Teatino: el perfil de un vocablo desgastado entre la apología y el sarcasmo

Abstract

The author analyzes the term «Theatine,» which originally referred to Cajetan’s Order of Monks in 16th-century Italy, co-founded by Cardinal Pietro Caraffa, bishop of Theati, to advance the Counter Reformation. Confusion concerning the term and the pejorative meaning it soon acquired evince to us the overuse of it, the diverse intentionality with which it was employed and the harm done thereby to the monks themselves, who eventually had to adopt a different name for their image to clear up. So it went among the elite, to judge from their epistolary correspondence and the literature; among commoners, from wise sayings and proverbs.