In this meticulously researched study, Marcus explores an institution and a series of practices that are widely known but poorly understood—the Congregation of the Index and the practice of censorship by the early modern Catholic Church.1 In recent years, Fragnito, Menchi, Caravale, Spruit, and Baldini have explored the theme of censorship and the control of texts in early modern Italy.2 Marcus’ work, however, adds a striking new dimension to our knowledge of this institution. She follows a deep archival trail to uncover who was involved with expurgating books, how they did it, the ways in which readers navigated the prohibited books, and the effect that censorship had both on the practice of reading and the material culture of the book in the early modern period.
Marcus’ monograph is divided into seven chapters that chart a roughly chronological arc from the mid-sixteenth-century, starting with the Pauline Index (1559), through...