The course aims to provide students with the opportunity to understand the mechanisms that fuelled religious conflict in the early modern global world. In particular, it will focus on the religious clashes that spread throughout early modern Europe and on the conflicts involving the three major monotheistic religions, beginning with the expulsion of Muslims and Jews from Catholic Spain at the end of the fifteenth century.

At the same time, the course seeks to develop students' understanding of the historical factors that marked the transition from a culture of conflict to attempts at peaceful coexistence based on the principle of religious tolerance.