An Army of the Devil in the Indie Romane: The Jesuits’ Struggle against Religious Ignorance in the Early Seventeenth Century

From Rome, Catholicism sought to spread itself throughout the early modern world.2 But, at a more local level, how did Catholic missionaries operate in the rural areas near the papal city? In the archival sources preserved at the Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu (ARSI), the countryside around seventeenth-century Rome emerges as a site of widespread religious ignorance, superstition, and magic. Its proximity to the center of Catholicism highlights the problem of religious education in rural areas. The ru- ral missions are a key tool to access the everyday life of farmers and shepherds.