Seeing Religion: Religious Diversity and Urbanity

Religious diversity was a recurrent and yet problematic feature of early modern Christian life, placed against the background of a rising ideal of a religiously uniform society organised through denominational lines. This article briefly describes the historical conditions which transformed urban religious diversity in Europe, and then offers some insights into the theme through the perceptions, descriptions, and visibility of urban religious diversity as it was recorded by two great travelogues: Montaigne’s Journal de Voyage and Coryat’s Crudities.