Abstract
The article investigates the political and religious meaning of libertine discourses in the Luso-Brazilian world at the end of the eighteenth century. In order to do so, it seeks to problematize the relationship between Libertinism and the Enlightenment that has been accepted in the liberal historiographical tradition, proposing new approaches and perspectives of analysis centered on the process of emergence of a new religious culture in Portuguese territories and on the tensions resulting from this process. As a case study, we analyze some discussions that took place in Rio de Janeiro in the 1790s, which gave rise to inquisitorial processes and investigations carried out by the royal authorities. These discussions demonstrate that the libertine discourses enunciated in the Luso-Brazilian world led to a scenario of political and doctrinal effervescence permeated not only by the diffusion of radical Enlightenment ideas or the occurrence of revolutionary political events such as the French Revolution (1789); but also by internal disputes over royal power, the insertion of positive theology, and the valuation of a particular model of rational philosophy.
Keywords
Libertinism; Enlightenment; Catholicism