis le 3 novembre 1814 jusqu’au 20 août 1828, composé à Paris par le P.
Loriquet en 1829 [copy B], 167.
(76) Michel Cassan, “Les Fêtes de canonisation d’Ignace de Loyola et de François Xavier
dans la Province d’Aquitaine (1622),” in Les Cérémonies extraordinaires du catholicisme
baroque, ed. Bernard Dompnier (Clermont-Ferrand: Presses Universitaires Blaise-Pascal,
2009), 475.
(77) Chantal Verdeil, “Martyrs de la foi catholique, combattants de l’Eglise romaine: les
héros du théâtre de l’Université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth (1875–1914),” in Entangled
Education. Foreign and Local Schools in Ottoman Syria and Mandate Lebanon (19–20th
Centuries), ed. Julia Hauser, Christine B. Lindner, and Esther Möller (Beirut: Orient
Institut-Beirut, 2016), 181–199.
(78) Georges Longhaye, Théâtre chrétien (Paris: Retaux-Bray, 1891), IX. This French Jesuit
was a pedagogue and author of plays particularly on literary history.
(79) Marie-Madeleine Mervant-Roux, ed., Du théâtre amateur: approche historique et

anthropologique (Paris: CNRS éditions, 2004). See also in the last issue of the
Contemporary Theatre Review dedicated to the amateur theater Nadine Holdsworth, Jane
Milling, and Helen Nicholson, “Theatre, Performance, and the Amateur Turn,”
Contemporary Theatre Review 27, no. 1 (2017): 4–17.
(80) Longhaye, Théâtre chrétien, V.
(81) Wetmore Jr., “Jesuit Theater and Drama,” 15–17.
(82) Arsène Cahour, “Le théâtre latin des jésuites à la fin du XVIe et au début du XVIIe
siècle,” Etudes 1 (1862): 475.
(83) Michael A. Zampelli, “Opera News: Jesuits, Catholic Imagination, and the Staging of
Cultural Conversations,” in Catholic Theatre and Drama: Critical Essays, ed. Kevin J.
Wetmore (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2010), 162–180.
(84) We know more about the theatrical practice in women’s convents since the Middle
Ages and especially after the Council of Trent from the work by Elissa B. Weaver, Convent
Theatre in Early Modern Italy. Spiritual Fun and Learning for Women (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2002) and Scenes from Italian Convent Life: An Anthology of
Convent Theatrical Texts and Contexts (Ravenne: Longo, 2009).
(85) Library of the Centre Sèvres-Facultés Jésuites de Paris, Jesuitica, Ms 12°436, Opéras-
comiques à Louis-le-Grand (1758–1759). For a detailed analysis of this collection of plays,
see my doctoral dissertation, “Théâtre et identité jésuite,” 33–65.
Page 27 of 28

Jesuit Theater
(86) AFSI, D-Pa 281, Théâtre au scolasticat, Diaire du théâtre (Enghien, Chantilly). A
theater prefect is a scholastic in charge of supervising the show and the actors.
(87) Gustave Dupont-Ferrier, Du collège de Clermont au lycée Louis-le-Grand (1563–1920)

(Paris: Editions de Boccard, 1921), 1:51.
(88) It is also possible, during the ancien régime, that the boarders of the college were
present even if the performance had not been intended for them directly.
(89) Pierre Delattre, ed., Les établissements des jésuites en France depuis quatre siècles
(Enghien: Institut supérieur de théologie, Imprimerie de Meester Frères, 1940–1957),
2:652 and 653. In Enghien and Chantilly the recreation room was also used for the
performances.
(90) Marie-Madeleine Mervant-Roux, “Le répertoire des amateurs. Ethnographie du texte

dramatique,” in Du Théâtre amateur: approche historique et anthropologique, ed. Marie-
Madeleine Mervant-Roux (Paris: CNRS éditions, 2004), 129.
(91) Shore, “Baroque Drama,” 165.
(92) Michel de Certeau, “Crise sociale et réformisme spirituel au début du XVIIe siècle:
une ‘nouvelle spiritualité’ chez les jésuites français,” Revue d’ascétique et de mystique
163–163, t. XLI (1965): 341.
Anne-Sophie Gallo
Laboratoire de Recherche Historique Rhône-Alpes
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Oxford Handbooks Online

