Abstract

This article argues that, contrary to Marc Fumaroli’s claim in his classic work on sixteenth-century eloquence (1980), there does not exist in Spain such a thing as a group called “Borrhomaic Rhetorics”. Judging from Fumaroli’s words, one might believe that Cardinal Charles Borromeo planned to produce a series of rhetorics in support of his ideas concerning the necessity of educating skillful preachers ready to spread the ideology of the Counter-Reformation all over Catholic Europe. However, the existence of such a plan cannot be ascertained from the available sources, nor can any clear results of it be established. Therefore, we should no longer talk about such a group.