Exeter College Fellow Professor Giuseppe Marcocci publishes new book on the Portuguese Inquisition

Official Fellow and Lecturer in History at Exeter College, Professor Giuseppe Marcocci, has co-authored a new book, The Inquisition in Portugal and Its Empire, 1536–1821, with Professor José Pedro Paiva of the University of Coimbra.  

The book explores the history of the Portuguese Inquisition, from its establishment in Évora in 1536 to its dissolution in 1821. Operating across Portugal and its overseas empire, from Africa and Brazil to South and East Asia, the Inquisition was a religious court that investigated and prosecuted thousands of people for their beliefs and behaviour. 

Drawing on extensive archival research, the book provides the first comprehensive account of the Inquisition’s institutional and judicial history, examining periods of crisis and intense religious persecution. It also brings attention to the experiences of those targeted by the tribunals, including New Christians, Protestants, and people accused of sorcery and witchcraft, as well as others who challenged religious teachings or the established social order. 

Professor Marcocci is Professor of Early Modern Global History at the University of Oxford and has been a Fellow at Exeter College since 2017. His research focuses on the history of the Portuguese and Spanish empires, particularly their political, religious and cultural interactions across the early modern world. His previous publications include The Globe on Paper: Writing Histories of the World in Renaissance Europe and the Americas (2020), which won the Federico Chabod Prize in 2021. 

The Inquisition in Portugal and Its Empire, 1536–1821 is available electronically from Brill, with the hardback edition available to order from Blackwell’s, Amazon and other major booksellers.