| Summary: | The category of ‘Jesuitism’ must be counted among the most long-standing and blurred concepts in the political-religious debate of modern and contemporary Europe. Used both as a polemic and historiographical category – that is, describing doctrines and practices attributed to the Jesuits by their adversaries, but also their own historical features – it sums up different and often incongruous traits, mainly pertaining to the sphere of the power relationships between the Church and the State. Even if Jesuitism must be primarily considered as a myth shaped by the anti-Jesuits in different historical contexts, nonetheless it is possible to identify in it some original elements and trace them back to the late 16th century.
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