Confutare l’Ethnicismo. Il Dell’India Orientale (1669) di Clemente Tosi

n 1669 Clemente Tosi, abbot of the Congregation of St. Sylvester of the Order of St. Benedict, consultant of the Sacred Congregation of the Index, published his “Il gentilesimo confutato. Dell’India Orientale” in Rome. It is a manual for missionaries that combines geographical and historical descriptions of the East Indies with a remarkable series of theological and legal controversies. The purpose of the following pages is to provide some coordinates to guide the reader on the paths that the author has chosen to point out. We defend, here, the conviction that the Etnicismo confutato(Ethnicism Refuted) –we tried to read the work in the light of this alternative title that was episodically used to refer to it –is a valid and representative archive that preserves the canon of counter-reformed knowledge.