Abstract
Claudio Acquaviva (1543–1615) was the fifth general of the Jesuits from 1581 until his death. Very gifted in administrative and political issues, by his election he programmed a precise reformation of the Society, culminated with the publication of the Ratio Studiorum in 1586. He faced many controversies, internal and external to his order, and had several clashes especially with Spanish Jesuits, the emperor Philip II, and the popes Sixtus V, Clement VIII, and Paul V. All of them were successfully solved due to his cleverness in politics. He also succeeded in developing the Society in France, the Netherlands, and Flanders. Dead in 1615, he left the Society in its brightest period and contributed to its future survival.
His thoughts and ideas on the governance of the Society are expressed mainly in the two works he personally supervised, Ratio atque institutio studiorum (Romae, 1586) and Industriae pro superioribus eiusdem Societatis: Ad curandos Animae morbos (Romae, 1606).
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Primary Literature
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Lacca, E. (2022). Acquaviva, Claudio. In: Sgarbi, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14169-5_337
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