Just as individuals, human beings, have been persecuted for their politics, their beliefs, their allegiances, and their identities, so too have thoughts themselves, books, ideas, movements, and cultural institutions and their products been in the line of fire, condemned, censored, hunted and suppressed. Why and how is it that certain ideas hold such cultural currency and political potency that they clash, often violently, with a system, a state that will not tolerate their dissemination? When do ideas, philosophies, become the target of extreme control?

Following a long trajectory that spans from 529, when Justinian closed the doors to the School of Athens (so wonderfully portrayed later by Raphael in the famous Vatican painting) to the modern era of the world wide web, this essay examines some of the most significant trigger moments in the history of freedom of thought.

Roberto Limonta and Rolando Longobardi, both teachers and scholars, graduated from and are affiliated with the University of Bologna. Their interests include the history of ideas, aesthetics and the philosophy of religion.