# Paul IV’s 1559 Index lists Ovidian erotic works among prohibited books

Date: 1559

## The fact

In 1559 the Pauline Index Librorum Prohibitorum listed Ovidian erotic titles among books not to be held. Expurgated Metamorphoses often survived in schools; Ars did not travel as freely.

## Context

Bans can be moral protection and can be knowledge destruction. School expurgation is a later related Fact.

Ovid is not the sole author of every later object, law, or museum label that uses the name. Shared work with courts, excavators, printers, spouses, officials, and later states does not erase a documented role, and it does not make an ancient person the signer of a twentieth-century statute.

## Evidence and sources

A historical printed Index on Internet Archive and British Library rare-book practice independently document the listing culture.

Official or archival record: Index Librorum Prohibitorum — historical printed index (https://archive.org/details/indexlibrorumpro00cath; Internet Archive / historical printed book).

## Significance

Speech-control path. High confidence on Index practice, medium on any one diocese’s enforcement.

An Index line is not an Augustan edict. Do not back-date Paul IV to the Palatine.

## What is established and what is not

Established: 1559 Index culture prohibited Ovidian erotica. Not established: that every copy in Europe was burned that year.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.
Later competitions, monuments, translations, UNESCO listings, and museums are not converted into extra lifetime acts. The attached driver is [democratic-resilience](/drivers/democratic-resilience). The welfare reading used in this dossier is worsening. That reading is an impact-path choice, not a property stored on the Fact itself. Confidence is stated on the impact path. A later English edition is not a recovered autograph. If a number is not in the two records named above, it is not supplied here. Later competitions, monuments, translations, UNESCO listings, and museums are not converted into extra lifetime acts. The attached driver is democratic-resilience. The welfare reading used in this dossier is worsening. That reading is an impact-path choice, not a property stored on the Fact itself. Confidence is stated on the impact path. A later English edition is not a recovered autograph. If a number is not in the two records named above, it is not supplied here.

## People

- Ovid: https://factrail.ai/people/ovid

## Drivers

- Democratic Resilience: https://factrail.ai/drivers/democratic-resilience

## Sources

- https://archive.org/details/indexlibrorumpro00cath
- https://www.bl.uk/

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/ov-index-1559