Baroque around the clock: : Daniello Bartoli SJ (1608-1685) and the uses of global history

Right from its foundation in 1540, the Society of Jesus realised the value and role of visual description (ekphrasis) in the persuasive rhetoric of Jesuit missionary accounts. Over a century later, when Jesuit missions were to be found on all the inhabited continents of the world then known to Europeans, descriptions of these new found lands were to be read for entertainment as well as the edification of their Old World audiences. As author of the first official history of the Society’s missions in the vernacular, the volumes by Daniello Bartoli (1608–85) also played an important role in giving not only their Jesuit readers a sense of the distinctiveness of the order's global mission. Referred to by Giacomo Leopardi (1798– 1837) as the ‘Dante of baroque prose’, Bartoli developed a particularly variegated and intensely visual idiom to meet the challenge of describing parts of the world which the majority of his readers, including himself, would never visit

The Unbelieved and historians, part III : Responses and Elaborations

The first two parts of "The Unbelieved" argued for the possibility of the existence of supernatural beings and for their agency in historical writing. This instalment is a roundtable assessing the problems and potential in the category of the Unbelieved and in its knowability. Space limitations prevented our following the rich avenues of further inquiry our extraordinary peer reviewers suggested, but we remain grateful, especially for their reminders of the complexity of motivations of historians who avoid the Unbelieved and their emphasis on the importance of humility as a historian's tool

Rehabilitation versus surgical reconstruction for non-acute anterior cruciate ligament injury (ACL SNNAP): a pragmatic randomised controlled trial

BackgroundAnterior cruciate ligament (ACL) rupture is a common debilitating injury that can cause instability of the knee. We aimed to investigate the best management strategy between reconstructive surgery and non-surgical treatment for patients with a non-acute ACL injury and persistent symptoms of instability.MethodsWe did a pragmatic, multicentre, superiority, randomised controlled trial in 29 secondary care National Health Service orthopaedic units in the UK. Patients with symptomatic knee problems (instability) consistent with an ACL injury were eligible. We excluded patients with meniscal pathology with characteristics that indicate immediate surgery. Patients were randomly assigned (1:1) by computer to either surgery (reconstruction) or rehabilitation (physiotherapy but with subsequent reconstruction permitted if instability persisted after treatment), stratified by site and baseline Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score—4 domain version (KOOS4). This management design represented normal practice. The primary outcome was KOOS4 at 18 months after randomisation. The principal analyses were intention-to-treat based, with KOOS4 results analysed using linear regression. This trial is registered with ISRCTN, ISRCTN10110685, and ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02980367.FindingsBetween Feb 1, 2017, and April 12, 2020, we recruited 316 patients. 156 (49%) participants were randomly assigned to the surgical reconstruction group and 160 (51%) to the rehabilitation group. Mean KOOS4 at 18 months was 73·0 (SD 18·3) in the surgical group and 64·6 (21·6) in the rehabilitation group. The adjusted mean difference was 7·9 (95% CI 2·5–13·2; p=0·0053) in favour of surgical management. 65 (41%) of 160 patients allocated to rehabilitation underwent subsequent surgery according to protocol within 18 months. 43 (28%) of 156 patients allocated to surgery did not receive their allocated treatment. We found no differences between groups in the proportion of intervention-related complications.InterpretationSurgical reconstruction as a management strategy for patients with non-acute ACL injury with persistent symptoms of instability was clinically superior and more cost-effective in comparison with rehabilitation management

Thinking with Jesuit saints: the canonization of Ignatius Loyola and Francis Xavier in Context

The significance of the two founder saints to the contribution made by Jesuit missionaries, many of whom became martyrs, to the making of Roman Catholicism as a world religion, was made explicit not at the canonization ceremony itself, nor in the celebratory processions made through the streets of Rome, but in events and decorations put up within spaces controlled by the Jesuits themselves at the Ges , the Collegio Romano, and the novitiate of S. Andrea al Quirinale. This points to the wider phenomenon, pursued in complementary fashion in the six essays that follow: that how one “became” a saint and came to enjoy a cult (then as now) has more to do with particular, local appropriation and interpretation (including Rome itself) than with official papal, universal approbation

The Limits of Erudition : Daniello Bartoli SJ (1608-85) and the mission of writing history

This chapter uses the case study of the volume on the English mission in Daniello Bartoli’s unfinished, multi-volume Istoria della Comagnia di Giesu (1653-73) to examine whether or not a specifically Jesuit ‘way of proceeding’ can also be discerned in the Society's history writing. It is argued that in order to understand the rhyme of Bartoli’s reason one needs to integrate his history writing with both his prior experience as a star preacher for the Society and as experienced teacher of rhetoric as well as with his wider interests in natural philosophy. By doing so, it is possible to understand better Bartoli's intensely visual language as well as his command of such a ‘huge multiplicity of styles and almost distinct languages' which so impressed Giacomo Leopardi (for whom Bartoli was ’the Dante of baroque prose') but which can make the Jesuit such a challenging read today. In the final analysis, notwithstanding his use of archival and manuscript evidence, Bartoli subordinated historical scholarship to rhetorical priorities in his mission both to celebrate his order’s achievement as well as to defend it from attack from within