Colombo Emanuele

Emanuele Colombo is a professor at the Lynch School of Education and Research Scholar at the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies at Boston College. Born and raised in Italy, he studied Classical Literature at the University of Milan and obtained his PhD in History of Christianity from the Universities of Milan and Padua, with a thesis dedicated to the reception of St. Augustine in the 18th century.
His education and research activities took him to France (École des Hautes Études Pratiques) and the United States (University of Notre Dame, Boston College). In 2009, he began his academic career in the United States, spending fourteen years at DePaul University in Chicago, where he taught Catholic Studies and History.
An internationally renowned scholar, Colombo specialises in early modern religious history, with a particular focus on the Society of Jesus: theology and politics, global missions, relations between Christians and Muslims, and the history of the Jesuits between suppression and restoration. He has published or edited twelve books and over seventy articles in various languages, and is Executive Editor of the Journal of Jesuit Studies (Brill). He is a member of the Accademia Ambrosiana in Milan.
At the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies, he directs the Digital Indipetae Database, a digital humanities project that coordinates international scholars and involves hundreds of high school and university students around the world.
Since November 2025, he has been vice-president of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation.

Recent appointments include:
– Affiliated Scholar, Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies (2018)
– Visiting Professor, University of Macerata (2020), University of Padua (2021)
– Invited Professor, Master’s Degree in Philosophy, Theology, and Religions, University of Lucerne (2022-2023)
– Provost Fellow, Boston College (2023-2024)

Recent appointments include:
– Affiliated Scholar, Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies (2018)
– Visiting Professor, University of Macerata (2020), University of Padua (2021)
– Invited Professor, Master’s Degree in Philosophy, Theology, and Religions, University of Lucerne (2022-2023)
– Provost Fellow, Boston College (2023-2024)
Recent publications (selection)
Quando Dio Chiama. I gesuiti e le missioni nelle Indie (1560-1960) (Il Mulino, 2023)
Religious Orders, Public Health, and Epidemics, from the Black Death to Covid-19, edited by M. Brejon de Lavergnée and E. Colombo (Aschendorff, 2024)
The First Italian Indipetae. Jesuit Petitions for the Indies, edited by E. Colombo, I. Gaddo and G. Mongini (Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2024)
‘A Society of Martyrs: Rodolfo Acquaviva (1550-1583) Between Mission and Sainthood’, in Imaging Jesuit Sanctity (2024)
“The Society of the World: Antonio Possevino and Jesuit Debates Over Purity of Blood”, in Jesuits and Race (2022)
‘The Invention of Probabilism,’ in Innovation in Early Modern Catholicism (2021)
‘Jesuits and Islam in Early Modern Europe,’ in The Oxford Handbook of the Jesuits (2018)
‘From Paper to Screen: The Digital Indipetae Database,’ Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu 89 (2020)