Father Roberto Busa, S.J. (1913-2011), a pioneer in linguistic computing, left an indelible imprint through his Libri dei metodi, a twenty-one-volume collection written between 1996 and 2008. These texts document the creation of the Index Thomisticus, justify some methodological choices made while building the digital corpus of the opera omnia of Thomas Aquinas, and look ahead to future projects. Busa's approach, based on a comprehensive collection and analysis of linguistic data, contrasted with the traditional sampling-based approximation. This article examines key excerpts from the Libri dei metodi (particularly the Trattato di lessicologia), highlighting their relevance in the era of Large Language Models (LLMs) by focusing on the importance of sound methodological principles that balance data quality and quantity.
This article presents the first systematic reconstruction and quantitative exploration of the confessional polemics produced in Vilnius, Lithuania, between 1574 and 1647 by Catholic (primarily Jesuit), Reformed, and Unitarian authors. Earlier studies have tended to isolate prominent polemicists or individual exchanges, whereas we seek to treat the surviving texts as a single interconnected corpus. At the project's core is a database of 156 works first editions, reprints, translations, and manuscript copies described across forty-five metadata categories. These combine standard bibliographic information with records of cited authorities, polemical themes, discussed topics, and references to local outbreaks of religious violence. The corpus is modeled as a directed graph that links texts, persons, and places. Applying network analysis (reciprocity, density, betweenness) makes it possible to trace how individual exchanges developed, how certain authors held together otherwise separate debates, and how the intensity of controversy rose and then declined. This perspective also reveals larger tendencies: confessional participation proved uneven, and polemical genres gradually shifted as Protestant publishing declined and Catholic authors turned to new rhetorical forms. The article first outlines the historical setting of the Vilnius Controversy and the criteria used to identify and structure the sources. It then explains the database design and a Resource Description Framework (RDF) graph. By combining systematic digital analysis with historical interpretation, the study aims to clarify how polemical debates took shape, evolved, and eventually lost momentum in early modern Vilnius.
As part of this special issue on the digital humanities and AI turn in Jesuit Studies, this article demonstrates how carefully supervised computational frameworks can augment historical interpretation by surfacing patterns that traditional close reading alone may under-emphasize. The contribution is not technological novelty but historical clarity: how did early modern diplomats craft epistemic credibility under uncertainty? We use the historian-led, AI-assisted Grammar of Conspiracy Matrix Analysis (GCMA) to examine Sir Henry Wotton's diplomatic correspondence (1590-1610), showing how antiJesuit conspiratorial rhetoric functioned as information warfare. By "conspiracy," we mean not a judgment about psychological pathology, but a narrative structure-a way of rendering hidden agency legible and actionable. Conspiratorial rhetoric employs specific linguistic markers (modal verbs, attributional frames, conditional syntax, hedged inferences) to stabilize uncertainty as usable knowledge. Our study asks: how did Wotton calibrate conspiratorial language for different audiences (a minister, a king, peer ambassadors)? What linguistic and procedural mechanisms allowed him to transform rumor into policy-moving intelligence? Analyzing correspondence with Robert Cecil, King James I, Edward La Zouche, and Sir Thomas Edmondes, we argue that Wotton developed a disciplined "grammar of suspicion" a replicable, teachable method adapted to addressee and context. This grammar was not idiosyncratic to Wotton; it was a technology of credibility that early modern diplomacy required. GCMA enables us to (1) quantify temporal shifts in evidentiary confidence across a corpus too large for human recall; (2) identify entity-level patterns (which individuals recur across conspiratorial vs. non-conspiratorial contexts); and (3) prevent interpretive drift through probabilistic aggregation. The result: conspiracy talk did not merely reflect Protestant-Jesuit antagonism it structured the terms of diplomatic engagement. We conclude that a replicable framework for analyzing conspiracy discourse across early modern diplomatic archives offers both a substantive contribution to Jesuit studies and a portable methodology for future scholars.
This introduction situates the "Jesuit Digital Reformation" special issue within the long arc of Jesuit engagement with technology, beginning with Roberto Busa, S.J., and his pioneering Index Thomisticus, the first major digital humanities project. It highlights how Busa's methodological insistence on comprehensive, computationally enhanced philology continues to inform current debates about data quality, responsible AI use, and the role of the human in digital humanities research. The issue's contributions showcase cutting-edge applications of digital methods to Jesuit sources, from AI-assisted archival reconstruction to network analysis and fine-tuned language models for historical interpretation. Together, they demonstrate that rigorous humanistic inquiry and computational tools are complementary and, rather than making humanities scholars and their hard-won skills redundant, provide new ways to analyze Jesuit history at scale while honoring its deep scholarly traditions.
Can history be written without a close reading of documents, relying instead on regression analysis and predictions generated by artificial intelligence? While traditional historiography remains grounded in archival evidence, recent advancements in AI challenge us to explore new forms of historical inquiry, especially in contexts where documentation is fragmentary, lost, or inaccessible. Drawing on the digital infrastructure of the Portal to Jesuit Studies, the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies (Boston College) is developing a system of interconnected repositories populated with human-validated data. This ecosystem constitutes a validated corpus upon which data-centric AI models can be trained and subsequently deployed for regression analysis and predictive or reasoning modeling. A key application of this approach lies in archival reconstruction predicting the existence of missing documents and unpreserved fonds or assisting archivists in reorganizing documents. This article presents the architecture of the evolving database system and initial AI experiments on the Portal's materials. By embedding AI within transparent, traceable, and critically governed systems, the project seeks to open space for methodological innovation while maintaining the epistemological rigor that defines historical scholarship.
AI programs based on Large Language Models (LLMs) can identify patterns in premodern documents. LLMs can therefore boost historians' marginal productivity and generate new research avenues, without autonomously replicating historians' humanistic work. This article explores human-AI collaboration in Jesuit Studies. It focuses on the earliest baptismal register from one of the first Jesuit-sponsored missions, the Roman House of Catechumens (founded 1543). This precious source identifies the individuals whom the first Jesuits proselytized and catechized. The register frequently provides datapoints for converts' age, geographical origin, and original religion. Unfortunately, individual baptismal entries commonly lack crucial information due to inconsistent scribal practice. Later, more complete baptismal registers exist that may serve as training data for an AI tool designed to estimate likely values for the early register's missing data points. This article explores the potential of such a tool to contribute to the study of early Jesuit history.
The compass is now widely acknowledged as one of China's four great inventions, alongside paper, printing, and gunpowder. Simon Winchester emphasized this in his 2008 biography of Joseph Needham, titled Bomb, Book and Compass:Joseph Needham and the Great Secrets of China. However, it was actually seventeenth-century Jesuit missionaries who first credited China with inventing the compass. This paper examines how the Jesuits constructed this historical narrative and reveals their complex attitudes toward this attribution. The Jesuits held a nuanced view: while they recognized the compass as evidence of China's historical excellence in science and technology, they also maintained that Western modern science had ultimately surpassed Chinese achievements. In their assessment, China's most significant contribution to civilization was not technological but philosophical specifically the influence of Confucian thought on Chinese culture and society. The Jesuits argued that Confucian philosophy contained universal wisdom valuable even to Western societies.
