Sacrificio del desiderio e matrimonio cristiano fra tardomedioevo e prima età moderna

The essay examines the positions of Catholic doctrine in the early modern age on the connection between sacrifice and sexuality. It was examined a body of moral literature characterised by different levels of specialisation and relative recipients: manuals of spiritual instruction aimed at educated readers but not necessarily members of the clergy, texts for confessors and judges settling matrimonial disputes, works of wide circulation and others that remained in the shadows. A common line emerges: the sacrificial condition is desirable and necessary, and the conjugal status is hopelessly second to that, far more noble, far more sacrificial, of the religious devoted to celibacy.