I Gesuati e i volgarizzamenti (seconda metà XIV–prima metà XV secolo)

The Jesuati were not an actual Order, but a congregation, initially driven by uneducated men but quickly welcoming individuals capable of reading and understanding Latin texts and translating them. This essay illustrates that the presence of educated men among the Jesuati did not result from an institutionalized education program, but rather from their specific recruitment practices. In the first decades, the libraries of the Jesuati mainly contained volgarizzamenti which had been produced either within or outside of the congregation. Yet they were always translations of texts stemming from the monastic tradition, reread and rewritten in the light of a new apostolic ideal which was to be conveyed also to the worldly, uneducated public.