Cortesía entre fronteras. los jesuitas expulsos y el debate sobre la civilidad en el siglo XVIII: Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro y Francisco Aznar

This essay focuses on the contribution of jesuits in exile in the eighteenth century to the debate on the universal nature or cultural specificity of politeness. It does so by analizing two works by Lorenzo Hervas y Panduro and Francisco Aznar (Historia de la vida del Hombre and Instruccion civil y cristiana), both of them Spanish versions of Italian originals. My contention is that the individual and collective experience of the members of the Society of Jesus, as missionaries and as exiles in Italy after being expelled from the Hispanic monarchy, stimulated interesting reflections on the universal dimensions of politeness, on its cultural variations and, ultimately, on the superiority of European manners.