“Inquisition in Action is a valuable new portal for ordering and making visible the material artifacts of censorship in early modern Portugal and its empire.”

Hannah Marcus, Harvard University

Author of Forbidden Knowledge. Medicine, Science, and Censorship in Early Modern Italy (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2020).

“Inquisition in Action makes a significant contribution to our understanding of Catholic censorship of scientific texts in the early modern period. It allows historians to examine not only the manner in which Portuguese inquisitors implemented Indices of Forbidden books, but also to consider the physical practice of censorship. It will provide a valuable starting point for further studies of censorship in Portugal and a basis for constructing comparative studies of inquisitorial practice across the Catholic world. It therefore provides an important tool that will help us to rethink our understanding of the Catholic Church’s influence on the development of science in this period.”

Neil Tarrant, University of Leeds

Author of Defining Nature’s Limits: The Roman Inquisition and the Boundaries of Science (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022)