Os clérigos e os livros nas Minas Gerais da segunda metade do século XVIII

Abstract

This article focuses attention on the clerical libraries in Minas Gerais in the second half of the eighteenth century, analyzing their composition and the probably influences that they had upon their owners. Firstly, it identifies the headlines and authors that the Catolic Church used to difuse among the cleric men and the position they occupied as owners of the books. After that, it presents a quantitative analyzis of some information from the books (authors’ names, titles, languages in which the books were written, matters and prices), identifying regularities and singularities and relating them to the personal biography of their owners and to the clerical state. Finally, it is shown how these libraries unfluenced their owner’s sexual and political behaviors.