Stefania Tutino
4:30 pm
Clark Hall Room 206
11130 Bellflower Road
Cleveland, Ohio 44106
Stefania Tutino’s talk centers on the process of discerning between true and false, examining the extent to which the problem of discernment is intimately tied to the problem of authority. This paper addresses these questions in the context of the early modern Catholic discussions about the supernatural, using as a case study the long investigation launched by the Roman Curia into some remarkable rituals connected to exorcisms in the city of Sorrento. In a sense, discerning between true miracles, diabolic interventions, and fraudulent human tricks presented the same kind of cultural, intellectual, and scholarly challenges that authenticating human documents presented. At the same time, however, the supernatural is by definition unverifiable. This paper explores this apparent paradox, showing its rich implications for our understanding of the cultural and intellectual history of early modern Catholicism.
Stefania Tutino is a professor of history at UCLA. She is a cultural and intellectual historian of post-Reformation Catholicism. She has published on early modern Catholic political thought, moral theology, the history of the Society of Jesus, and the Roman Inquisition.
Stefania Tutino is a 2025 Hildegarde and Elbert Baker Visiting Scholar in the Humanities.
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