For historical and ideological reasons deriving from the risorgimento, the unification of the peninsula and the special relationship between church and state existing until recently, the attention of scholars has focused above all on the ‘political’ aspects of Italian church history, on the contribution of such movements as Jansenism and Jurisdictionalism to the debate on reform during the eighteenth century, and finally on the political, institutional and social–economic outlines developed in the reform struggle against ecclesiastical structures.

As a result, the ‘internal’ history of the church, from its institutions to its religious life, has been generally neglected, although now interest and research have begun to move in new directions because of the different awareness of religious problems following upon the Second World War and the deeply felt concern of Italian historians for new historiographical ideas, particularly those suggested by French socio-religious historical methodology. In the light of this historiographical nuovo corso not only could previous studies be reutilized, but research could be undertaken on ecclesiastical institutions; such as that leading to the Atlante storico italiano dell'età moderna (particularly for the Lombardy of Maria Theresa and Joseph II); or to analyses of religious sociology of the Le Bras school embodied in the work of Candeloro Giorgini on the Tuscan Maremma in the eighteenth century, or Giuseppe Orlandi on the Modena countryside after the French Revolution; or to samples of the socioreligious history of the Mezzogiorno in the eighteenth century by Gabriele De Rosa and his collaborators.