Miguel Venegas and the Earliest Jesuit Theater: Choruses for Tragedies in Sixteenth-Century Europe (Jesuit Studies, 23)

Book info: Miguel Venegas and the Earliest Jesuit Theater: Choruses for Tragedies in Sixteenth-Century Europe (Jesuit Studies, 23) (Hardcover, 256 pages) – Brill, 2019. Language: English.

In Miguel Venegas and the Earliest Jesuit Theater, Margarida Miranda takes a fresh look at the origins of Jesuit theater and provides a detailed account of the life and work of Miguel Venegas (1529–after 1588) within the Iberian tradition. The book details Venegas’s role as the founder of Jesuit theater in Portugal and the creator of a new musical genre, choruses for tragedies, which was gradually codified and emulated by successive generations of Jesuits. Venegas’s Latin tragedies in turn provided the model for regular dramatic activities in the global network of Jesuit schools, including, significantly, the first tragedies to be staged in Rome: Saul Gelboeus and Achabus, both of which had originally been performed in Coimbra in the mid-sixteenth century. Editorial Reviews About the Author Margarida Miranda, PhD (Coimbra University, 2002) is professor of classical and humanistic studies at Coimbra University. She has published monographs and many articles on classical and Jesuit studies, including a modern Portuguese translation of the Ratio studiorum (1599).