Abstract and Keywords

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The Theatrical Phenomenon in the Jesuit

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Toward an Established Practice

Theater in Jesuit colleges gradually becomes an established practice—although, in fact,

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One of the main difficulties, already mentioned by Jean-Marie Valentin in 1967, is to

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The Paradox of Jesuit Theater

The Society of Jesus incorporated theater by trying to “convert” secular theater

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Beyond Suppression and Restoration:

The Eighteenth Century: A Turning Point for the Jesuit Theater

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practice of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, a traditional periodization

In the German-speaking regions, the number of theatrical performances in Jesuit colleges

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An “Old Custom” in a “New Society”?

Subscriber: University of Chicago; date: 02 April 2019

adopted a certain “culture of secrecy” and discretion. As explained by French superiors,

Subscriber: University of Chicago; date: 02 April 2019

The contemporary Jesuit theater could be qualified as a private—or “community”—and

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Zampelli, who reflected on his experience of staging seventeenth- and eighteenth-century

Theater in French Scholasticates: A Brief Analysis

A scholasticate is a central institution in the Jesuit pedagogical system, more so than a

The Jesuit scholasticate productions were comparable to productions by the novices of

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Subscriber: University of Chicago; date: 02 April 2019

Subscriber: University of Chicago; date: 02 April 2019

Archivum Franciae Societatis Iesu, Vanves, France (AFSI).

D-Pa 281: Théâtre au scolasticat, Diaire du théâtre (Enghien, Chantilly).

EF 6: Annales du petit séminaire de Saint-Acheul ou Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de

EF 16: Pièce de théâtre jouée en l’honneur du P. Loriquet, 5 mai 1824.

I-Pa 191: Léonard Loumeau, pièces de théâtre.

Centre Sèvres-Facultés jésuites de Paris, France.

Ms 12° 436: Opéras comiques à Louis-le-Grand, 1754–1759.

Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, Rome, Italy (ARSI).

Franciae 1001–1002: Epistolae, 1814–1819; 1820–1827.

Russia 1001–1008: Epistolae, 1773–1820.

Departmental Archives of the Aube, France.

EE 2014, Vers, compliments, à propos adressés au prince Xavier et à la comtesse de

Agathocle, tragédie en cinq actes représentée au collège des nobles de la Compagnie de

Duparc, Jacques Lenoir. Nouveau recueil de plaidoyers françois, auxquels on a joint

Subscriber: University of Chicago; date: 02 April 2019

Valoris, Antoine. Brutus, tragédie en trois actes par le R. P. Valoris de la Compagnie de

Dekoninck, Ralph. Ad imaginem. Statuts, fonctions et usages de l’image dans la

Fabre, Pierre-Antoine, and Patrick Goujon. Suppression et rétablissement de la

Filippi, Bruna. “Du modèle à la pratique théâtrale jésuite.” In Théâtre et enseignement,

Gallo, Anne-Sophie. “Théâtre et identité jésuite: pratique, discours et culture dramatiques

Mervant-Roux, Marie-Madeleine, ed. Du théâtre amateur: approche historique et

Subscriber: University of Chicago; date: 02 April 2019

Whitehead, Maurice. English Jesuit Education: Expulsion, Suppression, Survival and

(6) Marie Bouhaïk-Gironès, “Sources et problèmes de l’histoire du théâtre dans les

Subscriber: University of Chicago; date: 02 April 2019

(8) Filippi, “La Scène jésuite,” 32.

(12) Filippi, “Du modèle à la pratique théâtrale jésuite,” 71.