In the 6 CFU Module the following topics will be dealt with particular attention:
Periodization of the Modern Age; The historical sources and the critique of the sources; the main historiographic currents of the 20th century; geographical discoveries and the formation of colonial empires, in particular Spanish and Portuguese; European cities and countryside; classes, orders, classes: nobility, clergy and bourgeoisie; family and marriage; historical sources and demography; The Protestant Reformation, the Council of Trent and the Catholic Counter-Reformation; the religious dimension: popular religiosity, witchcraft in Europe; The formation of modern states: France and absolutism; England in the 17th century and the two revolutions; the Ottoman Empire and Europe; the Thirty Years' War and the Peace of Westphalia; the crisis of the 17th century in Europe; the European and world economy; the scientific revolution; the industrial revolution; the empires of Asia: India, China and their relations with Europe; European society in the eighteenth century: Enlightenment, Enlightened Absolutism, reforms and revolutions; The American Revolution; The French Revolution and the end of the ancient regime; The Napoleonic Age and the Restoration; Napoleonic Italy; The revolutions of 1848, the economic and political affirmation of the bourgeoisie; the constitutions.

The in-depth 3 CFU Module will deal in detail with topics related to the Counter-Reformation period: Counter-Reformation or Catholic Reformation?; Council of Trent; Regular Orders; Inquisition; Holiness; Papacy and ecclesiastical institutions; Articulation of confessionally divided Europe; Missionary activity; Global dimension of Catholicism.