John W. O'Malley

Research centers on the religious culture of early modern Europe, with special attention to Italy. He has shown how the revival of classical rhetoric in the Renaissance changed the form and content of sermons preached in the Sistine Chapel and has otherwise traced the changes in aesthetic and religious sensibilities from the late fifteenth through the sixteenth century. He has written extensively on the Renaissance papacy, on Erasmus, on the foundational years of the Society of Jesus, on the Council of Trent, on Vatican Council II (1962-1965), and on historiography.