684 paul f. grendler
a bequest by a layman or clergyman might produce educational dividends
for centuries. like Venice, Veneto communal councils embraced human-
ism, proclaiming that the studia humanitatis taught virtue and eloquence.
they hired humanists well known in their time to teach in their latin
schools, although they had difficulty retaining them. and by the second
half of the 16th century, Schools of christian doctrine taught prayers and
basic literacy in large towns and hamlets across the Veneto. indeed, cat-
echism schools may have had a greater positive impact on literacy in the
Veneto than in Venice.28
Catholic Reformation Schoolingthe schools of the new religious orders of the catholic Reformation,
especially the Society of Jesus, dominated latin education in italy in
the 17th and 18th centuries. the religious orders sought to teach their
version of christian humanism, which was a combination of the studia
humanitatis and catholic doctrine. the schools of the new religious orders
began in the middle of the 16th century and developed their characteristic
structures and curricula by 1600. they reached their peak in enrollment
and influence in the second half of the 17th century but fell out of favor
with Enlightenment philosophes and rulers and were often suppressed in
the late 18th century. La Serenissima did not participate fully in catholic
Reformation education because of its hostility toward the Jesuits.
in 1550 the Jesuits opened a school in Venice with 20 external students
(lay boys) and 11 Jesuit scholastics (young members of the Society) in
attendance.29 they opened a similar school in padua in 1552, followed
by schools in brescia (1567) and Verona (1578). While the Venetian
school soon closed, those in brescia and Verona did well, and the padua
school became the crown jewel of the Jesuit presence in the Republic of
Venice. the paduan Jesuits offered a lower school teaching latin gram-
mar, humanities, and rhetoric to boys mostly ten to 16 years of age, and
an upper school teaching logic, natural philosophy, and metaphysics, all
28 carlsmith, A Renaissance Education, pp. 147–59, 265, 298–300.
29 the fundamental work on the Jesuits in Venice and the Veneto is Mario Zanardi, ed.,
I Gesuiti e Venezia. Momenti e problemi di storia veneziana della Compagnia di Gesù. atti
del convegno di Studi, Venezia, 2–5 ottobre 1990 (padua, 1994). its 29 studies in nearly 900
pages provide an enormous amount of information. Mario Zanardi, “i ‘domicili’ o centri
operativi della compagnia di Gesù nello Stato veneto (1543–1773),” in Zanardi, ed., I Gesuiti
e Venezia, pp. 89–179, is particularly important.