ABSTRACT
Juan Alfonso de Polanco's Short Directory for Confessors provides a fascinating insight into the interplay between personal authority, religious authority and the circulation of printed religious books in sixteenth-century Europe. According to the census of the Jesuit penitential literature between 1554 and 1650, Polanco's manual was the first published Jesuit book on sacramental confession. Robert A. Maryks, Census of the books written by Jesuits on sacramental confession, Annali di Storia moderna e contemporanea. The Directory was the only book translated into Illyrian and Slovenian languages, and one of the only two Jesuit confessional manuals translated into Portuguese. Carlos Coupeau, The constitutions of the Society of Jesus: The rhetorical component', Studies in Spirituality and was commissioned by Loyola to translate them into Latin. He participated in the colloquy of Poissy and in the last session of the Council of Trent. The Society of Jesus was founded in mid-sixteenth century, at the dusk of one epoch and at the birth of another.
