Index of Forbidden Books Published

1559

Pope Paul IV issued the first universal Index Librorum Prohibitorum, banning hundreds of authors from Erasmus to Machiavelli. Printers in Rome, Venice, and Milan watched their stock go into bonfires. The Catholic Reformation had acquired a censor's library to match its inquisitor's dungeon. The blanket condemnation of Erasmus demonstrated the Counter-Reformation's willingness to sacrifice its own intellectual tradition for doctrinal purity.