Renaissance Studies Vol. 13 No. 2 Historia magistra antiquitatis: Cicero and Jesuit history teaching PAUL NELLLB I Study of the teaching of history in the early modern Jesuit colleges has long troubled historians of both education and historiography. The student is confronted by a number of difficulties common to the history of early modern education, including frequently opaque curricular documentation, the innate elasticity of the normal commentary method, a range of indi- vidual competence, and the variety of purpose of pedagogical institutions. While teaching in Jesuit establishments varied greatly in response to local, regional, and national requirements, with the advent of the Jesuit college system a standardized curriculum, method of teaching, and corps of teach- ing personnel became for the first time not only desirable, but necessary to secure the success of the undertaking.’ Given the wide scope of the Jesuit pedagogical enterprise, comprising over 500 teaching institutions scattered across Europe, Asia, and the Americas by 1640,’ an understanding of the place of history within college teaching would seem to be of considerable consequence. The problem has wider implications for our understanding of the Society of Jesus in its first 150 years as well. The Jesuits exploited the broad possibilities afforded by Renaissance historiographical culture, both ecclesiastical and secular, on an unprecedented scale.’ From the early I would like to thank Luc Deiu, Christopher Ligota and Nancy Struever for their suggestionsand criticisms, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Warburg Institute. Abbreviations: MPSI - Monummtn Paedagogica Societatir Im, ed. Ladislaus Lukacs (7 MIS, Rome, 1965-91); MGP - Ratio sfudimm [ . . . ] S.I. pcr Gmnoniam olim v i p t u , ed. G. M. Pachtler, 4 vols = Monummfa Germaniac Paedagvgicn, vols 2, 5,9, and 16 (Berlin, 1887-94); Quaestiona = Andrk Schott, Tullia~c puocstiones & inrtaumnda C i c m i r imifafionc (Antwerp, 1610); RS =Ratio ofpe insfitufio sfudiotum, followed by initial year of issue in parentheses; Sommervogelp Carlos Sommervogel. Bibliofhlque & la Compqnie I J h (10 vols. Paris, 1890-1909). ’ For the establishment of the early colleges, see Gabriel Codina Mir, Am sources & la pldogogtc da Jlsuites. Le ‘Modur ParisimSk’ (Rome, 1968); Aldo Scaglione, The Libem1 Arb and the Jesuit College System (Amsterdam and Philadelphia, 1986); and esp. John W. OMalley, The First Jcruib (Cambridge, MA and London, 1993), 200-42. * Scaglione, Lihl Arb, 62, gives the figure of 521 colleges in 1640, based on the centenary celebration volume of the Society, Imap p i m i saeculi (Antwerp, 1640). In general see Eduard Fueter, Guchichtc dct neuerm Hisbriopuphie (Munich and Berlin, 1996; repr. 1968). 278-88 on Jesuit historians; still useful as well is the broader survey of Martin Harney, ‘Jesuit writers of history’, Cafholic Historical Review. 26 (1940). 433-46; and on Jesuit historical scholarship, Pedro de Leturia. ‘Contributo della Compagnia di GesQalla formazione delle scienze storiche’, Ano&cfa Gngoriana, 29 (1942). 161-202. 0 1999 The Society for Renaissance Studies, Oxford University Press