Abstract

ten written using sources belonging exclusively to the Protestant Churches, sometimes without taking into account the documents of the Roman Congregations. Thanks to the recent availability of archival material (for example, the opening of the Archive of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith), the article elucidates the role played by the Holy Office in the control of Protestant preaching in Rome and the Lazio region in the 1870s. By studying reports and abjurations, the essay focuses on the Inquisition’s strategies of control, on its networks and on its handling of anti-Protestant fears in its attempt to bring converts back to Catholicism. On the one hand, the article reveals the major fears of the Curia at the time, those that led to identify Protestantism with Mazzinianism, Freemasonry and social activism. On the other hand, the essay sheds new light on the social profiles of those who joined the new Protestant churches.